FLAG OF TURKEY

-FLAG OF TURKEY

The flag of Turkey consists of a white crescent moon and a star on a red background. The flag is called ''Ay-Yıldız'' (literally, moon star) or ''Al Sancak'' (red banner) in Turkish. The flag has a complex origin since it is an ancient design, and is practically identical to the last flag of the Ottoman Empire which was adopted in 1844, as part of the Tanzimat reforms. The geometric proportions of the flag were legally standardized with the Turkish Flag Law in 1936.
The shade of red used in the flag is approximated by Pantone 186, or RGB (227, 10, 23).

-HISTORY OF TURKISH FLAG

Main article: Ottoman Flag
The crescent and star, while generally regarded as Islamic symbols today, have long been used in Asia Minor and by the ancient Turks, earlier than the advent of Islam. According to one theory, the figure of crescent has its roots in tamghas, i.e. markings used as livestock brand or stamp, used by nomadic Turkic clans of Central Asia.
The current design of the Turkish flag is practically identical to the last Ottoman flag, which had acquired its final form in 1844, with the Tanzimat reforms. It is known that the Ottomans used red flags of triangular shape at least since 1383, which came to be rectangular over the course of history.
Ottomans used several different designs, most of them featuring one or more crescents, for different purposes, such as the flag with green background signifying the Caliphate. During the late imperial period, the distinctive use of the color red for secular and green for religious institutions became an established practice. In 1844, the eight-pointed star was replaced with a five-pointed star and the flag reached the form of the present-day Turkish flag.

-LEGENDS ABOUT TURKISH FLAG

One of the most popular legends regarding the Flag of Turkey is that, in a pool of blood of Turkish warriors, there was a reflection of the crescent moon and a star. Three theories have been put forward regarding the possible location and context of this event, which include:
In the year 1071, after the Battle of Manzikert and the defeat of the Byzantine army, the Seljuk Sultan Alp Arslan was roaming the battlefield, where he saw the reflection of the crescent moon and a star on a pool of blood of Turkish warriors. After he saw this image, he decided that this would be the flag representing the Seljuk Turks. However, the Anatolian (Rum) Seljuk flag is known to have a white double-headed eagle figure (similar to the Byzantine double-headed eagle), which holds a bow and arrow, on a light blue background; therefore this theory is not likely to be true.
After the Battle of Kosovo on 28 July 1389, the Ottoman Sultan Murad I. was assassinated, and on that night there was a unique moment of Jupiter and the Moon next to each other. If one considers this sight on a pool of blood, the current structure of the Turkish flag can be seen easily.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the founder of the modern Republic of Turkey, walking on a battlefield one night after the Turkish victory in the Battle of Sakarya during the Turkish War of Independence, saw the reflection of the star and crescent formation on a large pool of blood near the Sakarya River. This is obviously not true, due to the fact that the present-day Turkish flag is in continuous use since its adoption as the Ottoman national flag in 1844, which can be documented with thousands of photographs and other sources.
Other theories include:
In a dream of Osman I, the first Ottoman Sultan, a crescent and star appeared from his chest and expanded, presaging the dynasty's seizure of Constantinople.
A crescent and star were spotted on the night of the fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453.

The smallest flag of the World (700 nanometers wide and about 2 nanometers high), produced at the Bilkent University Nanophysics Department.

-LEGAL BASIS

The fundamentals of the Turkish flag were laid down by the Turkish Flag Law (Law No. 2994) on May 29, 1936. The Turkish Flag Regulation Law (Law No. 2/7175) dated July 28, 1937, and the Supplementary Regulation (Law No. 11604/2) dated July 29, 1939, were enacted to describe how the definite geometric proportions of the flag should be established. The Turkish Flag Law (Law No. 2893) dated September 22, 1983, and published in the Official Gazette on September 24, 1983, was promulgated six months after its publication. According to Article 9 of Law No. 2893, a statute including the fundamentals of the implementation was also published.

-CONSTRUCTION
















Let G be the width of the flag.

Letter
Measure
Length
A:
Distance between the centre of the outer crescent and the seam of the white band
1/2 G
B:
Diameter of the outer circle of the crescent
1/2 G
C:
Distance between the centres of the inner and outer circles of the crescent
1/16 G
D:
Diameter of the inner circle of the crescent
0.4 G
E:
Distance between the inner circle of the crescent and the circle around the star
1/3 G
F:
Diameter of the circle around the star
1/4 G
L:
Length
1 ½ G
M:
Width of the seam band
1/30 G

HISTORY OF TURKEY

-FOUNDATION OF NEW TURKISH REPUBLIC

The Republic of Turkey was the succesor state of the Ottoman Empire, following the overthrow of Sultan Mehmet VI.Vahdettin by the new Republican assembly of Turkey in 1922. This new regime delivered the 'coup de grâce' to the Ottoman state which had been practically wiped away from the world stage following the First World War.

