Reconquest of Constantinople
| Reconquest of Constantinople | |||||||||
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| Part of Struggle for Constantinople | |||||||||
The Gate of the Spring (Pege) or Selymbria Gate, through which Strategopoulos and his men entered Constantinople on 25 July 1261 | |||||||||
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The Reconquest of Constantinople was the recapture of the city of Constantinople in 1261 AD from the Latin Empire by Nicaean forces led by the general Alexios Strategopoulos. The reconquest of the city lead to the re-establishment of the Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologos dynasty after an interval of 57 years, during which Constantinople had been the capital of the Latin Empire, a crusader state installed by Latin forces of the Fourth Crusade following the sack of Constantinople in 1204.
The recapture of Constantinople ended more than a half century of occupation by the Latin Empire over the Byzantine capital. The reconstituted Byzantine Empire under the Palaiologoi would go on to hold the city successfully for nearly two more centuries, until its fall to the Ottoman Turks in 1453.