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 Travel Tips & Info
Useful Sites
Turkey in the
News
Editors Corner
Turkey Regions
Turkey
Maps
Did You Know?
10 Things To Do In
Turkey
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Did You
Know?
The modern Republic of Turkey was among the few
countries not only in Europe but in the world to give woman their right to
vote & to be elected in 1934.
Istanbul is the only city in the world located on two
continents, Europe & Asia. In its thousands of years of history, it has
been the capital of three great empires - Roman, Byzantine & Ottoman.
Istanbul changed hands through out history but it served as capital city
for 1900 years to various Empires.
Julius Caesar proclaimed his celebrated words, "Veni,
Vidi, Vici (I came, I saw, I conquered)" in Turkey when he defeated the
Pontus, a formidable kingdom in the Black Sea region of
Turkey.
The millennium stone at Sultanahmet Istanbul was the
zero meridian point of the world during Roman & Byzantine eras &
distances to various places around the world were measured from this
origin point.
Turks introduced coffee to Europe.
Lydia which is one of the greatest civilization lived in
Anatolia has still got some remainings around Salihli (Sardis) & it's
the first civilization which coined money.
Hereke which is in the world carpeting literature with
the quality of the wool & silk rugs is in Izmit (Kocaeli).
The oldest known human settlement in the world is
located in Catalhoyuk, Turkey, dating back to 6500 B.C. The earliest
landscape painting in history was found on the wall of a Catalhoyuk house,
illustrating the volcanic eruption of nearby Hasandag.
Turkey fully lives the 4 seasons, the richest flora is
in Turkey & almost every year new plant species are gained to the world
literature.
Writing was first used by people in ancient Anatolia.
The first clay tablets - in the ruins of Assyrian Karum (Merchant Colony -
date back to 1950 B.C.).
Antalya Museum was rewarded specially by European
Council to become the best museum in 1988 in Europe.
You won't be able to have a blue voyage like the one you
can have on Aegean & Mediterranean coast in any part of the
world.
The Hittites sold Abraham the cave where he buried his
wife Sarah, when the Israelites came to Palestine.
Two of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World stood in
Turkey - the Temple of Artemis at Ephesus & the Mausoleum of Halicarnasus in Bodrum.
The book of Revelation opens with the letters from Jesus
to 7 churches in Christendom which are all in Turkey: Ephesus, Smyrna,
Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia & Laodicea. Jesus counsels them
as to how to get back on track.
The word "turquoise" comes from "Turk" meaning Turkish
& was derived from the beautiful colour of the Mediterranean Sea on the
southern Turkish coast.
The first war between continents took place in Troy
which was later written by Homer in his epic of " Iliad ". The Trojan
horse from the movie Troy now rests here as a gift from the producers of
the movie.
In Antalya, in the spring time you can both ski &
swim.
All 7 ecumenical councils were held in Asia Minor, which
in the later years was to separate the churches as East Orthodox & Roman
Catholic.
Jews expelled from Hungary in 1376, from Sicily early in
the 15th century, from Bavaria in 1470, from Bohemia in 1542, & from
Russia in 1881, 1891, 1897, & 1903 all took refuge in the Ottoman
Empire.
The resolutions of the Council of 431 held that the
Virgin Mary came to Ephesus. According to them, she came here together
with Saint John, four to six years after the death of Christ.
Anatolia is the birthplace of many historic figures &
legends, such as the poet Homer, King Midas, Herodotus (the father of
history) & St. Paul the Apostle.
St. Nicholas, known as Santa Claus today, was born &
lived in Demre (Myra) on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. The village
contains the famous Church of St. Nicholas with the sarcophagus believed
to be his tomb.
The first man ever to fly was Turkish. Using two wings,
Hezarfen Ahmet Celebi flew from the Galata Tower over the Bosphorus to
land in Uskudar in the 17th century.
Many archaeologists & biblical scholars believe Noah's Ark landed on Agri Dagi (Mount Ararat) in eastern
Turkey.
The most valuable silk carpet in the world is displayed
at the Mevlana Museum in Konya, Turkey. Marco Polo's journeys in the
13th century took him here & he remarked that the best & handsomest
of rugs¯ were to be found in Asia Minor.
Turks first gave the Dutch their famous tulips that
started the craze for the flower in England & the Netherlands. Bulbs
brought to Vienna from Istanbul in the 1500s were so intensely popular
that by 1634 in Holland it was called tulip mania.¯ People invested
money in tulips as they do in stocks today. This period of elegance &
amusement in 17th century Turkey is referred to as The Tulip
Age.
The first coins ever minted were done so at Sardis, the
capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, at the end of the seventh
century.
Robert College was founded in 1863 in the Bebek district
of Istanbul on the European side of Bosphorus as the oldest American
college still in existence in the world outside the United
States.
Turkey houses more Roman sites than Italy & more Greek
ruins than Greece.
Tansu Ciller was elected as the first female Prime
Minister of Turkey & governed between 1993-1996.
Turkey is noted for having one of the three most famous
& distinctive traditional cuisines in the world.
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