<P> The Byzantine Empire was the Greek - speaking , Eastern Roman Empire during the Middle Ages , centered at its capital in Constantinople . During most of its history it controlled provinces in the Balkans and Asia Minor . The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian for a time retook and restored much of the territory once held by the unified Roman Empire , from Spain and Italy , to Anatolia . Unlike the Western Roman Empire , which met a famous if rather ill - defined death in the year 476 AD , the Eastern Roman Empire came to a much less famous but far more definitive conclusion at the hands of Mehmet II and the Ottoman Empire in the year 1453 . Its expert military and diplomatic power ensured inadvertently that Western Europe remained safe from many of the more devastating invasions from eastern peoples , at a time when the still new and fragile Western Christian kingdoms might have had difficulty containing it . </P>
<P> The Byzantine Empire was the Greek - speaking , Eastern Roman Empire during the Middle Ages , centered at its capital in Constantinople . During most of its history it controlled provinces in the Balkans and Asia Minor . The Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian for a time retook and restored much of the territory once held by the unified Roman Empire , from Spain and Italy , to Anatolia . Unlike the Western Roman Empire , which met a famous if rather ill - defined death in the year 476 AD , the Eastern Roman Empire came to a much less famous but far more definitive conclusion at the hands of Mehmet II and the Ottoman Empire in the year 1453 . Its expert military and diplomatic power ensured inadvertently that Western Europe remained safe from many of the more devastating invasions from eastern peoples , at a time when the still new and fragile Western Christian kingdoms might have had difficulty containing it . </P>
when did the ottoman empire conquer the balkans
when did the ottoman empire conquer the balkans
1453
1453