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Great Siege Of Malta
The Great Siege of Malta ( Maltese: ''L-Assedju l-Kbir'') occurred in 1565 when the Ottoman Empire attempted to conquer the island of Malta, then held by the Knights Hospitaller. The siege lasted nearly four months, from 18 May to 13 September 1565. The Knights Hospitaller had been headquartered in Malta since 1530, after being driven out of Rhodes, also by the Ottomans, in 1522, following the siege of Rhodes. The Ottomans first attempted to take Malta in 1551 but failed. In 1565, Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Sultan, made a second attempt to take Malta. The Knights, who numbered around 500 together with approximately 6,000 footsoldiers, withstood the siege and repelled the invaders. This victory became one of the most celebrated events of sixteenth-century Europe, to the point that Voltaire said: "Nothing is better known than the siege of Malta." It undoubtedly contributed to the eventual erosion of the European perception of Ottoman invincibility, although the Medite ...
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Ottoman–Habsburg Wars
The Ottoman–Habsburg wars were fought from the 16th through the 18th centuries between the Ottoman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy, which was at times supported by the Kingdom of Hungary, Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, and Habsburg Spain. The wars were dominated by land campaigns in Hungary, including Transylvania (today in Romania) and Vojvodina (today in Serbia), Croatia, and central Serbia. By the 16th century, the Ottomans had become a serious threat to the European powers, with Ottoman ships sweeping away Venetian possessions in the Aegean and Ionian seas and Ottoman-supported Barbary pirates seizing Spanish possessions in the Maghreb. The Protestant Reformation, French–Habsburg rivalry and the numerous civil conflicts of the Holy Roman Empire distracted the Christians from their conflict with the Ottomans. Meanwhile, the Ottomans had to contend with the Persian Safavid Empire and to a lesser extent the Mamluk Sultanate, which was defeated and fully incorpor ...
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Piali Pasha
Piali Pasha, ( tr, Piyale Paşa; hu, Piali pasa) (c. 1515–1578) was an Ottoman Grand Admiral (Kapudan Pasha) between 1553 and 1567, and a Vizier (minister) after 1568. He is also known as Piale Pasha in English. Early life His exact place of birth is unknown, though he was probably born in Hungary. He was of Hungarian or Croatian origin. It is said that Piali was the son of a shoemaker from Tolna, a Hungarian shoemaker according to Hidden, who speaks of the son of a "Hungarian shoemaker" as early as 1912, or of a Croatian according to a 2007 entry in the TDV Islam Encyclopedia. He would become a soldier and be captured by the Ottomans in the Hungarian battlefields (in the 1526 Battle of Mohács).
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Voltaire
François-Marie Arouet (; 21 November 169430 May 1778) was a French Age of Enlightenment, Enlightenment writer, historian, and philosopher. Known by his ''Pen name, nom de plume'' M. de Voltaire (; also ; ), he was famous for his wit, and his criticism of Christianity—especially Criticism of the Catholic Church, of the Roman Catholic Church—and of slavery. Voltaire was an advocate of freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and separation of church and state. Voltaire was a versatile and prolific writer, producing works in almost every literary form, including stageplay, plays, poems, novels, essays, histories, and scientific Exposition (narrative), expositions. He wrote more than 20,000 letters and 2,000 books and pamphlets. Voltaire was one of the first authors to become renowned and commercially successful internationally. He was an outspoken advocate of civil liberties and was at constant risk from the strict censorship laws of the Catholic French monarchy. His polemics ...
