Dan Snow's History Hit - Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities with Bettany Hughes

Episode Date: March 24, 2021

In this episode from the back catalogue, Dr Bettany Hughes joins Dan to talk about her history of Istanbul which sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia. Dr. Bettany Hughes is an award-winning historian, author, and broadcaster, who has devoted the last 25 years to the vibrant communication of the past. Her speciality is ancient and medieval history and culture. A Scholar at Oxford University she has taught at Oxford and Cambridge Universities and lectured at Cornell, Bristol, UCL, Maastricht, Utrecht and Manchester. She is a Tutor for Cambridge University’s Institute of Continuing Education and a Research Fellow of King's College London. Her new book is entitled Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities.

Hi everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History. It's another episode from the back catalogue, from the illustrious vaults of history hit. This one features one of the world's favourite historians, Bethany Hughes. You've seen her on TV, you've heard her on the podcast, on the radios, on the live streams. She's a legend, but what you might not know is that she's a totally brilliant writer, a brilliant historian. Her history of Istanbul sort of portrays a biography of that essential city that sits at the crossroads of Europe and Asia, the Mediterranean world, the Black Sea, you name it. It is such a good book. She came on the podcast a couple years ago

to talk all about it. Please enjoy this conversation with her, a pioneering public historian, brilliant author. And if you want to listen to other back episodes of this podcast they're only available only in one place and that's at historyhit.tv it's our subscription service like a digital history channel we got tv shows going up all there all the time we've got podcasts thousands of podcasts history hit and all the sibling podcasts up there it's just going great guns over there i can't tell you it's awesome so thank you to all of you guys for subscribing i mean i'm going on some serious adventures over the next few weeks because of you and not just me lots of other wonderful historians as well we've got a big series coming up all about the medieval world great stuff so head over there history hit.tv in the meantime everybody here is bethany Hughes. Enjoy.

Bethany Hughes, one of the world's greatest historians on one of the world's greatest cities, Istanbul. I mean, what an exciting project. How long has this been going on for? 10 years. So I first started to research it 10 years ago, but I first went to the city 30 years ago. And that's, I suppose, when the idea came into my mind. And is it the greatest city on earth? It's got to be one of them. I think it has to be the most important city on earth, arguably, because when I was writing the book, I thought, well, I'm not just writing a story of the city, I'm writing a story of the world. And then found out as I was writing it, I was writing a history of the world, which sort of backed up my instincts on it.

I think it's really interesting, Istanbul, because we always talk about it as the bridge between East and West. But it's as importantly a bridge between North and South, because if you think you've got Russia at the top of the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and that's how you get down to the southern continents and to Africa and to the Near East. So from its very beginning as a prehistoric settlement, it's been this pivotal place where people have come to express themselves, to establish themselves, to try to work out what it is to be human. And I think what's really critical about it is that

both physically and psychologically, it's always been this huge city. So it's actually physically controlled trade. It's started wars, it's ended wars, it's where refugees have flooded to over the last 2000 years. But psychologically as well, it's always been this place that's described as a diamond between two sapphires or the world's desire or in Arabic, it's called the threshold. So it's as much an idea as it is a place. Now you're saying that, of course, I'm thinking about Harold Hardrada coming down to those rivers from northern, so you're absolutely right. But was it even before Constantine and the Romans go and give it a big gold face to it? Was it a really important settlement way back?

Yeah, well, you see, this is really interesting. This is what I've tried to do with the research is that it felt to me like it was a kind of perfect time because there's lots of new stuff coming out. There's lots of new stuff coming out from the archives, actually for the later histories, because of course, the Ottomans controlled what were Soviet countries. So as soon as those were liberated, we found all these incredible archives of what was going on under Ottoman domination. But more than that, very helpfully for us, because there's been so much infrastructure work in the city, and there are now two tunnels underneath the Bosphorus. There's a whole new metro system. So the most incredible archaeology is coming up out of the earth as well.

