Murad III

Jerry: I did this thing on the Ottoman Empire. Like, what was this? A whole empire based on putting your feet up?

Oh, Jerry! The footstool is named after the empire, not the other way around! The empire was established at the turn of the 14th century, while the first known usage of "ottoman" to refer to the furniture is 1729. Tsk, tsk.

No, the Ottoman Empire is more known for, well, conquest, spreading its reach past the Middle East. Under the reign of Murad III (1574 - 1595) it reached as far as Budapest in the North and Ethiopia in the South. A century later, it tried to take over Vienna, failed after a long siege, and fell into steady decline. But let's get back to Murad! What is he doing on our website?

Murad was the son of Selim II (Selim the Drunkard!) and his cohort Nurbanu, who, some historians believe, was "of Jewish descent named Rachel". It's supposedly listed as such in the Encyclopaedia of Islam, and who are we to argue with that?

Nevertheless, there is obviously no proof, so we'll err on the side of caution. One thing we're willing to concede:

If he had to put his feet up, he definitely used an ottoman.