![[Pasted image 20250201172531.png]] Just to the east of [[Portugal]], King [[Ferdinand of Aragon]] married Queen [[Isabella of Castile]] in 1469, uniting two of the most powerful independent kingdoms on the Iberian peninsula and laying the foundation for the modern nation of Spain. Queen Isabella was also a religious zealot: she began the Spanish Inquisition in 1480, a brutal campaign to root out Jews and Muslims who had been forced to convert to Christianity but were suspected of secretly continuing to practice their faith. This powerful couple ruled for the next twenty-five years, centralizing authority and funding exploration and trade with the East. One of their daughters, [[Catherine of Aragon]], became the first wife of King [[Henry VIII]] of England. The year 1492 was the most significant of Ferdinand and Isabella’s reign. The couple oversaw the final expulsion of North African Muslims, called [Moors](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moors), from the [Emirate of Granada](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emirate_of_Granada), bringing the nearly eight-hundred-year *Reconquista* to an end. They also ordered all unconverted Jews to leave Spain. Finally, after six years of lobbying, a Genoese sailor named Christopher Columbus persuaded the monarchs to fund his expedition to the Far East. Columbus had already pitched his plan to the rulers of Genoa and Venice without success and the Portuguese had already discovered and controlled a route to Asia around the bottom of Africa. Columbus’s proposal to cross the Atlantic was the Spanish monarchy’s  last hope of controlling a route to Asia. Christian zeal was a prime motivating factor for Isabella, as she imagined her faith spreading to the East. Ferdinand hoped to acquire wealth from trade. --- Next: [[1.26 Africa]] Back: [[1.24 Vikings]]