Fall of Granada
The union of Castile and Aragon under Ferdinand and Isabella (1479) removed the inter-Christian rivalry that had allowed the Nasrid emirate of Granada to survive for two and a half centuries. From 1482 the Catholic Monarchs directed unified military and fiscal resources against the emirate in a decade-long war of attrition. Nasrid resistance was fatally undermined by a civil war among Abu'l-Hasan Ali, his son Boabdil (Muhammad XII), and El Zagal. Boabdil accepted Castilian backing against his rivals in exchange for promises of vassal status, turning the final campaign into a managed surrender rather than an open defeat. Granada capitulated on 2 January 1492. The conquest annexed the last Muslim polity in Iberia. The initial capitulation treaties promised religious toleration for the large Muslim population, but these guarantees were revoked within a decade, forcing conversion or expulsion and creating the Morisco community that would face inquisitorial persecution and final expulsion in 1609-14. The victory also freed Castilian energies for the conquest of the Americas, begun the same year.
- Year: 1492 CE
- Category: Military
