The Spanish Reconquest, also known as the “Reconquista,” is one of the most pivotal aspects of European history. The Christian attempt to recapture Spain from Muslim rule spanned centuries and was rarely a consistent effort. Owing to squabbles between the various Christian kingdoms as well as successful campaigns undertaken by the Muslim rulers of al-Andalus (the Arabic name for Iberia), the Reconquista lasted from the eighth century AD until the late 15th century.

Most writers will date the end of the Reconquest at January 2, 1492, for on that day, the final redoubt of Muslim power, Granada, fell to the allied Christian forces of King Ferdinand V and Queen Isabella I. Following this triumph, an emboldened Spain ventured forth into the New World. Along with Portugal, another mostly Christian nation that experienced Muslim rule for centuries, the Spanish crown established a global empire that peaked in the 16th century.

As with most history, the usual story about the Reconquest is too neat. For starters, Spanish Muslims continued to exist after 1492, and their eventual expulsion from Spain was due to the rebellions that followed the successful conclusion of the Reconquista. Furthermore, the Reconquest involved many more players than just the Christian kingdoms of Spain. The protracted war touched France, Portugal, North Africa, and the various ethnic minorities of Western Europe. The full story of the Reconquest is rarely told. This list hopes to shed some light on the war’s darker corners.

10 Spain Was An Invasion Magnet Before the Reconquest

Brazilian sociologist Gilberto Freyre became famous for arguing a sort of novel theory in defense of colonialism. According to Freyre, the Portuguese were better imperialists and colonizers than other Europeans because of their history of miscegenation. Called “Lustrotropicalism,” Freyre’s theory essentially claims that because Portuguese people are an amalgam of Iberian, Celtic, Roman, and Berber bloodlines, they are more willing to interbreed with their colonial subjects, be they Native Brazilians, Chinese, or Africans. As a result, the long-lasting Portuguese Empire successfully created a sort of “racial democracy,” whereby ethnic and racial identity was allowed to flourish so long as a shared sense of Portuguese culture remained.

This theory has been scrutinized and criticized since its first publication, but Freyre is undoubtedly right that Portugal and Spain have seen their fair share of population mixing. Spain, for instance, once sported both Phoenician and Greek colonies. Even the Etruscans of Italy founded merchant colonies in ancient Iberia. The Spanish port city of Cadiz has a history that is especially tied to non-Iberian outsiders, for the city itself was founded by Phoenician traders from the city of Tyre. During the Second Punic War, the modern Spanish city of Cartagena was known as New Carthage and was the capital of Carthaginian-controlled Iberia.

Before the beginning of the Reconquest, Spain, which had long been a source of horses, fighting men, and generals for the Roman Empire, experienced several invasions from the Germanic tribes of Central and Northern Europe. During the early fifth century AD, Vandal, Alan, Suebi, and Asding raiders took control of large swaths of Spain. By the mid-fifth century, the Vandals, under kings Gunderic and Gaiseric, established themselves as the chief rulers of Iberia and North Africa. When the first Muslim armies invaded Spain, the force that opposed them was primarily composed of Visigothic Christians, the Germanic rulers of both Spain and Portugal.

9 The Battle That Kick-Started The Reconquest

The Battle of Covadonga is controversial among historians. Some label it as nothing more than a minor skirmish, while others have called it the most important Christian success in Spain during the eighth century. Whatever the case, the Battle of Covadonga certainly helped to change the tide of the Muslim takeover of Spain, even if that change was small.

In the summer of 722 AD, a small band of Visigothic nobles led by Pelagius had fled to the Bay of Biscay, a mountainous and rainy region that was known for its stubborn independence. There, the Visigoths combined forces with local Iberian and Celtic fighters in order to repel a much larger Umayyad army. From their cave headquarters, which they called Santa Maria, the Christians, who numbered somewhere around 300 men, squared off against a Muslim force numbering somewhere between 25,000 and 180,000.

For their part, the Umayyad Moors were not terribly interested in occupying Northern Spain. However, given that Pelagius (sometimes spelled as Pelayo) and his men refused to pay the jiyza, the tax on non-Muslims, the Umayyad generals Munuza and Al Qama sought to rid themselves of the last Christian thorn in their sides. According to most Christian accounts of the battle, after Pelagius refused an offer to peacefully surrender, the best Muslim fighters were sent into the valley as shock troops. From their cave hideout, the Christians rushed into the valley with the element of surprise in their favor. Depending on the source, the Muslim losses were either disastrous or hardly worth noting.

Following his victory, peasants in and around the Bay of Biscay took up arms and began to attack the retreating Muslims. With Pelagius as their leader, they established the Kingdom of Asturias, the first Christian kingdom in Muslim-dominated Iberia. After a larger Muslim force failed to capture Asturias a few years later, Pelagius and the subsequent kings of Asturias began to capture parts of northern Spain and Portugal, such as Galicia, Leon, and Castile.

8 The Frankish War With The Basque

During the early years of the Muslim conquest of Spain, the chief power in Europe was France. Prior to capturing what was then called Gaul, the Franks had been feared border guards for the Western Roman Empire. They were also noted for their piracy. All told, the Franks were a fearsome force of Germanic “barbarians” who successfully captured Gaul in the late fifth century following the collapse of Rome. Amazingly, despite being a minority in a country mostly composed of Gallo-Roman citizens, the Franks managed to maintain power for centuries. In fact, it was the Franks who saved Christian Europe from further Arab Muslim conquest with Charles Martel’s victory at Tours in 732, and it was also the Frankish Merovingian Kingdom and the Carolingian Empire that saved Greco-Roman culture from disappearing during the so-called Dark Ages.

