“The Ottoman Empire was an empire founded in 1299 by Oghuz

Turks under Osman I in northwestern Anatolia. With conquests in the Balkans by
Murad I between 1362 and 1389, the Ottoman sultanate was transformed into a
transcontinental empire and claimant to the caliphate. The Ottomans overthrew
the Byzantine Empire with the 1453 conquest of Constantinople (present-day
Istanbul) by Mehmed the Conqueror.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, in particular at the height of its power
under the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire was a powerful
multinational, multilingual empire controlling much of Southeast Europe,
Western Asia, the Caucasus, North Africa, and the Horn of Africa. At the
beginning of the 17th century the empire contained 32 provinces and numerous
vassal states. Some of these were later absorbed into the Ottoman Empire, while
others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of
centuries”.