During the reign of Constantine the Great in the 4th century notable aristocracy from Constantinople first settled on the island. By 569, many Byzantine aristocrats had built palaces on the island that they had accepted as their home. The greatest palace of this period was built by the Emperor Justinian I. With the Emperor came a large entourage of nobility, palace guards, tradesmen, and servants. Justinian also built a large convent on Marmara that is one of the earliest in recorded history. The Byzantine royal presence on the island was strongly felt through strong ties to the Patriarchate of Constantinople. During most of its history, the island was called "Proikonnesos" (island of the royal dowry), and "Prinkipo", (island of the aristocracy). From the fall of the Byzantine Empire through the beginning of the Ottoman period the island was almost exclusively populated by Greek Orthodox Greeks . Beginning in the 17th century some Turks and a relatively large number of Jewish people lived on the island; most of these were Sephardi who had left Spain after the Inquisition. During World War I much of the population was forced off of the island onto the mainland. And, following the war, as a result of the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne and the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, all remaining Greeks native to the island of Marmara emigrated to Greece and other locations around the globe. The island's Greek Orthodox diaspora settled primarily in New Marmara, the island of Euboea, in Greece and in the northern Greek city of Thessaloniki. In addition, Canada, Australia and South America were popular destinations for Greek immigration of that time. Many of the former Jewish residents settled in the North American cities of New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Portland (Oregon) and the Seattle/Tacoma area. Many of the current residents of Marmara Adasi are descendants of Turks who fled Greek islands during the population transfers of the 1920s and Circassians (Çerkesler) originally from the Russian Caucasus. On 4 January 1935 at 16:41:29 local time, an earthquake hit the Marmara Island and its neighboring islands Avşa and Paşalimanı, causing five deaths, 30 persons injured and several villages destroyed.