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Suleiman The Magnificent
Suleiman I ( ota, سليمان اول, Süleyman-ı Evvel; tr, I. Süleyman; 6 November 14946 September 1566), commonly known as Suleiman the Magnificent in the West and Suleiman the Lawgiver ( ota, قانونى سلطان سليمان, Ḳānūnī Sulṭān Süleymān) in his realm, was the tenth and longest-reigning Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from 1520 until his death in 1566. Under his administration, the Ottoman Empire ruled over at least 25 million people. Suleiman succeeded his father, Selim I, as sultan on 30 September 1520 and began his reign with campaigns against the Christian powers in central Europe and the Mediterranean. Belgrade fell to him in 1521 and the island of Rhodes in 1522–23. At Mohács, in August 1526, Suleiman broke the military strength of Hungary. Suleiman became a prominent monarch of 16th-century Europe, presiding over the apex of the Ottoman Empire's economic, military and political power. Suleiman personally led Ottoman armies in ...
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Siege Of Rhodes (1522)
The siege of Rhodes of 1522 was the second and ultimately successful attempt by the Ottoman Empire to expel the Knights of Rhodes from their island stronghold and thereby secure Ottoman control of the Eastern Mediterranean. The first siege in 1480 had been unsuccessful. Despite very strong defenses, the walls were demolished over the course of six months by Turkish artillery and mines. Setting The Knights of St. John, or Knights Hospitallers, had captured Rhodes in the early 14th century after the loss in 1291 of Acre, the last Crusader stronghold in Palestine. From Rhodes, they became an active part of the trade in the Aegean sea, and at times harassed Turkish shipping in the Levant to secure control over the eastern Mediterranean. A first effort by the Ottomans to capture the island was repulsed by the Order in 1480, but the continuing presence of the knights just off the southern coast of Anatolia was a major obstacle to Ottoman expansion. An earthquake shook the island ...
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Rhodes
Rhodes (; el, Ρόδος , translit=Ródos ) is the largest and the historical capital of the Dodecanese islands of Greece. Administratively, the island forms a separate municipality within the Rhodes regional unit, which is part of the South Aegean administrative region. The principal town of the island and seat of the municipality is Rhodes. The city of Rhodes had 50,636 inhabitants in 2011. In 2022 the island has population of 124,851 people. It is located northeast of Crete, southeast of Athens. Rhodes has several nicknames, such as "Island of the Sun" due to its patron sun god Helios, "The Pearl Island", and "The Island of the Knights", named after the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem, who ruled the island from 1310 to 1522. Historically, Rhodes was famous for the Colossus of Rhodes, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The Medieval Old Town of the City of Rhodes has been declared a World Heritage Site. Today, it is one of the most popular tourist destina ...
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Malta
Malta ( , , ), officially the Republic of Malta ( mt, Repubblika ta' Malta ), is an island country in the Mediterranean Sea. It consists of an archipelago, between Italy and Libya, and is often considered a part of Southern Europe. It lies south of Sicily (Italy), east of Tunisia, and north of Libya. The official languages are Maltese and English, and 66% of the current Maltese population is at least conversational in the Italian language. Malta has been inhabited since approximately 5900 BC. Its location in the centre of the Mediterranean has historically given it great strategic importance as a naval base, with a succession of powers having contested and ruled the islands, including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians, Romans, Greeks, Arabs, Normans, Aragonese, Knights of St. John, French, and British, amongst others. With a population of about 516,000 over an area of , Malta is the world's tenth-smallest country in area and fourth most densely populated sovereign cou ...
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Maltese Language
Maltese ( mt, Malti, links=no, also ''L-Ilsien Malti'' or ''''), is a Semitic language derived from late medieval Sicilian Arabic with Romance superstrata spoken by the Maltese people. It is the national language of Malta and the only official Semitic and Afro-Asiatic language of the European Union. Maltese is a latinised variety of spoken historical Arabic through its descent from Siculo-Arabic, which developed as a Maghrebi Arabic dialect in the Emirate of Sicily between 831 and 1091. As a result of the Norman invasion of Malta and the subsequent re-Christianisation of the islands, Maltese evolved independently of Classical Arabic in a gradual process of latinisation. It is therefore exceptional as a variety of historical Arabic that has no diglossic relationship with Classical or Modern Standard Arabic. Maltese is thus classified separately from the 30 varieties constituting the modern Arabic macrolanguage. Maltese is also distinguished from Arabic and other Semitic ...
