On the night of May 28, 1453, after the siege had lasted forty-seven days, Mehmed’s men rushed Constantinople’s now very depleted walls. Inside them, a defense force consisting of Greek, Genoese, and Venetian troops, under the high command of the Byzantine emperor, forty-nine-year-old Constantine XI Palaiologos, fought bravely, as cannon blasts erupted, and the dark sky rained arrows, crossbow bolts, and Greek fire.
