Osman was almost fifty-six when he became sultan having spent fifty-one years in the Cage.  This confinement had clearly left him with behavioural peculiarities, he is said to have despised women and wore hob-nailed boots so that any females could hear him approach and make themselves scarce.  Four of his cousins, sons of Ahmet III, were still in the Cage when he succeeded and one of them, Mehmet, was very popular.  Hence, on January 2nd 1756, Mehmet’s thirty-ninth birthday, Osman had him poisoned.  This was the last instance of such an execution, with a total of seventy-eight princes having been killed over four and a half centuries.

Osman’s main interest in life was eating – he is said to have had an insatiable appetite.

In the first year of his reign he completed the mosque complex begun by his predecessor calling it Nuruosmaniye – it can still be visited in Istanbul adjacent to the Grand Bazaar.

Osman died of a stroke on 29th October 1757 and was succeeded by the eldest of his surviving cousins, Mustafa III.