So I've had the absolute privilege to go and stand in these sites. And it is, I mean, I get excited by anything, basically. I get incited by a belt buckle. But the material that's coming out of these digs, they're just incredible. So we have, for instance, the world's oldest wooden coffin, which is 8,000 years old, which has got this lovely young girl who's kind of curled up in it, beautiful coffin made of lattice wood that's just been kind of pretty miraculously preserved in the brosphorus mud and we've got

2,000 footprints of the neolithic inhabitants of the city so whereas exactly as you said there's always been this sort of you know kind of I was gonna say slightly lazy but it's sort of been this thing oh it was nothing it was just like a fishing village. And then nothing happened until Constantine came and made it the great Constantinople. That's just nonsense. Because if you look at it topographically, of course, it is the perfect place to live and to realise your ambitions. So you get these Stone Age inhabitants coming and setting up home there. So we have, as we said, their coffins, their footprints, the little oars that they used for the canoes to kind of come in and out of the settlement. So it's always been this

critically important place. I think what happened to it in its very early history, its early Greek history, it was almost too strategic for its own good. And so everybody basically wanted to have a part of it. And so it was invaded, it was besieged, you know, the Persians tried to get it. There's this fantastic Spartan called Pausanias, who's like the ultimate Greek hero, you know, people will have heard of him, you know, he did all the right things in a sort of good Greek Spartan way. And then he goes a bit mad when he takes over Byzantium, it just kind of goes to his head and he kind of falls in love with this place. And he becomes like a little mini tyrant. And we think he probably built the first walls of the city and he wants to make it this kind of utopia where he can live. So in a way, that's, I think, why it didn't have its own

empire early, because everybody was trying to make it their own. So it was just kind of shoved around like this kind of urbane hot potato between the powers of the day. And yet it's absorbed into Macedonian empires and the Roman Empire. And then it must have had a reputation because Constantine didn't just pick it out at random to make his second capital, did he? I mean, it must have been a very special place. It was. And I think it's started to become very special to the romans particularly in the late roman empire when they kind of realized the east really matters so the more they tangle with the east and obviously this is how you can control the east and how you can reach out to it so um the emperor septimius

severus builds this thing called the million and the million is basically the mother of all mile markers and it's still there in the city. It's really neglected. If you go right to the centre of Istanbul today, where the Hippodrome and the Hagia Sophia and just sort of quite close to the Blue Mosques. And it's this sort of denuded column that's been nibbled away and stray cats go and sort of shelter underneath it. And it's kind of got sweet wrappers around it but this was almost the heart of late the late roman world really because from the million all distances in the roman empire were measured so it was it's incredible you know it was like the kind of ground zero really and that's before constantine it's before constantine clearly it

was seen as the epicenter of the empire. It's fascinating. I know. Where East met West. I think that's exactly right. And I think, you know, the historians who've gone before us have just slightly done it a disservice because that's a bit muddling. We sort of don't want, you know, people have always kind of quite liked these historical lines in the sand. And so it doesn't quite fit that, that Rome is moving east that early. So exactly that.

It was really, really important to the Romans. It was connected by the Ignatian Way, which is the most beautiful Roman road that runs from modern day Albania, right to the heart of modern day Istanbul. It still exists in part, it's still called the Ignatian Way in some of those areas. In some places, it's very, very broken and you have to kind of find it, find the paving stones underneath shrubs and in woodland. And actually, just an aside, it's really interesting because the Romans do what they do brilliantly

is build the straightest, easiest route from one point to another. And so it basically takes you from east to west. And so lots of refugees now are using it. They don't know it. They're using it. They're walking along the old Roman road to come west. So it's got this new life now.

This is an odd question maybe, but if you wanted to go Rome, then you go to the eastern side of the Italian peninsula and then across and then on the Ignatian Way to Constantinople, how long would that journey take you? What are we talking? I can tell you exactly because I've walked it. Oh, you're such a hero. I know.