By the eighth century, Frankish power was expanding drastically under the brilliant leadership of Charlemagne. As Frankish power consolidated to the east, Charlemagne sought to achieve Frankish success in the west, namely in Spain. While Christian and Muslim armies battled for territory, Charlemagne received an offer from Sulaiman Ibn al-Arabi, the Muslim governor of Barcelona. Fearing that his city might fall into the hands of the Christian Spanish, al-Arabi offered Charlemagne an alliance. For agreeing to protect Barcelona against any Christian invasion, Charlemagne was promised territory in Spain.

Accordingly, in 777 AD, an army led by Charlemagne crossed the Pyrenees Mountains and quickly captured the city of Pamplona. Next, the Franks captured Zaragoza but met with stiff resistance from that city’s Muslim governor. Ultimately, Charlemagne abandoned Zaragoza after receiving a fortune in gold. When a Saxon rebellion began to cause trouble, Charlemagne decided to return to France. But before reaching the Pyrenees, Charlemagne destroyed Pamplona’s defenses so that the city could never be used as a base for future attacks into Frankish territory.

In August 778, Charlemagne’s army had become a long, vulnerable train. As such, Roland, the prefect of Breton March and one of Charlemagne’s best generals, was given the task of securing the army’s rear guard. On August 15, Roland’s force came under attack. Their enemies were Basque irregulars who sought revenge for Charlemagne’s assault on Pamplona, which was one of the most important centers of Basque power in Spain. The Basque attack, which became known as the Battle of Roncesvalles, was a disaster for the Franks. However, the incredible courage shown by Roland and his men inspired the epic poem “The Song of Roland,” the oldest major work of French literature. In the poem, instead of fighting Basque guerrillas, Roland and his men are set upon by Muslim fighters from Spain.

7 The Birth Of A Separate Catalonia

Despite the Basque victory at Roncesvalles and Charlemagne’s earlier alliance with al-Arabi, he still sought a buffer zone between his Christian kingdom and the Muslims of Spain. So, in the late eighth century, the Franks returned to Spain. First, Charlemagne’s army ended the Muslim occupation of Southern France and thereby created the March of Septimania. Next, Charlemagne attempted to retake Zaragoza but failed. Then, in 801, Charlemagne netted a major prize when his army successfully occupied the important city of Barcelona. From there, the Franks conquered most of Catalonia and established it as the Spanish March—a reinforced buffer state designed to stop Muslim armies from reaching France.

For two centuries, the Spanish March was ruled by Frankish or local counts appointed by Charlemagne’s court. This lasted until 985, when a Moorish force under the leadership of Al-Mansour managed to sack Barcelona. Incensed that he had received zero assistance from the Carolingian army, Count Borrell II declared the state of Catalonia independent of Frankish rule. Even before this declaration, Catalonia had enjoyed widespread autonomy, which in turn allowed a separate identity to form. Arguably, the roots of Catalan independence formed at this time.

6 The Granada Massacre Of 1066

It has long been a common conceit that during Muslim rule in Spain, Iberian Jews experienced a cultural “golden age.” Especially under the independent Emirate of Cordoba, Sephardic Jews enjoyed an almost idyllic existence on an island of religious tolerance surrounded by a sea of Christian intolerance. While there may be kernels of truth to this, for the most part, Spanish Jews were not entirely appreciated by their Muslim superiors.

More broadly speaking, Islamic Spain was no more tolerant or open-minded than Christian Europe. Underneath the Umayyads, the Emirate of Cordoba, and the Almoravids, books deemed blasphemous were publicly burned and their authors imprisoned and executed. Likewise, although Christians and Jews could attain high positions in the government, they were always considered second-class citizens and were forced to pay the jiyza if they did not convert to Islam. Indeed, many jihadist terrorists today uphold Islamic Spain not as a beacon of multicultural hope, but as a perfect example of a country ruled by Islamic fundamentalism.

No action highlights the false myth of an enlightened Spain under Muslim rule like the Granada Massacre of 1066. On December 30, 1066, an estimated 4,000 Jews were killed by a Arab mob in the important Andalusian city of Granada. What sparked this violence has long been debated, but a general consensus claims that the Jews of Granada were the unfortunate scapegoats in a sociopolitical conflict between the North African Arabs and the Berbers. As was the case in most of the Islamic world, Arabs in Islamic Spain were considered a privileged class. The Berbers, many of whom belonged to Islamic sects that were considered “heretical” by the Sunni Arabs, therefore often struck out against what they believed were anti-Berber political policies.

While it’s just as likely that a popular anti-Semitic poem by Abu Ishaq of Elvira gave breath to the pogrom, the massacre ended with the gruesome crucifixion of Joseph ibn Naghrela, the Jewish vizier to the Berber king of Granada.

5 The Involvement Of The Knights Templar

Although the Knights Templar were primarily a French military order led by and composed of French knights, other orders from different European kingdoms existed as well. One force led by a Portuguese master knight named Gomes Ramires fought alongside the Christian kingdoms of Aragon, Portugal, Navarre, and Castile during the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. The battle, which is considered one of the more important battles of the entire Reconquista, was a massive success for the Christian alliance.

The origins of the battle start with a failed truce between Alfonso VIII of Castile and Abu Yusuf Yaqub al-Mansur. By 1209, after a series of military setbacks, Pope Innocent III was encouraging Spanish Christians to continue on with the reconquest of Spain. Exploiting the weakness of Muhammad al-Nasir, Abu Yusuf’s son and successor, Castile and its allies captured the cities of Jaen and Murcia and founded the town of Moya in 1210. Pedro II of Aragon also captured the cities of Adamuz, Sertella, and Castellfabib.

In order to stop further Christian success, especially in the Muslim province of Valencia, al-Nasir began a siege of Toledo, the capital city of Castile. Although this siege failed, Al-Nasir still managed to capture the castle of Salvatierra. The next spring, when Al-Nasir launched a second siege of Toledo, the Pope called for a crusade, which attracted knights from France, Navarre, Portugal, Leon, and other kingdoms.

