THE 700th ANNI.OF THE FOUNDATION OF OTTOMAN STATE PHONE CARD

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EMPTY AND CLEAN PHONECARDS.

The Ottoman State ruled from the end of the 13^th century (1299) until the first quarter of the 20^th century. Osman Bey whose dynasty was named after him was the founder. The Empire proved to be the most powerful and long-lasting of the Islamic and Turco-Islamic states, and later formed the foundations of modern Turkey.

The periods which covered the first two centuries of the Ottoman history were the foundation and expansion periods, during which the frontier principality founded in Anatolia (Asia Minor) became an empire extending from South-Eastern Europe to the Arabian land, leading to the beginning of a new era by the conquest of Istanbul in 1453.

The Ottoman Empire reached its zenith between 1481 and 1566. In this period of further conquests, the Empire extended to Central Europe in one side and the Arabian territories in the other, where the former Islamic caliphate had ruled. However, it was the era of Sultan Suleyman, the Magnificent, which shaped the Ottoman State and “classical” face of the community. In his reign, the Ottoman Empire lived the golden age of its history.

After Sultan Suleyman, the Magnificent, the balance of the power between the Ottomans and European states changed in time, and gradual decline of the Ottoman Empire began.

It finally came to an end on the 29^th of October, 1923 when the modern Republic of Turkey was founded after the Turkish War of Independence led by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.