Sultan Abdul Hamid Ii

Ottoman ruler, the 34th and the last Sultan of the Empire, who exerted effective autocratic control over the fracturing state. He oversaw a period of decline in the power and extent of the Ottoman Empire, including widespread pogroms and government-sanctioned massacres of Armenians and Bulgarians, as well as an assassination attempt, ruling from 31 August 1876 until he was deposed shortly after the 1908 Young Turk Revolution, on 27 April 1909. In accordance with an agreement made with the republican Young Ottomans, he promulgated the first Ottoman constitution of 1876 on 23 December 1876, which was a sign of progressive thinking that marked his early rule. Later, however, he claimed Western influence on Ottoman affairs and citing disagreements with Parliament, suspended both the short-lived constitution and Parliament in 1878 seized absolute power, ending the First Constitutional Era of the Ottoman Empire. Abdul Hamid's 1909 removal from the throne was supported by most Ottoman citizens, who welcomed the return to constitutional rule after three decades. Abroad, Abdul Hamid was nicknamed the Red Sultan or Abdul the Damned due to the massacres committed against minorities during his rule and use of secret police to silence dissent and republicanism. These initiatives led to an assassination attempt in 1905, contributing to the sultan's worsening paranoia until his eventual removal from the throne. Abdul Hamid II had thirteen wives and seventeen children. He spent his last days studying, carpentering and writing his memoirs in custody at Beylerbeyi Palace in the Bosphorus, where he died on 10 February 1918, just a few months before his brother, the Sultan. Link to Wikipedia biography