Stretching over three continents and lasting over six centuries, the Ottoman Empire was one of the most powerful empires in history at its height. But toward the end of its existence it committed several notable atrocities. In 1876, 8,000 Ottoman soldiers massacred the defenseless population of Batak in Bulgaria, beheading and burning alive at least 5,000 people. Between 1915 and 1918 the Ottoman government slaughtered 1.5 million of the 2 million Armenians living in Turkey. This was in an attempt to systematically exterminate non-Muslims from their homeland. During the genocide, children and the elderly were sent on death marches through the Syrian desert. This covered hundreds of miles, and those marching were often naked so they would perish from dehydration and the heat of the sun. To this day, the Turkish government denies the Armenian genocide, in which ruthless armies called ‘butcher battalions’ allegedly drowned people, burned victims alive, and threw them off cliffs.