In July 1212, approximately 100,000 Christian soldiers, including Templars, faced off against approximately 120,00 Almohad troops, most of whom were North African Berbers. As in the Battle of Covadonga, the Christian forces used the element of surprise to their advantage and slaughtered their Muslim foes in a valley just northwest of Jaen.

Although most of the Templars had returned to France and Portugal by this point, their small contribution to the battle helped Alfonso VIII to capture the cities of Baeza and Ubeda. Furthermore, by 1233, Almohad control over Spain was no more due to internal feuding in North Africa.

4 The Conquest Of Ceuta

The Spanish Reconquista involved much more than just Spain. As already noted, France played an important role in the centuries of warfare between Spanish Christians and Muslims. The Kingdom of Portugal was likewise a key mover and shaker in the recapture of the Iberian Peninsula. In 1415, the Portuguese king John I brought the war beyond Spain’s borders when he led an expedition to the North African port of Ceuta, which was then controlled by the Marinid Empire, a Berber dynasty which controlled much of modern-day Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia.

Along with Henry the Navigator, some 200 Portuguese ships containing about 20,000 men landed at Ceuta and caught the city’s defenders off guard. The battle was incredibly lopsided, and Portuguese control over Ceuta was quickly established. Following their success at Ceuta, the Portuguese crown decided to capture the islands of Madeira, Porto Santo, the Azores, and Cape Verde soon thereafter.

By the 1460s, the Kingdom of Portugal had established trading outposts in West Africa. Unfortunately for Portugal, due to large-scale Spanish immigration, Ceuta sided with the Crown of Spain during the Portuguese Restoration War. Eventually, King Carlos II of Spain was awarded the colony by King Alfonso VI of Portugal in 1668. Since then, Ceuta has remained a troubled possession that has been frequently fought over.

3 The Aborted Plot Against King Alfonso X

By the mid-13th century, the war for Spain was clearly being won by the Christians. The western edge of North Africa was bitterly divided between the Almohads and the Marinids, which helped to weaken the fighting abilities of the Muslim kingdoms in Spain. The only kingdom strong enough to repeatedly resist Christian advances was the Kingdom of Granada in the thoroughly Muslim province of Andalusia. However, even Granada needed to keep the sea lanes open to North Africa in order to guarantee its survival. When King Alfonso X of Castile threatened to capture and occupy the Straits of Gibraltar, Mohammad I ibn Nasr, the founder of the Nasrid dynasty in the Kingdom of Granada, decided to fight.

Specifically, Mohammad I decided to use subterfuge in order to keep the Castilian crown from gaining a strong foothold in Southern Spain. Along with Ibn Hud, the Muslim ruler of Murcia and a vassal of Castile, Mohammad I readied a revolt among all Castilian Muslims. Sometime in 1264, the Muslim inhabitants of Seville were supposed to capture Alfonso X, but they failed to do so because the king was not in the city when the revolt erupted. Nevertheless, in May 1264, a full-fledged Muslim revolt against Castilian rule was underway and was bolstered by the addition of 3,000 Almohad warriors from Morocco.

The revolt managed to successfully capture several Andalusian cities until Alfonso X decided to act. Along with his Aragonese allies, Alfonso X’s Castilian army captured and annexed Murcia. Although a future revolt in 1272 forced the Castilian crown to concede some autonomy to Granada, Alfonso X’s successes in 1264 helped to secure much of Southern Spain for future Christian conquest.

In 1309, the Kingdom of Castile won Gibraltar for the first time after a siege. Then, in 1497, the North African port of Melilla was conquered by King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella.

2 The Rise Of Castile And Aragon

Although many countries have regionalistic divisions, few are as deeply divided as Spain. In modern Catalonia, the separatist position is especially strong, with one poll in 2014 indicating that 80 percent of Catalans prefer independence. While a large portion of this sentiment is based on economics (Catalonia is Spain’s richest region, and some feel that it has to constantly bail out underperforming provinces), an even greater chunk stems from Spain’s long history of regional autonomy. Like Catalonia, Spain’s Basque region is likewise a hotbed of separatism. Interestingly, during the Reconquista, many of today’s Spanish provinces ruled separately as independent kingdoms. As such, cultural and linguistic differences between Spanish regions deepened.

That being said, the age of the Reconquista also saw the first steps toward Spanish unification. The main drivers of this push were the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. For the latter, independence came after breaking away from the Kingdom of Navarre and pushing the region’s sizable Muslim population further south. During the medieval period, Aragon became a major European empire that stretched from Spain to Greece.

While Aragon expanded eastward, the Kingdom of Castile (later the Crown of Castile) remained the most active proselytizer of the Reconquista. Through marriage and conquest, Castile became the most powerful Christian state in Europe by the 16th century. To this day, the influence of Castilian power during the Reconquista can be seen in the fact that the Castilian dialect of Spanish is the standard form of Spanish used by television stations and newspapers to this day.

1 The Last Muslim Revolts

The capture of Granada in 1492 certainly ended the offensive phase of the Reconquista, but the establishment of a fully Christian Spain was far from complete. Pursued by the Spanish Inquisition, a policy of forced conversions was adopted. Jews and Muslims were converted en masse, sometimes willingly but more often by force. The Muslims of Spain became Moriscos, or “Little Moors,” who outwardly practiced Christianity.

Despite this sweeping campaign of religious pacification, many Spanish rulers continued to distrust their formerly Jewish and Muslim neighbors. Even though most Spanish Moriscos outside of Andalusia couldn’t speak Arabic and had few solid attachments to the larger Muslim world, the rulers of Castile, Aragon, and the other Christian kingdoms continued to question their loyalty. Making all of this worse was the fact that by the 16th century, Catholic Spain had two major enemies in Europe—the Protestants and the Ottoman Empire, who could find ways to support a Morisco rebellion if they decided to do so.

