When you’re the second Sultan of Seljuk and the great grandson of Seljuk himself (the founder of the dynasty), there’s a lot riding on you to do well. But Alp Arslan (‘the Lion-Hearted’) did not disappoint.

On the 26th of August, 1071, he and his forces defeated the Byzantines in the Battle of Manzikert, accelerating the decline of the Byzantine Empire and paving the way for both the Ottoman Empire and the modern Republic of Turkey.

He even captured Emperor Romanos IV Diogenes himself, marking the first and only time in history that a Roman emperor became a prisoner of a Muslim commander. He died a year later when mortally wounded by a prisoner during a quarrel