Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire, also historically referred to as the Turkish Empire or Turkey, was an empire founded by Oghuz Turks under Osman Bey in north-western Anatolia in 1299. With the conquest of Constantinople by Mehmed II in 1453, the Ottoman state was transformed into an empire.

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 empire, while others were granted various types of autonomy during the course of centuries.

Roman Empire

The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilisation, characterised by an autocratic form of government, headed by an Emperor, and large territorial holdings around the Mediterranean Sea in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia Minor. The 500 year old republic which preceded it had been severely destabilised through a series of civil wars and political infighting in the Senate. Several events marked the transition of power from the Roman Senate to an autocratic Emperor. Julius Caesar's appointment as perpetual dictator in 44 BC after his victory over Pompey resulted in his assassination, triggering a power vacuum that led to a succession of conflicts between supporters of Caesar and the Senate. Octavian, Caesar's adopted son, defeated Mark Antony and Cleopatra at the Battle of Actium in 31 BC after inheriting Caesar's estates. Following Antony and Cleopatra's suicides and the annexation of the Ptolemaic Empire in 30 BC, the Roman Senate granted the honorific title Augustus to Octavian three years later in 27 BC, effectively bringing about the end of the Roman Republic.

Mongol Empire

The Mongol Empire, which existed during the 13th and 14th centuries, was the largest contiguous land empire in history. Beginning in the Central Asian steppes, it eventually stretched from Central Europe to the Sea of Japan, extending northwards into Siberia, eastwards and southwards into the Indian subcontinent, Indochina, and the Iranian plateau, and westwards as far as the Levant and Arabia.

The empire unified Mongol and Turkic tribes of historical Mongolia under the leadership of Genghis Khan, who was proclaimed ruler of all Mongols in 1206. The empire grew rapidly under his rule and then under his descendants, who sent invasions in every direction. The vast transcontinental empire connected the east with the west with an enforced Pax Mongolica allowing trade, technologies, commodities, and ideologies to be disseminated and exchanged across Eurasia.