Edessa - Odessa

Do not confuse the place-names Edessa and Odessa. Although only the first letter is different, and the pronunciation of the two in rapid speech may be indistinguishable, they are not connected other than by coincidence.

• Edessa (Ἔδεσσα) was a city in Upper Mesopotamia founded in the fourth century BCE and named after the ancient capital of Macedonia. The city is now known as 'Urfa, or Şanlıurfa, a city in Turkey.
  • The state of Edessa was ruled by Crusaders from 1098, when Baldwin I (of Boulogne) established the County of Edessa as its first Count. When Baldwin became King of Jerusalem in 1100, he passed the county of Edessa to Baldwin of Bourg, a relative of his, who became Baldwin II of Edessa - and later, in 1118, on the death of Baldwin I, King Baldwin II of Jerusalem. At that point, Joscelin of Courtenay, Prince of Galilee and Lord of Turbessel (1115–1131) was made Count of Edessa, as Joscelin I. He was succeeded by his son Joscelin II in 1131; the latter was deposed after defeats in 1144 and 1146. He was captured in the last of these, and after being publicly blinded, died in captivity in 1159. His son assumed the title of Joscelin III, Count of Edessa, but never ruled. After the siege of Edessa in 1144, Edessa was ruled under Turkish power, initially by Nur ad-Din (d.1174). The fall of Edessa was the spark for the second crusade (1147-1149).

• Odessa is a city, and important port, on the Black Sea. It is now within Ukraine. It was named, in 1794, under Catherine the Great when it was ruled by Russia, in the mistaken belief that it was the site of the ancient Greek colony of Odessos (Ὀδησσός), actually the Bulgarian city of Varna.