A Brief Learn Me Something Something About Turkish History

With the next part of our journey involving more "hanging" than actual "doing," I decided it would be best, instead of waiting an entire week to release our next blog, to provide a bit of historical insight in regard to the region of our travels. With ancient civilization screaming "hey, we were here" from every which corner of the Turkish landscape, it is only fair to supply some background on the multitude of cultures that have diverged into this small area of the world throughout the past. Thus, I leave you with 13 bullet points that moreorless summarize the last 10,000 years of the region once known as Anatolia, now known as Turkey.

- 7500 B.C. - 6500 B.C. - Hunter-Gatherers begin to resent the lazy implications of their name, form the first ever city (Çatalhöyük) in the south of Turkey (at least according to the archaeologist who discovered it). Take that civilization!

- 2800 B.C. - Noah's Ark lands on Mount Ararat in the far east of Turkey. All species survive the journey except for this poor guy

- 1800 B.C. - 1250 B.C. - Hittites attempt to be meaningful and take over Turkey. Unfortunately nobody knows what the hell a "Hittite" is, so their success is inevitably doomed.

- 1250 B.C. - Trojan War -- Brad Pitt + Wooden Horse = Unstoppable Combo. (And yes, Troy is in Turkey)

- 800 B.C. - 547 B.C. - Greeks do their thing, and build temples to everyone and anyone. A thing called "money" also comes to be. This proves to have a slight impact on the future (mainly the increase in college football ticket prices every damn year).

- 547 B.C. - 334 B.C. - Persians, obviously pissed about having their asses handed to them in the movie "300" take over from the Greeks.

- 334 B.C. - 200ish B.C. - Alexander the Great lives up to his new nickname, takes over some stuff as well (obviously a common theme of the times)

- 0 A.D. - Some dude is born a little ways away, people like him a lot.

- 33 A.D. - Same dude dies, people super sad.

- 33 A.D. + 3 Days - Holy hell that dude is back again. People super stoked.

- 200ish B.C. - 500ish A.D. - Romans arrive, immediately declare a dislike for "that dude and his friends." Also say "hey, we can build the sh*t out of stuff, we're going hangout for a while." Declare Constantinople (aka "not Istanbul") their new capital.

- 500ish A.D. - 1000ish A.D. - The Byzantine Empire shows up, declaring "hey everybody, we are a thing." They are immediately thrown into the "nobody cares" historical bucket alongside the Hittites.

- 1000ish A.D. - Present Day - Seljuks, Ottomans, Islam and most of present-day Turkey start showing up. Lots of stuff happens, mainly, Mark and Julie arriving in June of 2013.

NOTE: All preceding dates/events subject to inaccuracy & varying levels of oversimplification

And so you have it. The history of Turkey and its surrounds. I hope this blog has made everybody just a bit more knowledgeable in regard to the incredible events that have transpired over the years throughout this amazing part of the world.

Onto the pics:

According to Google, this is "the dude"