-WAR OF INDEPENDENCE

Atatürk, modern Turkey's founder and first President
Turkish nationalist established modern Turkey as an outcome of the Turkish War of Independence, mostly on what was to become Turkish territory, as of the Treaty of Lausanne. The Turkish War of Independence saw the defeat of Greece in western Turkey (see Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922)), the East Armenian state on the east; (2 November 1920 Gümrü Treaty), Britain, France, and Georgia. The Treaty of Lausanne, signed on July 24, 1923, and negotiated by İsmet Pasha (İnönü) on behalf of the Ankara government, established most of the modern boundaries of the country (except the province of Hatay, formerly the Syrian province of Alexandretta, which joined Turkey following a referendum organized in the province in 1939 after having gained its independence from France in 1938). The Treaty of Lausanne also led to the international recognition of the sovereignty of the new Republic of Turkey as the successor state of the defunct Ottoman Empire. The Republic of Turkey was founded as a nation-state on the French Revolutionary model.

-SINGLE PARTY PERIOD

***1923- 1938: Atatürk
The history of modern Turkey begins with the foundation of the republic on October 29, 1923, with Mustafa Kemal (Atatürk) as its first president. The government was formed from the Ankara-based revolutionary group, led by Atatürk. The second constitution was ratified by the Grand National Assembly of Turkey on April 20, 1924. For about the next 10 years, the country saw a steady process of secular Westernization through Atatürk's Reforms, which included the unification of education; the discontinuation of religious and other titles; the closure of Islamic courts and the replacement of Islamic canon law with a secular civil code modeled after Switzerland's and a penal code modeled after the Italian Penal Code; recognition of the equality between the sexes and the granting of full political rights to women on 5 December 1934; the language reform initiated by the newly founded Turkish Language Association; replacement of the Ottoman Turkish alphabet with the new Turkish alphabet derived from the Latin alphabet; the dress law (the wearing of a fez, a traditional Muslim hat, is outlawed); the law on family names; and many others.
However, the first party to be established in the newly formed republic was Women's Party (Kadınlar Halk Fırkası). It was founded by Nezihe Muhiddin and several other women but was stopped from its activities, since during the time women were not yet legally allowed to engage in politics. The actual passage to multi-party period was first attempted with the Liberal Republican Party by Ali Fethi Okyar. However, the Liberal Party was dissolved on 17 November 1930 and no further attempt for a multi-party democracy was made until 1945. Turkey was admitted to the League of Nations in July 1932.

***1938-1950: İnönü
Atatürk's successor after his death on November 10, 1938 was İsmet İnönü. He started his term in the office as a respected figure of the Independence War but because of internal fights between power groups and external events like the World War which caused a lack of goods in the country, he lost some of his popularity and support. During World War II, Turkey signed a peace treaty with Germany and officially remained neutral until near the end of war. In 1945, Turkey joined the UN, and in February 1945 it declared war on Germany and Japan, although this was largely symbolic. In 1946, İnönü leaded Turkey to the multi-party elections and won it. He remained as the president of the country until 1950. He is still remembered as one of the key figures of Turkey.

-MULTI-PARTY PERIOD

The real multi-party period begins with the election of the Democratic Party. The Menderes government was very popular at first, relaxing the restrictions on Islam and presiding over a booming economy. In the later half of the decade, however, the economy began to fail and the government introduced censorship laws limiting dissent. The government became plagued by high inflation and a massive debt. On May 27, 1960 General Cemal Gürsel led a military coup d'état removing President Celal Bayar and Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, the second of whom was executed. The system returned to civilian control in October of 1961. The political system that emerged in the wake of the 1960 coup was a fractured one, producing a series of unstable government coalitions in parliament alternating between the Justice Party of Süleyman Demirel on the right and the Republican People's Party of İsmet İnönü and Bülent Ecevit on the left. A new coup was staged in 1971, and in the 1970s under Prime Minister Ecevit in coalition with the religious National Salvation Party, Turkey carried out an invasion of Cyprus. The fractured political scene and poor economy led to mounting violence between ultranationalists and communists in the streets of Turkey's cities. A military coup d'état took place in 1980. Within two years, the military had returned the government to civilian hands. The political system came under one-party governance under Turgut Özal's Motherland Party, which combined a globally-oriented economic program with conservative social values. Under Özal, the economy boomed, converting towns like Gaziantep from small provincial capitals into mid-sized economic boomtowns.
With the turn of the 1990s, political instability returned. The 1995 elections brought a short-lived coalition between Yılmaz's Motherland Party and the True Path Party, now with Tansu Çiller at the helm. In 1997, the military, citing his government's support for religious policies deemed dangerous to Turkey's secular nature, sent a memorandum to Erbakan government requesting that he resign, which he did. This was named a postmodern coup. Shortly thereafter, the RP was banned and re-born under the name Virtue Party (FP). A new government was formed by ANAP and Ecevit's Democratic Left Party (DSP) supported from the outside by the center-left Republican People's Party (CHP), led by Deniz Baykal. The DSP won big in the 1999 elections. Second place went to the Nationalist Action Party (MHP). These two parties, alongside Yılmaz's ANAP formed a government. The government was somewhat effective, if not harmonious, bringing about much-needed economic reform, instituting human rights legislation, and bringing Turkey ever closer to the European Union. A series of economic shocks led to new elections in 2002, bringing into power the religiously conservative Justice and Development Party of former mayor of Istanbul, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.