History's Greatest Naval Battles, Ep.3: Lepanto

As the Ottoman Empire spread inexorably across Arabia, Persia, North Africa and the Levant, it seemed nothing could stop it. It even shook Europe to the core when Ottoman cannon blasted holes through Constantinople's previously impregnable walls, causing the final collapse of the 1000-year Byzantine Empire.

Now, in 1571, with Venetian Cyprus on the brink of falling, Pope Pius V calls together a Holy League to try to halt the Ottoman advance into the Mediterranean Sea. Fail, and all Christendom might fall. 

At the Battle of Lepanto, a Christian alliance of Spain, Venice, the Italian States and the Knights of Malta and Hospitallers took on the might of the Ottoman Empire.

The outcome would decide the fate of Christian Europe, and by extension, the world.

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