Beginning in 1499, the Muslims of Granada openly rebelled against Christian rule. While the city itself was easily reconquered, the Andalusian countryside remained in rebellion until the forced baptisms of 1501. Over 60 years later, the Moriscos of Granada revolted again after the inquisitor Pedro de Deza forbade the use of Andalusian Arabic in public and private and required all Moriscos to speak only Castilian Spanish.

Beginning in the Albaycin neighborhood of Granada in 1568 and spreading to the mountains of Alpujarras, this second rebellion was far bloodier than its predecessor. It was also far more frightening to the Christian Spanish, for the revolt’s leader, a Morisco named Aben Humeya, was not only related to the former emirs of Cordoba, but also publicly renounced Christianity and sought the return of Muslim rule in the South. More troubling still, while the rebellion had its roots in Morisco discontent, its was economically supported by Algiers and the Ottoman Turks.

By 1570, the war had become a guerrilla campaign of international proportions. A year later, Christian forces led by Don Juan of Austria had killed the remaining rebels, expelled all Moriscos from Granada, and encouraged Christians to settle in the newly abandoned mountain villages.

Benjamin Welton is a freelance writer in Boston. He currently blogs at literarytrebuchet.blogspot.com.

Although the number of people killed by the Spanish Inquisition has been exaggerated into the hundreds of thousands or even millions over the years, the executions actually totaled around 3,000–5,000 people. But there’s no doubt that it was a brutal institution.

From 1478 until 1834, the Inquisition killed thousands of people in Spain and its colonies and arrested countless more. Its purpose was to root out heresy, and as we will see, it wasn’t afraid to go after children and even entire families.

10 Ines Esteban

In 1499, an unusual prophet popped up in the little Spanish town of Herrera del Duque. The soothsayer’s name was Ines Esteban, a girl of about 10 or 11 who claimed that the Messiah would come to the Earth next year. The Messiah would rescue the conversos, Jews who converted to Christianity, and take them to the Promised Land.

Ines’s prophecies gave the oppressed converso community hope. She became a popular figure, followed by children and adults alike. Her followers began to practice Jewish customs again, like resting on the Sabbath and obeying Mosaic law. They eagerly awaited the Messiah’s arrival, which was scheduled for March 8, 1500.

Naturally, the Inquisition was less than pleased to hear about all this.^[1] A month after the Messiah failed to show up, Ines was arrested by the Inquisition and held in the city of Toledo between May and July 1500. Although Ines Esteban was still a child, the Inquisition had no mercy. The poor girl ended up being burned at the stake.

9 Diego Rodriguez Lucero

Between 1499 and 1506, Cordoba was under the thumb of Diego Rodriguez Lucero, an inquisitor nicknamed “the bringer of darkness.”^[2] In one illustrative incident, Lucero sent a man named Julian Trigueros to the stake so he could take his wife. Another one of Lucero’s mistresses was taken by burning the woman’s parents and husband.

Whether they were conversos or Christians, peasants or noblemen, nobody was safe from Lucero’s cruelty. He routinely used torture and threats to get confessions and never thought twice about sending somebody to burn. In June 1506 alone, Lucero handed out 100 death sentences.

Eventually, everybody in Cordoba got so sick of Lucero that a marquis sent his army to attack and liberate Lucero’s prison. Lucero escaped, but the damage he caused was so scandalous that the Grand Inquisitor had him arrested in 1508. He was soon released, however, and died in Seville that same year.

8 William Lithgow

In 1620, the Scottish traveler William Lithgow was arrested by inquisitors in the port city of Malaga. The inquisitors suspected that Lithgow was an English spy but couldn’t find anything incriminating in his possessions. They admitted to Lithgow that he was innocent, yet decided to keep him in their custody for notes he’d written criticizing Catholicism in his books.

The inquisitors now accused Lithgow, a Calvinist, of being a heretic. He was tortured and starved so badly that the inquisitors were worried that he’d die. In fact, Lithgow was only kept alive by a pair of slaves, one black and the other Muslim, who sneaked him food in his cell. When he still refused to recant his religious beliefs, Lithgow was sentenced to be burned.^[3]

Luckily, the governor of Malaga intervened just before the innocent Scotsman was killed. He ordered Lithgow to be set free and sent back to England. It was a difficult recovery, and his left arm was permanently disabled from the Inquisition’s torture. But Lithgow survived and later wrote a book about his travels.

7 Joseph Perez

The Spanish Inquisition was mostly used to stamp out heresy, but it sometimes prosecuted people for other crimes, too. In the Kingdom of Aragon, for example, the Inquisition was allowed to handle sodomy cases. As in the rest of Spain where sodomy was handled by secular courts, the Inquisition originally treated it as a capital offense.

In 1633, the Aragonese Inquisition stopped giving out the death penalty for sodomy but only after they had conducted nearly 1,000 sodomy trials. One of the many men executed in these trials was Joseph Perez, a university professor who was taken into custody in 1613 for allegedly making passes at two of his students.^[4]

While waiting in prison, Perez apparently grew mad, so the Inquisition provided him with a doctor. At first, Perez was only going to be fined and banished. But then he met with his attorney, telling the man that the accusations against him were true and that he’d been having sex with his doctor in jail.

This was a terrible idea on Perez’s part. The attorney was technically his letrado, an attorney hired by the Inquisition. Needless to say, the letrado tattled, and Perez and his doctor were both sentenced to death.

6 Pedro de Arbues

The Inquisition was set up in the Kingdom of Aragon in 1484, but the wealthy converso community figured they would put up a fight with it. When the inquisitor Gaspar Juglar suddenly died, it was rumored that the conversos had poisoned him. The following year, some conversos organized a plot to kill another inquisitor, Pedro de Arbues.^[5]

In September 1485, Arbues died after being attacked by a group of assassins in a cathedral. The murder sparked public outrage, and the Inquisition quickly struck back in revenge. They jailed hundreds of people and uncovered and executed most of the chief conspirators. One man was beheaded, with his head publicly displayed on a pole. Others had their hands cut off before being decapitated and quartered.

