Constantinople — City of the World's Desire

For eleven hundred years, Constantinople was the greatest city in the Christian world — protected by the Theodosian Walls, controlling the strait between Europe and Asia, inheriting the libraries and art of Rome while Rome itself fell to ruin. Every army that ever tried to take it failed — until 1453, when 21-year-old Sultan Mehmed II positioned 68 bronze cannons against the walls that had never been breached, and in 53 days changed the course of history. The city did not fall. It transformed. Hagia Sophia became a mosque. The Greek intellectuals fled to Italy, carrying their manuscripts, and lit the Renaissance. Constantinople became Istanbul, and remained the world's desire.

These signs carry the Theodosian walls, the crescent over Hagia Sophia, the Ottoman cannon, and the city that was always worth fighting for.