It is three days, basically. So three days from up the coast, are they? Three days. You don't have to really kind of, you know, hack it. It's quite a gentle bit of a walk, bit of a ride. I cheated. I got lifts in two Albanian carts. But yeah, three days.

We think of ourselves as very mobile nowadays. But actually, if you wanted to, you could be from Rome to Constantinople. If you were travelling, Imperial Messages, you'd be there really fast a matter of days a matter of days exactly and all perfectly measured in that roman way you know you've got your mile markers all the way along you've got lovely baths and sort of rest houses to kind of you know spruce you up a bit there's a little section of it actually that's just been excavated although it's not officially the the ignatian way because it's a little section of it actually that's just been excavated although it's not officially the the ignatian way because it's a little kind of it goes right through the center of town but if you go to thessaloniki in northern greece now and you go 30 feet down underneath

there basically their high street and you can see the old roman road is beautiful so very cool um white marble slabs and next to the road you've got the bits where the little kids were obviously waiting while their parents were shopping and they're really bored so they've scratched in kind of the equivalents of noughts and crosses and the paving stones and stuff so it's all it's anyway so basically it was important but we're very lucky because all this new material is now coming out of the earth to show us what's happening and so constantine comes along there's lots of civil wars and but constantine wins the civil wars and reunites the Roman Empire and then builds this mighty, was it designed to be a second capital, a first city,

just a big city to celebrate himself? What was the idea behind Constantinople? Well, I think, you know, this is debated. I think that what happens is that you'll know there's this big question. Did he convert to Christianity at the Battle of Milvian Bridge? Did he see this extraordinary cross in the sky on his way there? And then he encouraged his soldiers to have a cross on their shields and things. There is something that happens. There is a psychological shift that happens in Constantine

around that time. And we don't know whether that's a full conversion because he's still, of course, worshipping Sol Invictus and keeping pagan gods on side, you know, naturally as you did. But you just get the sense that there's something that personally really matters to him. And it could be he was very close to his mother, Helena. Yes, she was a keen Christian. Keen Christian. So, you know, maybe it's her mum just telling him what to do, basically. keen Christians. So, you know, maybe it's her mum just telling him what to do, basically. Originally, he actually goes and scopes Troy. He says, oh, maybe I'll put my new capital at Troy because that's where the great Trojan heroes, you know, our ancestors, Aeneas, etc. went. And then he decides against that. It actually would be a rubbish place for a capital city, Troy, because

the currents are so awkward around there and so quite sensibly he says that he was guided then by the hand of God to go to what was Byzantium and that there are these accounts that he walked through the city with Christ in front of him and he marked out the new city with his lance and spear I think actually why he chose it is because that's just opposite, just across the Bosporus at Chrysopolis. That's where he has his massive battle against his arch rival. And so in a way, it's his place of victory. And it's much better to be on the European side. You've got much more options open to you if you found your city. So Byzantium is basically

bang opposite Chrysopolis. And I think that's probably why he turns it into Constantinople. And was it intended to move imperial power away from Rome? Was Rome by this stage seen as anachronistic or sort of connected with internecine infighting and the problems of the civil wars of the previous decades? And was this sort of a fresh start for the empire? I think it is. Yeah, I think it is. I think they realised that, well, if you're going to control the east, you've got to be a bit closer to it. And also, you've got this incredible potential going directly east.

So if you go across the Bosphorus, head through what they call Asia Minor, you know, what for us is Anatolia, you've got these rich, fertile, wonderful, strange lands all the way to the Caucasus. And actually, they've never completely got to grips with those. So he's a very ambitious man, Constantine. So I think absolutely, as you say, he could sit in that capital city of Constantinople, which he made very beautiful, which he filled with new men. It was a real sort of, it's like the kind of Milton Keynes of its day, you know, it was a real sort of fresh start idea. And, you know, look out over those channels, those waterways where continents are cheeked by Jarl. I think he really thought I can, you know, I have the one

