Byzantium

Byzantium (bih-ZAN-tee-uhm; Greek: Βυζάντιον, Byzántion; Latin: ) was an ancient Greek city, founded by Greek colonists from Megara in 657 BC and named after their king Byzas (Greek: Βύζας, Býzas, genitive Βύζαντος, Býzantos). The name Byzantium is a Latinization of the original name Byzantion. The city was later renamed Nova Roma by Constantine the Great, but popularly called Constantinople and briefly became the imperial residence of the classical Roman Empire. Then subsequently the city was, for more than a thousand years, the capital of the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking Roman Empire of late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Constantinople was captured by the Ottoman Turks, becoming the capital of their empire, in 1453. The name of the city was officially changed to Istanbul in 1930 following the establishment of modern Turkey.