1204
Europe · War
The city falls — to the men who came to save it.
Crusaders sack Constantinople
April 12, 1204
For three days Latin knights looted the richest Christian city on earth, hauling icons, relics, and bronze horses back to Venice. They installed a Flemish count on the imperial throne, fractured the Byzantine world, and bequeathed to Orthodox memory a wound that never quite closed. The Fourth Crusade, intended for Egypt, had devoured Christendom's own capital in a frenzy of greed.