Ironically, before Arbues’s murder, a lot of people in Aragon hated the Inquisition. The conversos’ plot was meant to weaken the then-new institution, but all the assassination really did was warm people up to it.

5 Ana de Castro

In 1707, the beautiful Ana de Castro left Spain with her husband and moved to Peru. At first, things were hard for Castro in her new home. But thanks to her good looks and a marriage to a new husband, Castro became very rich and popular in Lima.

Castro’s beauty attracted a lot of lovers, and in 1726, one jealous man set up a scheme to ruin her. He had a maid hide a crucifix in Castro’s bed, and then he made up a lie to the Inquisition that Castro had whipped it. Sure enough, the Inquisition found the crucifix in her bed and arrested her.

After being tossed into jail, Castro had her fortune seized by the Church. She was held there for over 10 years and tortured three times while she waited for the outcome of her trial.

Castro was accused of being a Judaizer, a converso who practiced Judaism in secret. Though she told the authorities that she’d repent, an action which legally should have spared her life, Castro was executed anyway in December 1736.^[6]

4 The Bohorques Sisters

Maria de Bohorques was a bright young woman in Seville who spoke Greek and Latin and read Lutheran books. She was very interested in Lutheranism, and when the Inquisition interrogated her, she insisted that it had some truth to it. Before Maria was executed for heresy, she told her torturers that her sister Jane had no problem with her ideas.

Even though she was six months pregnant at the time, Jane was thrown in jail with no proof but her sister’s confession. She gave birth while in prison and only got to be with her baby for eight days before the child was taken away from her. Afterward, Jane was bound with cords and tortured until she bled from the mouth.

A few days after her torture session, Jane died in prison from the abuse. On the same day, after her death, the Inquisition declared that she was innocent.^[7]

3 The Carabajal Family

In 1580, the Portuguese-born Luis de Carabajal y Cueva arrived with hundreds of settlers in Mexico to create a colony for the Spanish. His sister, Francisca Nunez de Carabajal, along with her husband and eight of their children, also came along. Luis colonized and governed the modern-day state of Nuevo Leon, but Francisca and her family later relocated to Mexico City.

Life was great in Mexico City until 1590 when the Inquisition suddenly arrested Francisca and her family.^[8] The Carabajals, a family of conversos, were accused of practicing Judaism. Sadly, under torture, the family fell apart. Francisca confessed that her husband and children were guilty, while her son Luis Jr. testified against his mother and siblings.

In December 1596, Francisca and five of her children were burned at the stake. Her husband died before the execution, and a son named Baltasar escaped the Inquisition by fleeing the city. Another daughter, Mariana, was executed six years later. Only Francisca’s two youngest children, Anica and Miguel, were ultimately spared.

2 The Holy Child Of La Guardia

In summer 1490, two Jews and six conversos were arrested by the Inquisition for allegedly killing a Christian boy near the town of La Guardia. The charge was ridiculous, but one of the men, Juce Franco, confessed that it was true. He claimed that he and his companions had crucified the boy in a cave, removed his heart, and then drained the blood out of him.

The other prisoners gave conflicting accounts about the story. None of them could agree on the date, the name of the boy, or even where they got their victim. The evidence was also nonexistent. Nobody had been reported missing in La Guardia, and the spot where the boy was supposedly buried failed to turn up a body.

Instead of concluding that their prisoners were innocent, the Inquisition believed that they were a bunch of liars and sent them to the stake. Their fake victim, meanwhile, became a folk saint known as The Holy Child of La Guardia. Amazingly, some people in La Guardia continue to believe in and honor the boy’s death in the 21st century.^[9]

1 Cayetano Ripoll

By the 18th century, the Spanish Inquisition had fallen into decline. Spain’s new Bourbon dynasty centralized and reformed the country, while the skepticism of the Enlightenment hurt the Inquisition’s credibility. During the whole century, only four Inquisition trials resulted in executions.

The last person sentenced to death by the Inquisition was a deist named Cayetano Ripoll. A teacher, he was essentially arrested for neglecting his students’ religious education. In July 1826, after being held in jail for two years, Ripoll was hanged for heresy. After his death, Ripoll’s body was put into a barrel that had flames painted on it, which was meant to symbolize burning.^[10]

Ripoll’s execution shocked Spain and drew criticism from across Europe. At this point, the Inquisition had been abolished and revived twice, once in 1808 and again in 1820. Finally, in 1834, the queen Maria Christina abolished the bloody institution for good.

Tristan Shaw runs a blog called Bizarre and Grotesque, where he writes about folklore, paranormal phenomena, and unsolved crime.

The Spanish flu often gets overshadowed by its more popular counterparts like Ebola and the Black Plague. In many ways, though, it was far deadlier than anything we’ve seen before or since. An estimated one-third of the entire world’s population contracted it, killing at least 50 million people. The doctors of 1918 didn’t even know what it was, as they didn’t quite understand viruses and influenza pandemics back then.

Despite being such a world-changing event, the Spanish flu is surprisingly underrepresented in popular world history. While we understand that other important things—like the Russian Revolution and World War I—were also going on around that time, they still don’t compare to what many historians have described as the “greatest medical holocaust in human history.”^[1]

10 The Spanish Connection

Because it’s called the “Spanish flu,” many of us assume that it originated in Spain. Its name is the primary reason we still blame Spain for something it had nothing to do with. Even though we don’t know where the flu came from, we know for sure that it wasn’t Spain. In fact, the number of cases in Spain was lower than in many other countries.