true God on my side and I can now control the world. And I know Hadrian gets in trouble earlier for embracing sort of Greek ideas and being insufficiently Roman, perhaps. Does Constantinople quite quickly, is it a very Roman city? Is it a very pan-imperial city? Is it sort of quite a Greek city? What's its character? How does it change the empire? Yes, I think it is. Well, it is very Roman in that they have all, basically, Rome doesn't ever fall. It just moves 854 miles east. So they have a senate, they have chariot racing, they have a praetorium. They have all the things that you'd expect to have in Rome. It's kind of a version of Rome. But what's exciting about it and why it's so exciting to study, and I'm sure why it was so exciting to live in all that time ago, is it has this kind of eastern bass note pulsing through it

so they still worship eastern gods there there's this brilliant um goddess called kibble who's the the great mother goddess she's worshipped as the magna mater um in rome itself and i mean she's a remarkable creature she comes basically from anatolia's supposed to, you can still go to her shrines, and she's supposed to guard the sort of route between the two worlds, between life and death. And so she's super powerful. She's a bit odd. So her priests, she encourages, we're told,

she encourages her priests to castrate themselves. So they do this very un-Roman thing of castrate themselves so they do this um they do this very un-roman thing of castrating themselves and wearing makeup and growing their hair long and you know it's all quite un-roman that and kibble is massive in constantinople so even in christian constantinople kibble is everywhere so her shrines are everywhere and constantine sort of takes on this this greek goddess taiki and it sort of takes on this Greek goddess Tyche and sort of moulds her with Kybele. So I think it was just a cool place to be.

Hi everyone, you're listening to Dan Snow's History. I'm talking to Bethany Hughes about Istanbul. More after this. Land a Viking longship on island shores, scramble over the dunes of ancient Egypt, and avoid the Poisoner's Cup in Renaissance Florence. Each week on Echoes of History, we uncover the epic stories that inspire Assassin's Creed. We're stepping into feudal Japan in our special series, Chasing Shadows, where samurai warlords and shinobi spies teach us the tactics and skills needed not only to survive, but to conquer. Whether you're preparing for Assassin's Creed Shadows

or fascinated by history and great stories, listen to Echoes of History, a Ubisoft podcast brought to you by History Hits. There are new episodes every week. And it's hard to think of any comparison. Imperial must be Peter the Great probably does it, but at that stage Russia was much smaller and less important. I mean, you'd never imagine the capital of the French Empire, the British Empire, moving around in this way. I mean, this is a remarkable move and successful to move an imperial capital. Some people have tried. It's never really worked.

No, that's right. And they did try again. You're right. The Greeks kind of tried it as well. Or should we be in Byzantium or should we move elsewhere? And the later Byzantines at some point sort of think, oh, you know, should we go to Sicily? But you're right, it doesn't work. But they say very firmly, this is the new Rome, this is the second Rome, this is where it's all at. And your point is very cogent and pertinent that I think what they get is you've, I keep on talking about the East, but you've also opened up the access of the Vikings coming down those rivers.

And so what are called the Rus early, you know, that give their name to Russia, they become very important in the story of the city very quickly and they try to besiege it. As the Vikings do, they come and do a bit of, they don't get in, so they don't do their raping and pillaging, but they have a go. But then they sort of fall in love with the

place a bit later and we've just discovered in lovely the Hagia Sophia that was the church and then the mosque and it's now a museum we've known for ages about these runes, these Viking runes that have been carved into the marble balustrade there but we've now

discovered that somebody's just gone and done these fantastic little with their sort of probably with their brooch pin done little graffiti of viking ships with the kind of dragon prows and things so that so they would you know the vikings definitely were were here and at the point where um the later byzantines kind of embrace the vikings a bit they allow them they got quite worried about them because they never know quite when they're going to turn nasty and try to proceediege again. But they have this fantastic arrangement where they give them, they come in through a certain gate and only 50 of them at a time.

