Mimar Sinan, born 15 April 1489 Considered to be one of the greatest architects of all time, Mimar Sinan served several sultans during the classical Ottoman period: Süleyman the Magnificent, Selim II and Murad III. The son of a stonemason, Sinan grew up in Kayseri where he received a technical education. He became a military engineer, rising […]
UN Resolution 186, 04 March 1964 The United Nations sought to intervene in Cyprus following the outbreak of the conflict in December 1963, when the Greek Cypriots brutally seized power. On 4 March 1964, the UN unanimously passed Resolution 186 calling for measures to be taken “to stop the violence”, while approving for a UN […]
Kebabs are to Turks what fish and chips are to the English, an integral part of our food culture. The first wave of Turkish immigrants in Britain arrived from Cyprus in the 1950s, bringing with them their key cultural traditions. By 1966, the first British kebab restaurant had opened: Hodja Nasreddin in Newington Green, North London. It […]
Described as a “romantic revolutionary”, Nâzım Hikmet was repeatedly arrested for his political beliefs and spent much of his life in prison or in exile. His poetry has been translated into more than fifty languages and his innovative writing style broke literary boundaries in Turkey. His imprisonment in the 1940s became a cause célèbre among […]