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García Álvarez De Toledo Y Osorio
García Álvarez de Toledo y Osorio, 4th Marquess of Villafranca del Bierzo (29 August 1514 – 31 May 1577), was a Spanish general and politician. Biography He was born at Villafranca del Bierzo, the son of Pedro Álvarez de Toledo, Maquesss of Villafranca, Viceroy of Naples between 1532 and 1553. His mother was Juana Pimentel, Marchioness of Villafranca del Bierzo. The famous Duke of Alba, Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, was his first cousin. Among his many siblings was Eleonora of Toledo, wife of Cosimo I, Grand Duke of Tuscany. He started his military career under the command of Andrea Doria in the galleys of Naples, as commander of two ships. In 1535, already the commander of six galleys, he distinguished himself in the battles of La Goletta, Tunis, Algiers, Sfax, Calibria y Mebredia. After this he was named Capitain General of the Galleys of Naples. He was Capitain General of the expedition to Greece, and ''Capitán General del Mar'', a title he received in 1 ...
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Mathurin Romegas
Mathurin d’Aux de Lescout, called Mathurin Romegas (1525 or 1528 – November 1581 in Rome), was a scion of the aristocratic Gascony family of d'Aux and a member of the Knights of Saint John. He was one of the Order's greatest naval commanders and a Grand Master of Malta. Early life He was born to a French noble family with connections to the House of Armagnac. In 1542 he joined the Knights Hospitaller and became a full knight some four years later after completing his military and religious studies. He quickly made a name for himself as a good fighter with incredible stamina. Early career He became a knight of the Order in December 1546 and served most of his life commanding its galleys. He soon became the terror of Muslims on the waters and shores of the Mediterranean, continually raiding along the Barbary Coast, the Levant and the Aegean Sea and capturing numerous ships and slaves. At the request of the Pope he even waged a short, but vicious campaign against the Pro ...
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Jean De La Cassière
Fra' Jean l'Evesque de la Cassière (1502 – 21 December 1581) was the 51st Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 1572 to 1581. He commissioned the building of the Conventual Church of the Order (now Saint John's Co-Cathedral) in Valletta, Malta, and is buried in its crypt. La Cassière had earned acclaim for his bravery in the battle of Zoara in Northern Africa where he had saved the colours of the Order. He was Grand Prior of the Order's Langue of Auvergne when he was elected on 30 January 1572 to succeed Pierre de Monte as Grand Master. The early years of his reign as Grand Master were marked by numerous disputes and quarrels between the Order and Bishop of Malta Martín Royas de Portalrubio over the latter's ecclesiastical jurisdiction. These disputes were unprecedented in the history of the Order since it had arrived in Malta in 1530 with a grant of virtual sovereignty from Emperor Charles V. La Cassière was unable to resolve the matter, which was finally submit ...
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Jean Parisot De Valette
Fra' Jean "Parisot" de la Valette (4 February 1495 – 21 August 1568) was a French nobleman and 49th Grand Master of the Order of Malta, from 21 August 1557 to his death in 1568. As a Knight Hospitaller, joining the order in the ''Langue de Provence'', he fought with distinction against the Turks at Rhodes. As Grand Master, Valette became the Order's hero and most illustrious leader, commanding the resistance against the Ottomans at the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, sometimes regarded as one of the greatest sieges of all time. The foundation stone of Valletta was laid by Grandmaster La Valette in 1566. He did not live to see Valletta completed, as he died in 1568 and was succeeded by Grandmaster Pierre de Monte. Early life He was born into the noble La Valette family in Quercy, South-western France, which had been an important family in France for many generations, various members having participated in the Crusades. Jean Parisot's grandfather, Bernard de La Valette, was a ...
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