"Can’t go back to Constantanople"
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2013/06/20/cant-go-back-to-constantanople/
Archived from 2013
"Last night Rich called and during the conversation he mentioned the Turks are trying to resolve differences of opinion he doesn’t know what are. Evidently their methods of persuading one another have drawn some attention.
I swan. Those Turks are always full of surprises. One day they’re running around everyone wearing a fez, next day wearing a fez is a criminal offense. They sit off there during WWI looking as though they’re just some little country getting in the way of progress, end up whipping the socks off the entire British Empire.
Everything went so bad the history writers for WWI barely allowed Turkey into the history books because of them not getting the socks whipped off them the way they were supposed to.
So, what then? City goes along being Constantanople 15 centuries or so, centerpoint for crusaders, Byzantine Empire, home of Janisaries [some of the more dedicated empire builders in human history] and the Cold War comes along, suddenly they’re Istanbul and more-or-less European. "
Best just leave the whole matter alone. As the Four Lads observed in 1953, it’s nobody’s business but the Turks."
"A twist there a turn there and we'd all be bowing to Mecca"
>>24872516 lb
So was Constantinople
Hagia Sophia was originally a Church.
Won by conquest