They get given free bed and breakfast in Constantinople. So the Vikings loved it. They used to come and have these kind of little B&B breaks in Istanbul. Mini breaks like we do. So, and what's interesting about Byzantium as well is, you know, Constantinople, is it does the job of, which Constantinople probably never envisaged, particularly,

but when the barbarians are at the gate, it turns out that it's a brilliant military defensive position as well. And actually, it's the Western Empire that falls partly

because Byzantium, Constantinople, does block that route of those central European tribes to the east, doesn't it? I think you're right.

Sort of, kind of Rome can fall because you've got this new second Rome, which is basically impregnable. So you've got the city walls right to the edge of the sea, so the sea walls, which so many people try. I mean, you know, the Arabs try 13 times to get in. Amazing, the goths. Yeah, everyone, and they're just beaten back and beaten back. times to get in and yeah everyone and they're just beaten back and beaten back um so they so it absolutely is the most incredible uh military and strategic force and even when it's besieged

they've worked out all these very clever little ways through post-tens that they can get supplies in and they're all these fantastic stories of women braiding their hair and you know making ropes out of their hair and casting hair and pulling up supplies in the dead of night and stuff. So they've sort of got it sorted as a besieged city. It's Greek history. Byzantine people who live in Byzantium write about how to deal with a siege. So they've got this sort of, they're the kind of siege experts in the globe, and that's how they always manage to survive.

And also, just incidentally, that's why they're so obsessed with the story of troy and helen of helen of troy because they sort of think like troy they're the ultimate city to try to besiege but they win out they don't fall it's so amazing isn't it that the amount of times as you say the enemy sweep right up the gates and it looks like the roman empire's doomed the east whatever you want to it, and then the enemy could disappear and they emerge again and take back so much of that hinterland. I mean, it is just the ultimate fortress at that point. Strategically, that's what fortress is supposed to do. Yeah, exactly. And it's, I tell you what I'm very interested by as well, is that right from very early, so from the 300s, consistently through the story of the city, right up to the Second World War.

It's both a fortress city, but also it has this reputation as a place that will take in refugees, which is really, really interesting to me. So when you've got all this barbarian difficulty roundabout, you get floods of refugees who are welcomed into the city and they recognise that these are people who are going to then do their darndest to live well and to live strong within the city. They sort of see that it's a good idea to help them. I suppose as you say it's a city of immigrants isn't it? A city of people, Romans have been brought and provincials from their provinces so presumably the city is quite relaxed about the idea of absorbing people and... Yeah, yeah, much relaxed I probably wouldn't use that word. I think they were quite, i think you were

frisked pretty severely before you went in and kind of checked out and there's all kinds of things again once you're in you have to prove that you've got enough supplies to survive a siege but but you're right they're they're open-minded they they recognize that you get strength from difference i think that's i think that's a really interesting characteristic of the city. A good lesson for us to learn. So in 5th century AD, the western provinces fall away from the Roman Empire. Gaul, Britain, Spain, parts of North Africa, and Italy itself. And I've always been confused.

The Roman Empire, though, still goes on. And do the people of Constantinople call themselves Romans? Even though Rome is now run by the Visigoths and it is outside the roman empire yeah they absolutely call themselves romans and if you're a greek who lived in um istanbul constantinople you still call yourself romair you still call yourself a roman we think that's probably where gypsies get the name romany from because there were so many in the city so there were these roma people people from rome who then travel travel west so yeah they they they they're 100 i think again you know we're just brought up with this idea that rome fell and it just didn't it moved east and they were as proudly

roman as they as they were anything and they um you know they kind of dress as the the empire the emperor and the empress. They dress as Romans. But, you know, they're fascinating because they've got this kind of this Christian, for a thousand years of their history, they've got this very, very strong Christian centre. And it does, I think it does make them think slightly differently. So if you look at some of the reforms that they passed, for instance, the two, they have to be my two favourite characters, probably from the Byzantine period of Justinian. And of course, the great Emperor Justinian and his amazing wife. The greatest social climb in history. I would say the greatest and most successful.

