Ottoman Empire

there was, Turkey, Greece , Egypt, Bosnia, Herzegovinia , Serbia, Albania, Romania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Mesopotamia, Palestine, Algeria, Tunisia, Syria and Italian North Africa.

Modern-Day Countries of which some of their territory was controlled by the Ottoman Empire:

• Italy
• Austria
• Slovakia
• Ukraine
• Georgia
• Armenia
• Azerbaijan
• Iran
• Oman
• Yemen
• Saudi Arabia
• Sudan
• Morocco

Modern Day Countries of which all of their territory (except sparsely populated regions) was controlled by the Ottoman Empire at some point:

• Algeria
• Libya
• Tunisia
• Malta
• Egypt
• Israel
• Palestine
• Jordan
• Lebanon
• Syria
• Cyprus
• Iraq
• Kuwait
• Qatar
• Bahrain
• United Arab Emirates
• Turkey
• Greece
• Bulgaria
• Romania
• Moldova
• Reublic of Macedonia
• Albania
• Kosovo
• Serbia
• Bosnia & Herzegovina
• Croatia
• Slovenia
• Hungary

At one point or other in time, their possessions ranged from Jerusalem to the Arab Peninsula and to most of Eastern Europe (present-day Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania).

27 countries. most of southeast europe , north africa and asia

As the Ottomans had a huge land they normally spread their religion to there. They didn't force people to be Muslims directly however by getting more taxes from non-Muslims they indirectly forced people under their control to be Muslims. That is why there are some Muslim countries in Africa and in Europe (in Europe there was no prior county with a Muslim-majority population).

For example, Bosnians and Albanians were Christians; and most of them had converted to Islam; while the Greeks and Bulgarians are still Christians.

Turkish View

Because they revolted against the government of the county they lived in, the Ottoman empire, and fought alongside the Russians against the Ottomans in WW1.

Armenian View

Not entirely true. Women, children and elderly were killed -not just men. The answer is much too long to discuss here - I suggest you look on websites such as armeniapedia.org and cilicia.org. Actually for over 40 years before the genocide of 1915 there were village massacres which led up to the genocide. Because the rest of the World was tied up in WWI they were not privy to the goings on of the Young Turks who systematically enforced gun control on many armenians who had lived in these cities and towns for millenia, not just centuries - Armenia was a vast nation until the Ottomans invaded in the 1500s. Armenians were peaceful, but wanted to protect her borders which were always in jeapordy because of the location right in the middle of the major trading routes. Eventually the kurds and the turks (all Muslim) wanted control and took what they wanted - much like what the United States did to the Native American people. Since Armenians were 1. Christian and 2. Well off for the most part, an industrious people and alot were in important government positions, the Young Turks decided they needed to get rid of this problem so they could control the land. The problem was: Armenians. One by one, villages throughout western Armenia were eliminated of 1. guns and 2. men. By men, we are talking any boy of the age of 14 and up was taken into either the Turkish army were they were shipped off to death camps, or in some instances just blatantly shot right outside of their front door, in front of their family. In an instant, on one day, April 15; dozens of important Armenian men were taken forcibly to the centers of their towns and either hung or beheaded in front of everyone. A few of these towns held "wedding dances" where they forced the newly widowed women to hold hands and dance in a circle as they were being shot at while their clothes were torn off, to humiliate them even further. The most deaths were caused when all Armenians who lived in Western Armenia were forced to leave everything behind and march for hundreds and hundreds of miles in the desert (Sinai) along the Euphrates River, which within weeks and months was vile with human blood, dead bodies floating and diseases were rampant. Over one and half million Armenians died because the Young Turks used violent criminals as guards for these marches, and they used any type of violent torture they could dream up - as gratitude for their violence they were granted complete pardons for their previous crimes. To this day, not only has there never been any type of restitution on the part of the Turks, they DENY that genocide ever took place. Then, to rub salt into wounds, they destroyed all of our ancient churches, ancient relics and renamed our cities to eliminate any history of Armenia in the 75-80% of the land they took from us, both from the west and from the east. Azerbaijani's were also encouraged by the Muslim Turks to destroy all of the Khachkars on Ancient Armenian land that date back before Christ's birth. On top of all of this, the Turks even laid claim to Mt. Ararat, a national Armenian landmark. When the atrocities were discovered, there were only a few small groups of orphaned children that hadn't been taken in by Turks as slaves or renamed to muslim names to forget their identity. The few surviving women were turned into sex slaves by the muslims and to show they were only "property" by their masters, they were tattoed all over their faces to publically display their shame. As I said, this is only a SMALL portion of what happened. I do encourage you to read about Armenian history, as it is vast and very ancient and extremely interesting. It's just sad that we don't have much of a homeland anymore. From what it was, there is only about 10% left now.

The Greek scholars fled to Italy, where an interest in Greek learning had been stimulated by Greek scholars who had already settled there and had generated an interest in the ancient Greeks as well as the Romans among Italian humanists, which then became a feature of the Italian Renaissance. Ancient Greek manuscripts had been lost in Western Europe and Byzantine scholarship only became fully available in the west after the Council of Florence of 1438-39, which the Byzantine emperor attended to discuss a union of the Orthodox and Catholic churches. Some Greek scholars settled in Italy around this time and were later joined by learned Greek refugees. Gemistus Pletho lectured in Florence on the difference between Plato and Aristotle and reintroduced Plato to Western Europe. His lectures inspired Cosimo de' Medici to found the Accademia Platonica in Florence. George of Trebizon was summoned to Venice in 1430 or 1438. Theodorus Gaza he became professor of Greek in the newly founded University of Ferrara in 1447. Basilios Bessarion settled in Rome in 1438 and his residence became a centre for the study of humanism and and Greek learning. It also acted as a centre for Greek scholars and refugees. He supported the commissioning of translations of Greek manuscripts into Latin.