Galata Tower

The Galata Tower is a nine-story stone cylinder capped by a conical roof that looms over the northern shore of the Golden Horn. The Genoese built this structure in thirteen forty-eight as the centerpiece of their fortified colony. For centuries, Ottoman fire watchers used the high gallery to spot smoke across the city. In sixteen thirty-eight, a man named Hezarfen Ahmed Celebi strapped handmade wings to his back, jumped from the top, and glided all the way across the water to Üsküdar.