History
East Thrace was the setting for several important historical events.
- The Greek myth of Hero and Leander takes place in the ancient city of Sestus.
- Aeneas founded the city of Aenus while trying to find new lands during his mythological conquests.
- After the death of Alexander the Great, in the period called the Diadochi, Alexander's general Lysimachus (360-281 BC) became king of Thrace and established his capital in Lysimachia.
- Çimpe Castle was the first European territory held by the Ottoman Empire.
- Edirne was the second capital of the Ottoman Empire after Bursa.
- The Gallipoli Campaign, one of the most important of the First World War, was fought near the city of Gelibolu.
-
Hero and Leander
-
Coin of Lysimachus
-
Selimiye Mosque, Edirne
-
Beach Hellas, in the Gallipoli Campaign
Prior to the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, the distribution of nationalities in the local Sanjacks was as follows:
| Ottoman Official Statistics, 1910 | |||||||
| Sanjack | Turks | Greeks | Bulgarians | Others | Total | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Edirne | 128,000 | 113,500 | 31,500 | 14,700 | 287,700 | ||
| Kirk Kilisse | 53,000 | 77,000 | 28,500 | 1,150 | 159,650 | ||
| Tekirdağ | 63,500 | 56,000 | 3,000 | 21,800 | 144,300 | ||
| Gallipoli | 31,500 | 70,500 | 2,000 | 3,200 | 107,200 | ||
| Çatalca | 18,000 | 48,500 | 2,340 | 68,840 | |||
| Istanbul | 450,000 | 260,000 | 6,000 | 130,000 | 846,000 | ||
| Total % |
744,000 46,11% |
625,500 38,76% |
71,000 4,40% |
173,190 10,74% |
1,613,690 | ||
| Ecumenical Patriarchate Statistics, 1912 | |||||||
| Total % |
604,500 36,20% |
655,600 39,27% |
71,800 4,30% |
337,600 20,22% |
1,669,500 | ||
Read more about this topic: East Thrace
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“In all history no class has been enfranchised without some selfish motive underlying. If to-day we could prove to Republicans or Democrats that every woman would vote for their party, we should be enfranchised.”
—Carrie Chapman Catt (1859–1947)
“Properly speaking, history is nothing but the crimes and misfortunes of the human race.”
—Pierre Bayle (1647–1706)
“In history the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a savage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening sense of beauty;—and you have Pericles and Phidias,—and not yet passed over into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and in the world is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still flow plentifully from nature, but their astrigency or acridity is got out by ethics and humanity.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)