*Ø* Blogmanac | May 29 | 1453 Did a Pacific volcano change Western history?

500 years ago today: The 'fall' of Constantinople was preceded by heavenly wonders
On a Tuesday, Constantinople (now Istanbul) fell to the Turks, or, as it is said in the Muslim world, Constantinople was liberated. It was a major turning point in world history as Constantinople, founded by the Roman Emperor Constantine, was a seat of learning and the tangible presence of Western civilization in the East. It has been said that the flight of many scholarly refugees from Constantinople to Italy was the single most important mainspring of the European Renaissance. Yet the antagonists of the siege of Constantinople had the minds of the Middle Ages era, and the effect of ‘ominous’ heavenly wonders probably affected the outcome.



During the preceding weeks, the city had suffered many heavy rains and hailstorms. Being medieval men, the leaders believed that the Christian city would not fall to Sultan Mehmed’s siege unless there was a sign in the moon. Unfortunately for them, the moon went into a long and dark eclipse on May 22nd, displaying a thin crescent – the image of the Turkish standard flying over Mehmed's camp.

On the 26th, an unseasonal, thick fog fell on Constantinople. By nightfall, the fog lifted and the Christians were appalled by what they saw: the buildings of the city glowed in ominous shades of red. Even the enormous copper dome of the imposing cathedral, the Hagia Sophia (which has been a mosque ever since) appeared to be engulfed in flames, but it never burned. Phrantzes, a friend of the emperor, wrote that the light remained over the city for an entire night.

Nicolo Barbaro, A Venetian surgeon living in Constantinople at the time, later wrote:

At the first hour of the night, there appeared a wonderful sign in the sky, which was to tell Constantine the worthy, emperor of Constantinople, that his proud empire was to come to an end.... The moon rose, being at this time at the full...but it rose as if it were no more than a three-day moon, with only a little of it showing.... The moon stayed in this form for about four hours.

Following this there were more wild storms that certainly must have encouraged the Muslims to liberate a city that they believed belonged to them, and discouraged the Christians who believed the same with equal fervour.

The Greek chronicler, Kritovoulos of Imbros, wrote:

Such was the unheard-of and unprecedented violence of that storm and hail [that it] certainly foreshadowed the imminent loss of all, and .. .like a torrent of fiercest waters, it would carry away and annihilate everything.

Some scientists now believe that the strange heavenly phenomena came about due to the eruption of a volcano at Kuwae, Vanuata, in the Pacific earlier in the year. The volcanic dust that belched into the atmosphere contributed to the stormy weather, the unusually dark eclipse, the luminescent phenomena and the red skies.

Geologists reckon that Kuwae spewed out more than 32 cubic kilometres of molten rock with a violence two million times that of the atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. By contrast, the famous Krakatoa expelled less than one-third of that in 1883; Mount Pinatubo belched out only five cubic kilometres in 1991 and caused brilliant sunsets around the globe for months.

Pip Wilson's articles are available for your publication, on application. Further details