From Pelagius at Covadonga and Abd al-Rahman's foundation of the Emirate of Córdoba through the caliphate of the Umayyads, Madinat al-Zahra and Almanzor's raids, the taifa kingdoms and the school of translators at Toledo, the Almoravid and Almohad crossings, the great Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa and the conquests of Fernando III, the Alhambra of the Nasrids, the pogroms of 1391 and the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs, to the fall of Granada, the Alhambra Decree, and Columbus's landfall in 1492. Slide across seven centuries of conquest, convivencia, and Reconquista.
In a narrow valley of the Picos de Europa, the Visigothic exile Pelagius defeats a Muslim column under Munuza and is acclaimed king by his followers — the legendary origin of the Christian kingdom of Asturias and of the Reconquista.
From Pelagius at Covadonga and Abd al-Rahman's foundation of the Emirate of Córdoba through the caliphate of the Umayyads, Madinat al-Zahra and Almanzor's raids, the taifa kingdoms and the school of translators at Toledo, the Almoravid and Almohad crossings, the great Christian victory at Las Navas de Tolosa and the conquests of Fernando III, the Alhambra of the Nasrids, the pogroms of 1391 and the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs, to the fall of Granada, the Alhambra Decree, and Columbus's landfall in 1492. Slide across seven centuries of conquest, convivencia, and Reconquista.
In a narrow valley of the Picos de Europa, the Visigothic exile Pelagius defeats a Muslim column under Munuza and is acclaimed king by his followers — the legendary origin of the Christian kingdom of Asturias and of the Reconquista.
The young Umayyad prince Abd al-Rahman, sole survivor of the dynasty's massacre by the Abbasids in 750, lands in al-Andalus, defeats the Abbasid governor, and proclaims himself emir at Córdoba — founding a state that will rule Iberian Islam for nearly three centuries.
After bringing the rebel cities and Berber chiefs to heel, Abd al-Rahman III takes the title of Caliph and 'Commander of the Faithful', breaking definitively with Baghdad and Fatimid Tunis and giving Córdoba a rank with the great cities of the Mediterranean world.
The hajib al-Mansur — Almanzor in the Christian sources — leads his Berber army through Galicia and sacks the pilgrim shrine of Saint James, carrying off its bells to be hung as lamps in the Great Mosque of Córdoba.
After more than twenty years of civil war between Umayyad, Berber, and Slav factions, the notables of Córdoba abolish the caliphate. Al-Andalus splinters into more than thirty mutually warring city-states — the muluk al-tawa'if, 'party kings'.
After a long blockade, Alfonso VI of León-Castile receives the surrender of Toledo, the ancient Visigothic capital. The first great taifa to fall to a Christian king transforms the strategic and intellectual map of the peninsula.
Summoned by the alarmed taifa kings, the Almoravid amir Yusuf ibn Tashfin crosses from Morocco and routs Alfonso VI at Sagrajas (al-Zallaqa) near Badajoz, halting the Christian advance and ushering in two generations of Berber rule over al-Andalus.
On 16 July, a coalition led by Alfonso VIII of Castile, with Pedro II of Aragon, Sancho VII of Navarre, and the bishops of half Iberia, breaks the army of the Almohad caliph al-Nasir in a single day at Las Navas de Tolosa in the Sierra Morena.
After a fifteen-month siege, the Almohad capital of Seville surrenders to Fernando III of Castile and León. Its great mosque becomes the cathedral, its minaret the Giralda, and Castile reaches the Atlantic at Cádiz and the bay of Algeciras.
Muhammad ibn al-Ahmar enters Granada and is acclaimed sultan, founding the Nasrid dynasty that will hold the last Muslim state of Iberia for two and a half centuries — a tributary of Castile but a brilliant centre of arts and learning.
Beside the river Salado near Tarifa, Alfonso XI of Castile, joined by Alfonso IV of Portugal, smashes a joint Marinid–Granadan army. The defeat ends seven centuries of attempted Muslim invasions from the Maghreb.
Beginning in Seville on the preaching of archdeacon Ferrand Martínez, anti-Jewish riots sweep the Iberian cities. Hundreds are killed, and tens of thousands accept baptism under duress — creating a converso population whose ambiguous status will haunt Spain for generations.
On 19 October, Princess Isabella of Castile, eighteen, marries her cousin Ferdinand of Aragon, seventeen, in a private ceremony at the Palace of the Vivero. The dynastic union that emerges will weld Castile and Aragon into the political body of a future Spain.
On 2 January, the last Nasrid sultan Muhammad XII — Boabdil to the Spaniards — hands over the keys of the Alhambra to Ferdinand and Isabella. After seven hundred and eighty-one years, no Muslim state remains in the Iberian peninsula.