The medieval 'Reconquest' of Spain still reverberates for visitors today

[Max Pesling]

 

Yesterday marked the 528th anniversary of the fall of Islamic Granada to the armies of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella, marking the culmination of the Reconquista from the Moors - whose Umayyad Caliphate forces had swept into the Iberian Peninsula from North Africa in 711, overrunning the Visigothic kingdoms which had inherited the peninsula from Roman Hispania and establishing a European Islamic realm known as Al-Andalus, which ended up enduring for centuries. Here’s a quick and hugely simplified look at that complex, centuries-long process - which ended up defining the history and culture of Spain as we know it today.

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