Manzikert — Anatolia opens
1071 CE · The Crusades & Saladin
A generation before the First Crusade, the Seljuk sultan Alp Arslan defeats and captures the Byzantine emperor Romanos IV at Manzikert — then releases him with terms, an act the chronicles record with note. The defeat opens Anatolia to Turkish settlement, plants the Sultanate of Rum at Konya, and is among the events that spur Byzantium’s appeal to the West — the appeal Pope Urban answers in 1095.