It’s called Spanish flu because Spain was one of the first (maybe the first) countries to widely report on it. Because of being neutral in World War I (they kind of had their own thing going), their press was freer than other nations’. Countries like Britain, the US, and Russia, all of which were involved in the war, kept the news of the flu restricted to maintain morale. It’s a classic case of blaming the messenger, as people started attributing the flu to Spain, even if it was just honestly reporting on it.^[2]

9 We Kind oOf Ignored It at the Time

As already mentioned, the Spanish flu was a pandemic unlike any other we had ever seen in our history, and it spread to almost every part of the world in a matter of months. For a medical scare as big as that, you’d think that it would make the front pages of all the leading newspapers of the time.

In reality, though, all we cared about back then was the Great War. At that time, it was the biggest and only global conflict people had seen. It was a catchier way to die than the flu, as “people dead due to disease” wasn’t exactly breaking news back in 1918, but “people dead due to chlorine gas in battle” absolutely was.^[3]

8 It Wasn’t a Super Strain of the Flu

The sheer speed of infection and number of deaths in such a short period of time really doesn’t sound like something a normal flu virus can do. The Spanish flu is always assumed to be some super strain that we just didn’t have a cure for, which came out of nowhere and decimated entire swaths of our population.

Recent research, however, has found that the virus wasn’t more aggressive or dangerous than any previous influenza epidemics.^[4] The primary reasons it was so deadly were overcrowding and poor hygiene due to the war. Many people around the world found themselves in cramped spaces like military barracks and refugee camps because of geopolitical conditions at that time, which allowed the virus to spread around far more easily than it would have otherwise.

7 Resurrection of the Virus

The Spanish flu has been a subject of study ever since it first struck, mostly due to how fast and deadly it was. Despite all of our efforts trying to understand it, though, for the longest time, we had no idea about what caused it or what kind of virus it even was. That was until the 2000s when some scientists isolated it and figured that recreating those conditions in the lab was the best course of action.

In a move that could have gone very, very wrong for humanity, some researchers got samples from frozen bodies of the infected and sort of activated it in the lab to see what it does. They were surprised to find out that the virus was similar to the H5N1 bird flu virus, which had been responsible for some deaths in Asia the previous year.^[5]

It’s concerning news. Bird flus, in general, are turning more pathogenic with every subsequent outbreak, and if any ever become really good at infecting humans, the resulting pandemic could be worse than the Spanish flu.

6 The Flu Virus Wasn’t Actually the Main Killer

One of the biggest concerns regarding the Spanish flu is that we don’t really know how to battle it, even with our modern medical technology. For one, various pathogens today are rapidly developing immunity against antibiotics and other medicines, largely owing to our overwhelming reliance on such medicines to cure even simple ailments.

More importantly, influenza viruses in themselves aren’t the problem; it’s the other medical complications that come with them that we should really be worried about. Studies have found that the majority of deaths during the Spanish flu were actually due to bacterial pneumonia, which took hold immediately after the virus. Once the flu had successfully weakened the immune systems of those affected, their bodies were fertile grounds for the bacteria.^[6]

5 Why It Affected Healthy Young Adults

One very peculiar aspect of the whole thing was the fact that the Spanish flu mostly affected healthy, young adults, which was also the demographic most actively participating in the war. (It’s probably not a coincidence.) It was one of the most perplexing parts of it all, as it flew against everything we thought we knew about flu outbreaks or disease in general. Young adults should be much better equipped to fight off disease than other groups, like the elderly, though that clearly wasn’t the case this time. So, what gives?

According to recent research, it has a perfectly plausible explanation. People born between 1880 and 1900—the most-affected demographic—never developed immunity toward the right type of flu viruses. The flu that was most prominent during their childhoods was distinctly different from the Spanish flu. Those born earlier in the 19th century had been exposed to flu viruses more like the Spanish flu and thus had better immunity.^[7]

4 Aspirin Might Have Made It Worse

There’s no doubt that the Spanish flu was one of the deadliest events in human history. It was a humbling experience, and no one could have stopped it, though it’d be a bit unfair to say that we weren’t at fault at all.

According to some scientists, many of the early deaths when the flu broke out may have been due to aspirin. You see, back then, we had little idea of what a normal dosage of aspirin should be. We were using it like water, just giving it to patients in the hope that they’d get better, as we didn’t have any better ideas. The scientists hypothesized that “a significant proportion” of those deaths happened due to salicylate poisoning, as we hadn’t yet figured out the upper limit to how much aspirin people can safely consume.^[8]

3 Corpse Exhibitions

One part that’s left out of all the Spanish flu stories is the horror of it all. Imagine going out to buy groceries and seeing rotting corpses and severely sick people on the side of the road before you even make it to the store. Of course, that’s if you were lucky enough not to get infected yourself, as the chances of that were quite high, too.

One particularly horrifying aspect was what to do with all the dead. The number of deaths in the U.S. was so high that it wasn’t always possible to build coffins for everyone, so the dead were directly buried in the ground. This was referred to as “planting.”

If that wasn’t bad enough, many buildings also served as temporary morgues to store the dead. In one particularly creepy case, bodies were displayed in the windows of the high school in West Pittston, Pennsylvania, so that loved ones could pay their respects from a safe distance.^[9] (The school had already been closed to prevent the spread of the disease.)

2 It May Have Originated in China

Apart from being an unprecedented medical emergency, the Spanish flu was also quite mysterious. The biggest question was where it came from in the first place. (We’ve already established that it wasn’t Spain.) Knowing where it came from is crucial to identifying the conditions that led to such a severe outbreak and making sure it doesn’t happen again. While this is a question we may never be able to decisively answer due to a lack of medical records from the time, some historians think the Spanish flu may have come from China.

According to Mark Humphries from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, the virus was carried to Europe with some 96,000 Chinese laborers hired to work with the British and French forces. While he admits that we’d need more samples of the virus to truly confirm its origins, other historians find this hypothesis plausible. China had a lower number of casualties from the flu, which suggests that their population had prior immunity to it.^[10]

1 One Of The Biggest Threats To Human Life

When we think about threats to life on Earth, we always think of stuff like nuclear war or asteroids. That’s probably because those events sound a lot more destructive and deadly than a mere disease, not to mention the medical care of today being a lot more evolved than before.

