1492: Granada fell in January, Columbus reached the Americas in October, and in November the Ensisheim meteorite fell in Alsace — one of Europe's oldest witnessed falls.
The events
- Fall of Granada1492 · Granada. After a ten-year war, the Catholic Monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella accepted the surrender of Granada, the last Muslim state in Iberia. Its fall completed the Reconquista; the same year Spain expelled its Jews.
- Ensisheim meteorite1492 · Ensisheim, Alsace. On 7 November 1492 a stony meteorite of about 127 kg fell in a wheat field near Ensisheim, one of the oldest falls both documented and preserved. Only weeks earlier Columbus had reached the Bahamas.
More amazing facts
- 1480 · 1492 The Horde's rule over Rus' ended with the Great Stand on the Ugra in 1480 — only 12 years before Columbus reached the Americas.
- 1480 · 1492 Rus threw off the Horde in 1480 and Spain completed the Reconquista in 1492: two centuries-long struggles ended almost together.
- 1485 · 1508 The Kremlin's present walls were built by Italian masters (1485–1495).
- 1494 · 1497 Ivan III's law code (1497) appeared three years after Spain and Portugal divided the world between them at Tordesillas.
- 1519 · 1521 While Magellan's expedition circled the globe, Cortés fought the Aztecs.
- 1521 · 1697 The last independent Maya kingdom fell only in 1697, 176 years after Tenochtitlan, when Peter the Great was already ruling Russia.