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When Constantinople was captured, it was almost deserted. Mehmed II began
to repeople it by transferring to it populations from other conquered areas
such as the Peloponnese, Salonika (modern Thessaloníki), and the
Greek islands. By about 1480 the population rose to between 60,000 and
70,000. Hagia Sophia and other Byzantine churches were transformed into
mosques. The Greek patriarchate was retained, but moved to the Church of
the Pammakaristos Virgin (Mosque of Fethiye), later to find a permanent
home in the Fener (Phanar) quarter. The sultan built the Old Seraglio (Eski
Saray), now destroyed, on the site occupied at present by the university,
and a little later the Topkapi Palace(Seraglio), which is still in
existence; he also built the Eyüp Mosque at the head of the Golden
Horn and the Mosque of the Fatih on the site of the Basilica of the
Holy Apostles. The capital of the Ottoman Empire was transferred to Constantinople
from Adrianople (Edirne) in 1457. After Mehmed II, Istanbul underwent
a long period of peaceful growth, interrupted only by natural disasters--earthquakes,
fires, and pestilences. The sultans and their ministers devoted themselves
to the building of fountains, mosques, palaces, and charitable foundations
so that the aspect of the city was soon completely transformed. The most
brilliant period of Turkish construction coincides with the reign of the
Ottoman ruler Süleyman the Magnificent (1520-66). The next major
change in the history of Istanbul occurred at the beginning of the 19th
century, when dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire was approaching. This
period was known as the era of internal reforms (Tanzimat). The reforms
were accompanied by serious disturbances, such as the massacre of the Janissaries
in the Hippodrome (1826). With the triumph of the progressive Ottoman sultan
Mahmud II over the conservative opposition, the westernization of Istanbul
started apace. There was an ever-growing influx of European visitors who,
since the 1830s, could reach Istanbul by steamship. The first bridge across
the Golden Horn was built in 1838. In 1839 the Ottoman sultan Abdülmecid
I issued a charter guaranteeing to all his subjects, whatever their religion,
the security of their lives and fortunes. The process of westernization
was further accelerated by the Crimean War (1853-56) and the quartering
of British and French troops in Istanbul. The latter part of the 19th and
the beginning of the 20th centuries were marked by the introduction of
various public services: the European railroad extending to Istanbul was
begun in the early 1870s. The underground tunnel joining Galata to Pera
was completed in 1873; a regular water supply for Istanbul and the settlements
on the European side of the Bosporus was brought from Lake Terkos on the
Black Sea coast (29 miles from the city) by the French company, La Compagnie
des Eaux, after 1885; electric lighting was introduced in 1912 and electric
street cars and telephones in 1913 and 1914. An adequate sewage system
had to wait until 1925 and later.
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