All power to her. Of course. So she goes, what, from circus performers, kids or? Her father's a bear tamer yeah and trainer and because they have the chariot racing right in the center of the city you always have these kind of entertainments in between and they're ferociously fought between the reds the blues the whites and the greens these uh kind of sporting factions teams in the city um so you have a lot of entertainers her father was a did performing

bears and she was from very young she was an erotic dancer. So we're told that young Theodora's speciality was to reenact the story of Leda and the Swan, which I'm sure everybody who's listening will know. So exactly. So Zeus, in the form of a swan, flew down, was so enraptured with the sight of Queen Leda of Sparta, who was the mother of Helen of Troy, so naturally perfectly beautiful, he had to turn himself into a swan and go down and have her. And Theodora used to reenact this story, and she used a goose and a trail of wheat up to, some people said, into her body. I'll just leave you with that thought.

So that was her trick. And those who wrote about her rather critically also said that she was an expert in anal pleasure so this is theodora and then she but then she becomes empress of the roman empire the most powerful woman in the world one of the most powerful women the world has ever known so exactly that so she so she's a sort of you know she's an outcast and she gets tossed around. She has to travel through northern Africa and Egypt and Alexandria. She ends up with a consul, a consort of a consul. She ends up being a spy.

And she's obviously super, super, super smart. And word gets out to Justinian, the emperor. Well, he's actually not emperor at this point, but, you know, he's just about to become emperor because his uncle is failing, basically, that she's this amazing creature. So they engineer a meeting. He falls madly in love with her. He changes the laws so that an emperor can marry an actress. And they are married and they are in love. You know, people talk about how embarrassing it is because they kiss in public the whole time. And, you know, they're clearly passionate about each other. And it's almost like they're catnip to one another. They seem to kind of inspire one another to make all these really radical changes to how society works. So Justinian is famous for his law code. And if you look at a lot of the laws

that are passed at this time, I mean, there's no doubt that they're being stimulated by conversations with Theodora. So all sorts of things. So Theodora sets up a safe house for prostitutes. They say that men can't get into debt unless they have the written permission of their wives. How brilliant is that? Brilliant. Enlightened. AD. It's so cool. And all sorts of things, the penalties for rape increase. They try to stop sex slavery. They try to stop pimping, they legislate against all of these things. So it becomes, although there are problems with Justinian's law code, he's very anti any kind of homosexuality, he's very anti-Jews,

but actually for some sections of society there is real, genuine social justice for the first time really legally enacted. So much to talk about in the long history of this incredible city. But I think, can we just quickly move on to the final terminal event of Constantinople, the siege, the conquest by Islam? One of the great stories of history. Yes. An epic, I'm sure, in your book is incredibly beautifully written about. It falls. What happened when it fell? Is it complete year zero? Everyone wiped out? Is there continuity? Is there change? And do these

scholars and ideas disappear off to Western Europe and start the Reformation? What is the impact of Constantinople changing to become Istanbul? Well, it is huge. So that 1453, May 1453, is a massive date in history. By this time, the city of Constantinople itself has become pretty denuded. So it's really kind of 13 little almost like quasi villages that haven't really got territory. It's very broken down and derelict. So the palaces are falling down. There are only 5,000, maybe 7,000 soldiers there to defend it. So the Byzantines absolutely have their backs up against the wall. So they don't really have any chance against Mehmed II's great conquering forces. But they arrive. And what's very interesting for me, yes, there is massive change. There is massive change. This suddenly becomes Allah's city.

