The Paeologos Doom

John IV Lascaris was only a boy of 8 years when he was elevated as emperor of the Nicaean Empire in 1258 on the death of his father Theodore II Lascaris.  He was the last of the Lascaris emperors that had done much to restore the Byzantine Empire after the capture of Constantinople by the Fourth Crusade in 1204.  His regent was Michael Palaeologos, who later made himself co-emperor as Michael VIII.  Upon Michael’s conquest of Constantinople in 1261, John was ordered blinded, thus making him ineligible to serve as emperor, then imprisoned in a castle on the Sea of Marmara.  He is recorded as having acknowledged Andronicus II as emperor in 1290.

                                                                                                                                                       Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_IV_Lascaris

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Andronicus II Paleologos (1260 – February 13, 1332), Byzantine emperor, was the elder son of Michael VIII Palaeologos [usurper of the throne from John IV Lascaris], whom he succeeded in 1282.  He ruled until 1328.

He allowed the fleet, which his father had organized, to fall into decay; and the empire was thus less able than ever to resist the exacting demands of the rival powers of Venice and Genoa . . . .

During his reign the Ottoman Turks under Osman conquered nearly the whole of Bithynia . . . .

From 1320 onwards the emperor was engaged in war with his grandson Andronicus.  He abdicated in 1328 and died in 1332.
                                                                                                                                                             Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andronicus_II

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NOTE:

It was under the authentic reign of John IV Lascaris that Constantinople was recovered.  Michael VIII Palaeologos, irrespective of his presumption, functioned in essence under that authority.  His ill-gotten beginning produced a Palaeologos cycle that ended in disaster.

An old Greek adage:

Wind-gatherings . . . devil-scatterings.
[ill-gotten gains are no blessing]

Expansion of Western Civilization: from Constantine the Great to Constantinople and Byzantium and onward to America

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Constantine the Great began his eventful climb in York, England and reached the apex of his achievement in Constantinople, the City that he founded and named after himself (Constantine+Polis [city]=Constantinople).  By means of these pages, our readers travel through time, touching upon the early periods, including that of Constantine, of historical Constantinople, and of Hagia Sophia—the nexus of the Christian world—to arrive at places and events of our present day.  Our readers reach the outermost limit to which both Eastern and Western Christian groups expanded, bringing forth the flower of Western Civilization.  That limit is the Western Hemisphere as a whole, and in particular the coast of California near San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge where the two groups converged  as they approached from the North and from the South.