Unfortunately, as recent outbreaks like H5N1 and Ebola have shown, a rapidly spreading pandemic is still on top of the list of things with the ability to wipe out human civilization. Sure, our quarantine methods and medicines are quite capable of dealing with such threats, though that’s only because we haven’t yet encountered anything like the Spanish flu since 1918. The same flu today would spread much faster due to the world being much more connected than back then. The virus could also be much more resistant to our medicines.

By some estimates, a virus with comparable pathogenicity to the Spanish flu would kill more than 100 million people today, and there’s little we’d be able to do to contain it.^[11] We’re not saying that we should all start panicking, but world governments would do well to focus a bit more on this threat.

Yet, eerily, no one really listened as this post was published mere months before the world was hit with another global pandemic—SARS-CoV-2 or COVID-19!

You can check out Himanshu’s stuff at Cracked and Screen Rant, or get in touch with him for writing gigs.

Spanish flu, the deadliest pandemic of the 20th century, struck the world in a series of waves, and left between 50 and 100 million people dead in its wake. It may have appeared in the trenches of World War I in Europe as early as 1916, according to some researchers. It first appeared in the United States in the spring of 1918. Numerous contending theories of its source of origin continue to be debated. Some say it began in the United States, some say in Europe, and still others argue it originated in Asia. There is no debate over its impact, though, with one-third of the world’s population contracting the disease during its peak in 1918-19. It continued to appear well into 1920, though with significantly less impact.

Differing from other forms of influenza, the virus had a significant impact on young, otherwise healthy adults, who usually had stronger immune systems. It struck the wealthy and the poor. Franklin Delano Roosevelt contracted the illness. The King of Spain nearly died of it. A young nurse in Toronto, Amelia Earhart, contracted the disease, which damaged her sinuses to the point surgery was required. The scars left her with sinus problems for the rest of her life. In the United States, 675,000 Americans died from the flu, most of them during the deadly second wave in 1918. That year American average life expectancy dropped by 12 years as a result of the flu. Here are 10 facts about the Spanish flu pandemic at the end of the First World War…

10. Nobody knows for certain where it originated

While there is some disagreement among scholars over the place of origin, the consensus is that Spanish flu did not originate in Spain. When the pandemic spread rapidly across Europe in 1918, wartime censorship conditions affected most news reports. Censorship did not apply to neutral Spain. News reports of the flu’s virulence there appeared in newspapers and magazines, with references to “this Spanish flu.” The name stuck. Reports of the disease in Spain increased substantially when King Alphonso XIII contracted the flu in the spring of 1918. Ironically, as reports of the King’s illness and being near death for several days increased references to the Spanish flu in Western newspapers, the Spanish referred to the disease as the French flu.

Since the pandemic (and in part during it), China, Great Britain, the United States, and France, as well as Russia, have all been suggested as the disease’s starting point. The first case in the United States appeared in March 1918, at a Kansas army post. More recently, researchers identified potential cases as early as 1916, at army receiving and marshaling stations in France. Another earlier outbreak occurred at a British Army base in Aldershot in the early spring of 1917. The UK staging camp at Etapes, in northern France, saw 100,000 troops go through daily, either returning from the front or on their way to it, in densely crowded conditions. Hundreds exhibited symptoms of the pandemic flu during the spring and fall of 1917, a fact later identified by army pathologists.

9. More American soldiers died of Spanish flu than in combat during World War One

Americans were stunned at the casualties suffered by their troops during the First World War, though in comparison to the European combatants they were low. Mobilization placed 4.7 million American men in uniform. Of those, about 320,000 became ill and recovered, or suffered wounds in combat from which they survived. 116,516 American troops and sailors died during the war. Combat deaths totaled 53,402. The rest — 63,114 — died of disease, with most of the deaths occurring from the Spanish flu in the camps in the United States, in Europe, and in ships bound for Europe. Once such ship was a former German liner. In 1917 the United States converted the German steamship Vaterland, interned in New York, into a troopship, renamed USS Leviathan.

On September 29, 1918, Leviathan departed New York for the French port of Brest, carrying 9,000 American doughboys, and a crew of 2,000 sailors (one of the sailors was a young New Yorker named Humphrey Bogart). Spanish flu appeared in the ship during the crossing. When Leviathan arrived at Brest it carried 2,000 men already diagnosed with the Spanish flu, which wreaked havoc in the crowded conditions aboard, and overwhelmed the ship’s medical facilities and personnel. 80 men died during the crossing, many more after landing ashore in France, during the height of the pandemic. A similar outbreak occurred on the ship’s return voyage to the United States.

8. It affected the Treaty of Versailles

The combat during World War One came to an end via an armistice, which began at 11 a.m. on the 11th day of November, the 11th month of the year, 1918. Many issues of the war remained unresolved. The leaders of the Allied nations agreed to meet in Paris in early 1919 to discuss the issues facing Europe. Woodrow Wilson, then President of the United States, went to Europe to join the discussions, present his famous 14 Points, and to argue for the establishment of the League of Nations. He favored more lenient terms for Germany than those proposed by the leaders of France, Italy, and Great Britain. Wilson intended to use American prestige to obtain less punitive measures against the Germans, especially in the form of reparations.

During the negotiations for the treaty, which took place in Paris rather than the Palace of Versailles for which it was named, Wilson came down with the Spanish flu. Several members of his entourage suffered through the flu during the voyage to France. Wilson’s illness was covered up, though he became severely ill in Paris, unable to attend multiple sessions of the negotiations. His physician, Navy Admiral Cary Grayson, wrote of the President as “violently sick.” When Wilson did partially recover and returned to the negotiations, several participants wrote of his lack of attention, fatigue, and listlessness. He failed to ease the reparations imposed by the Allies on the Germans, and the resulting Treaty of Versailles created conditions in Germany that led to the rise of Adolf Hitler and the war which followed the War to End All Wars.

