Constantinople founded
On May 11th 330 Constantinople was dedicated as capital of the Eastern Roman empire. Here, paganism was officially ended; and the Middle Ages of triumphant faith were, so to speak, officially begun. Here, the East won its spiritual battle against the physically victorious West, and would rule the Western soul for a thousand years. Here, for a thousand years, the Roman Empire would survive the barbarian floods that were to inundate Rome; Goths, Huns, Vandals, Avars, Persians, Arabs, Bulgarians, Russians would threaten the new capital in turn and fail. Here, for a thousand years laid a city that would only be captured once—by Christian crusaders loving gold a little more than the cross—and for ten centuries remained, the richest, most beautiful, and most civilized city in the world.
Source: Durant, Will. The Story of Civilization, Vol. 4: The Age of Faith, A History of Medieval Civilization, Christian, Islamic, and Judaic, From Constantine to Dante, A.D. 325-1300. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1950.
Image by Sailko under CC BY-SA 3.0 license
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Full disclosure, I may occasionally borrow a sentence from Will Durant's Story of Civilization. I absolutely love that collection!