September 21, 1842 - Abdul Hamid II

Abdülhamid II or Abdul Hamid II (Ottoman Turkish: عبد الحميد ثانی, romanized: Abd ul-Hamid-i s̱ānī; Turkish: II. Abdülhamid; 21 September 1842 – 10 February 1918) was the 34th sultan of the Ottoman Empire, from 1876 to 1909, and the last sultan to exert effective control over the fracturing state.

Elevated to power in the wake of Young Ottoman coups, he promulgated the Ottoman Empire's first constitution, a sign of the progressive thinking that marked his early rule. But his enthronement came in the context of the Great Eastern Crisis, which began with the Empire's default on its loans, uprisings by Christian Balkan minorities, and a war with the Russian Empire. At the end of the crisis, Ottoman rule in the Balkans and its international prestige were severely diminished, and the Empire lost its economic sovereignty as its finances came under the control of the Great Powers through the Ottoman Public Debt Administration.

In 1878, Abdul Hamid consolidated his rule by suspending both the constitution and the parliament, purging the Young Ottomans, and curtailing the power of the Sublime Porte. He ruled as an autocrat for three decades. Ideologically an Islamist, the sultan asserted his title of Caliph to Muslims around the world.

Content sourced from en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdul Hamid II under CC BY-SA 4.0.