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The Byzantine Empire was founded by Constantine the Great when he moved the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to his new city of Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), which was inaugurated in 330 CE. This new Christian capital, which became the centre of the Eastern Orthodox Church, welcomed people of all races, as long as they could speak Greek and were prepared to accept the Orthodox religion. The wealthiest, most sophisticated, and cultured city in the world for most of its existence, with perhaps a million inhabitants in its heyday, Constantinople was finally to fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453. |
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