What event in 1204 temporarily ended the Byzantine Empire and created the Latin Empire?

The Fourth Crusade temporarily ended the Byzantine Empire in 1204 by capturing and sacking Constantinople and establishing the Latin Empire.

The crusade had originally been called to recover Jerusalem, but financial disputes and Byzantine dynastic politics redirected the crusaders. They first intervened in Constantinople to restore the deposed emperor Isaac II Angelos and his son Alexios IV. When promised payments and support failed to materialize, the crusaders attacked the city.

Constantinople fell in April 1204. The victors looted the capital, destroyed or removed many treasures, and installed Baldwin of Flanders as emperor of a new Catholic-ruled state, the Latin Empire. Byzantine authority survived in successor states, especially the Empire of Nicaea, the Empire of Trebizond, and the Despotate of Epirus.

The Byzantine Empire was therefore not permanently erased in 1204. The Empire of Nicaea recaptured Constantinople in 1261 under Michael VIII Palaiologos and restored Byzantine rule. The Fourth Crusade is often confused with the First, Third, or later crusades, but it was the Fourth Crusade's diversion and capture of Constantinople that produced the Latin Empire.