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SPAIN - PREHISTORY - THE FALL OF MUSLIM IBERIA

Fall of Muslim rule and unification
The term Reconquista ("Recon quest") is used to describe the centuries-long period of expansion of Spain's Christian kingdoms; the Reconquista is viewed as beginning in 722 with the creation of the Christian Kingdom of Asturias, only eleven years after the Moorish invasion.

As early as 739, Muslim forces were driven out of Galicia, which was to host one of medieval Christianity's holiest sites, Santiago de Compostella. The break-up of Al-Andalus into the competing Taifa kingdoms helped the expanding Christian kingdoms.

The capture of the central city of Toledo in 1085 largely completed the recon quest of the northern half of Spain. The great Moorish strongholds in the south fell to Christian Spain in the 13th century—Córdoba in 1236 and Seville in 1248—leaving only the Muslim enclave of Granada as a tributary state in the south. Also in the 13th century, the kingdom of Aragón expanded its reach across the Mediterranean to Sicily.

In 1469, the crowns of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragón were united by the marriage of Isabella and Ferdinand. In 1492, these United kingdoms captured Granada, ending a 781 year presence of Islamic rule on the Iberian Peninsula.

The year 1492 also marked the arrival in the New World of Christopher Columbus, during a voyage funded by Isabella. That same year, Spain's large Jewish community was expelled during the Spanish Inquisition.

As Renaissance New Monarchs, Isabella and Ferdinand centralized royal power at the expense of local nobility, and the word España began being used to designate the whole of the two kingdoms. With their wide ranging political, legal and military reforms, Spain emerged as a European great power.

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