Timeline Sunday 28 August 1521

Events on Sunday 28 August 1521 2

• 1521 Belgrade falls -- the gateway to Europe opened Suleiman's first military campaign captures Belgrade (28 August 1521), which had twice repulsed Mehmed II. Belgrade's fall opens the Hungarian plain to Ottoman expansion -- Mehmed II had said that without Belgrade, Hungary could not be conquered. The campaign also demonstrates Suleiman's command style: careful preparation, overwhelming force, and swift execution. He follows up in 1522 with the capture of Rhodes from the Knights of St John after a six-month siege -- the Knights surrender with full honours and relocate to Malta, from where they will again contest Ottoman naval power.
• 1521 First campaign -- Belgrade falls Suleiman's first personal campaign captures Belgrade on 28 August 1521 -- the fortress that had twice repulsed Mehmed II and which Suleiman's grandfather Bayezid II considered impregnable. The campaign is meticulously prepared: Suleiman takes 100,000 troops, advances in tight formation, and systematically reduces the outer defences before the city itself. The garrison surrenders after a four-month siege. Suleiman enters Belgrade, converts the cathedral to a mosque and orders the city's population resettled in Istanbul. The fall of Belgrade opens the Pannonian plain -- the gateway to Vienna. Charles V and Francis I, occupied with each other, send no relief.