And again, it's as important a religious conquest as it is a temporal one, because in the Quran, it was said that people had to conquer Constantinople. So it was this kind of religious duty to do so. And yes, of course, the churches get converted to mosques and the world changes in some way. But what's really interesting is if you look actually on the ground at what happens, there's a brilliant document, which is here in London in the British Library, which is a concession to the merchants of Galata, so the Italian merchants who live just on the other side of the Golden Horn. And this was written three days after the conquest. Now, I've seen the document. It's written in Greek. It's a perfect fair copy. There's just one correction. So basically, they'd sorted out this regime change in very precise detail before they went in. So although we think of it as this kind of

extraordinary clash of civilizations and this unexpected fight to the death, everybody knew what was happening. The Byzantine emperor and the Ottoman leaders had been in contact before then. So it was in a way, strangely, violent in some ways, but it was quite a gentle transition. So anyway, so you've got these new rulers and they also, what they do

very consciously, very quickly is invite back in all those who'd fled from the city before so they say we want to make this a city of mixed fruit is this lovely phrase and so you get this multi-ethnic multi religious society starting in istanbul really quickly within a couple of generations of that conquest of 1453. So it ushers in a new period of dynamism. Without a doubt and again a fairly cosmopolitan living. So this idea that we were taught in schools, that that sort of ushered in a flood of scholarship and

classical learning into Western Europe and start the Renaissance, that isn't necessarily the case. Well, that sort of happens because you're right in that the documents physically go west and suddenly it becomes very cool to learn Greek again. And people want to sort of study this stuff and you physically get some people fleeing. So I think that is true that the Renaissance's or Constantinople's loss was the Renaissance's gain, definitely. But I think what we've got to do is mind shift a bit and stop thinking that the Renaissance then just goes and happens in the west. Istanbul is a Renaissance city itself. So, Mehmed and the subsequent sultans, they also preserve and commission huge amounts of research

into Greek documents and plays and they read the Alexander romances and he has a library of 120,000 volumes with lots of Greek works inside it. So Istanbul itself is a Renaissance city. And by 1520, you know, it's double the size of London. They even get Leonardo da Vinci hears that they want to build a new bridge. And so he writes to the Sultans and said, oh, look, I've got this fantastic idea for a bridge over the Golden Horn. And we've got his sketches and his scheme for that. So it becomes really the kind of, that's in a way the sexy, cool place.

And again, to go and try to be a Renaissance man. Amazing. Well, listen, I've already taken up 45 minutes of your time. I'm going to have to let you go. We haven't even done the last 500 years. There's so much more to do. I mean, there's the whole amazing issue of the Ottoman Empire and the ninth century,

Britain and Russia and everyone fighting over it. And then of course, the tragedy of the Ottoman Empire and the ninth century Britain and Russia and everyone fighting over it and then of course the tragedy of the German cruiser arriving in Istanbul forcing the Ottoman Empire to declare war on Britain and France and the whole redrawing of the Middle East that resulted so I mean you're right the city's fingerprints are at the heart of everything aren't they they are they are um but congratulations on the book huge Huge achievement. And why are we releasing this podcast today? Well, because today, 500 years ago, Istanbul became the centre of the first Ottoman caliphate, which was the longest running caliphate in Europe. I mean, that is a huge anniversary klaxon. 500 years. So thank you very much. Best of luck with the book. It's it's called it's called Istanbul A Tale of Three Cities

and I'm sure you all know this but Bethany Hughes is on Twitter what are you on Twitter? at Bethany Hughes Bethany Hughes I think and obviously

all over the telly and stuff as well so make sure you follow her there and keep up to speed with what's going on I hope there'll be some television

that comes out of this book because it deserves it wonderful I hope so I feel we have the history on our shoulders all this tradition of ours our school history our songs deserves it. Wonderful. I hope so. I feel we're having a history on our shoulders. All this tradition of ours, our school history,

our songs, this part of the history of our country, all work up and finish. Hi everyone, thanks for reaching the end of this podcast. Most of you are probably asleep, so I'm talking to your snoring forms, but anyone who's awake, it would be great if you could do me a

quick favour, head over to wherever you get your podcasts and rate it five stars and then leave a nice glowing review. It makes a huge difference for some reason to how these podcasts do. Madness, I know, but them's the rules. Then we go further up the charts, more people listen to us and everything will be awesome. So thank you so much. Now sleep well.