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Period: 1202 to 1204
4th crusade
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1204
Conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders
The Fourth Crusade (1202–04) was a Western European armed expedition called by Pope Innocent III, originally intended to reconquer Muslim-controlled Jerusalem by means of an invasion through Egypt. Instead, a sequence of events culminated in the Crusaders sacking the city of Constantinople, the capital of the Christian-controlled Byzantine Empire.