Bayezit I, also spelt Bayezid or Bajazet c.1360-c.1403
Sultan of the Ottoman Empire

In 1389 he succeeded his father, Murat I, who was killed at the Battle of Kossovo, and swiftly conquered Bulgaria, parts of Serbia, Macedonia and Thessaly, and most of Asia Minor, earning him the name of Yildirim ('Thunderbolt'). For 10 years he blockaded Constantinople (Istanbul), and inflicted a crushing defeat on King Sigismund of Hungary at Nicopolis, on the Danube (1396). Bayezit would have entirely destroyed the Greek Empire if he had not in turn been completely defeated by Timur near Ankara in 1402. Bayezit himself fell into the hands of the conqueror, who treated him with great generosity (his incarceration in an iron cage being a myth), and in whose camp he died. He was succeeded by his son S�leyman I.