Orhan

Orhan Ghazi was born around 1288 in Söğüt, son of Osman I, and became the second Ottoman sultan in 1323 or 1324. He spent his early reign conquering Byzantine territories across northwestern Anatolia, winning his first major engagement at Pelekanon against Emperor Andronikos III Palaiologos, and absorbing the lands of the Karasids and Ahis. When nine-year-old John V Palaiologos ascended the Byzantine throne, triggering decades of civil war, Orhan married the regent's daughter Theodora and lent Ottoman troops to his father-in-law John VI Kantakouzenos - warriors who looted Thrace in the 1341-1347 conflict and fought John V in the 1352-1357 struggle. In 1352 Kantakouzenos granted the Ottomans a fortress at Çimpe; two years later, after an earthquake leveled Gallipoli, Orhan's son Süleyman Pasha occupied the ruins and established the bridgehead into Europe. The scholar Ibn Battuta called him "the greatest of the Turcoman kings and the richest in wealth, lands, and military forces." He died in March 1362.