7. The federal government did little regarding the flu’s impact

In the United States, the federal government did relatively little to combat the Spanish flu, other than issue advisories telling Americans of the dangers presented by the illness. Congress adjourned in the fall of 1918, with the second wave of the pandemic at its peak. The Supreme Court did the same. The United States Public Health Service, then an agency within the Department of the Treasury, issued posters warning against spitting on sidewalks. It also advised workers to walk to work, which seems strange to modern eyes, until one considers that most commuting at the time involved streetcars or railroads. It also warned Americans to avoid becoming over-fatigued.

Before Woodrow Wilson went to Europe, Edith (the President’s wife) sent 1,000 roses to young women serving in the war effort in the District of Columbia, who were sickened by the flu. That was about the extent of the federal effort. Battling the effects of the pandemic, the lost work hours, burying the dead, and combating the spread of the disease was left in the hands of local governments, which responded in varying ways across the country. Some imposed severe restrictions on movement, crowds, and schools, easing them as the pandemic passed through their communities. Others continued to promote large gatherings to support Liberty Bond drives, including a parade in Philadelphia after which thousands died in the city from the rapid spread of influenza which ensued.

6. Some cities made wearing masks mandatory, with criminal penalties

The first wave of Spanish flu in America occurred in the spring of 1918. Compared to what came in the second wave it was mild. The second wave came in September 1918, in the Eastern cities, and gradually moved westward. San Francisco escaped the first wave, and its Chief of the Board of Health, Dr. William Hassler, assured citizens of the city the second wave would not affect them. On September 24, a recent arrival from Chicago became ill with the flu. By mid-October over 4,000 cases were in the city. That month the city passed an ordinance making the wearing of gauze masks mandatory, with Hassler touting them as 99% effective in stopping the spread of the flu between persons.

In truth, the masks were likely of little benefit, and on November 21, 1918,  the city rescinded the order to wear them. Several other cities issued similar orders, with varying degrees of punishments for violators. In San Francisco, violators went to jail. The city suffered 2,122 deaths during the lethal second wave. The third wave struck in December, and lasted through the winter, raising the death toll in San Francisco to over 3,500 out of a population of about half a million. Nearby Oakland was similarly hit. Oakland also enacted an ordinance requiring masks, virulently opposed by the city’s tobacco store owners. One such owner designed a mask with a flap over the mouth, allowing smokers to enjoy their cigars, cigarettes, and pipes while remaining in compliance with the law.

5. The 1918 baseball season was shortened, though not because of the flu

Major League Baseball shortened its season in 1918 in response to the American war effort. The last game of the regular season was played on September 2, 1918. Teams played just over 120 games that year. When the season ended, the second wave of Spanish flu was underway on the East coast. The league champions, the Boston Red Sox of the American League and the National League’s Chicago Cubs, met in the World Series. Public health officials in both cities argued against playing the World Series due to the crowds gathering during the course of an epidemic, but baseball went ahead. Boston’s only concession to the flu came in an agreement to play in Fenway Park, rather than in the larger Braves Field, where they had played in the preceding World Series.

During the World Series a young Red Sox pitcher started two games, winning both, despite suffering from the flu at the time. He started in the outfield in the other four games. His name was George Herman Ruth. Throughout the games he lay down between innings, weakened by the fever and body aches symptomatic of the flu. Some of his teammates assumed Ruth was simply suffering from a bad hangover, a common problem of ballplayers of the day. But throughout the series, Ruth was notably absent between games, even spending time on the train to Chicago in his sleeper, rather than consorting with teammates. The Red Sox won the series four games to two. It was the only World Series in history played entirely in September. That winter, Ruth was sent to the Yankees.

4. Franklin Roosevelt contracted the flu while returning from France

Franklin Delano Roosevelt served as Assistant Secretary of the Navy in the Wilson Administration, and in that capacity went to Europe in 1918. His mission included the coordination of naval activities against the German U-boat threat, and arranging for convoying and port facilities used by US Navy ships. In September 1918 he returned to the United States aboard USS Leviathan. Upon arrival FDR was carried off the ship on a stretcher, having contracted the flu either in France or, what is more likely, aboard the ship. Leviathan’s crew had been exposed to and ravaged by the flu on several voyages. FDR returned to the United States deathly ill, and required several weeks convalescence at his family’s Hyde Park home before resuming his duties.

FDR’s illness and its severity are often overlooked, largely because of his being later stricken with polio, which left his legs paralyzed. His flu is often described as a mild illness, though he left Leviathan with double pneumonia, high fever, and debilitating weakness. His distant cousin, former President Teddy Roosevelt, who had encouraged him to go to Europe, wrote him during his convalescence. “We are deeply concerned about your sickness, and trust you will soon be well,” wrote the former President, adding that, “We are very proud of you.” Had FDR not survived the flu, which killed so many Americans who went to Europe in 1918, the remainder of the 20th century would have been very different indeed.

3. The flu’s second wave was its deadliest by far

The second wave of influenza in 1918 swept across Western Europe and the United States from September through the end of the year and into January. It was the deadliest of the three main waves of the pandemic. In Philadelphia, America’s hardest hit city, about 16,000 died after city leaders refused to cancel a parade scheduled to promote the sale of Liberty Bonds. Cincinnati closed schools and businesses, shut down streetcars, and ordered the wearing of masks. For a time it closed all restaurants, though it allowed saloons to remain open. At one point in November, believing the worst to have passed, the city reopened businesses and schools. Within days the death rate skyrocketed, forcing the city to shut down again. Over 1,700 Cincinnatians succumbed to the flu in the fall of 1918.

Sailors at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center brought the flu to Chicago. In September Chicago’s Health Commissioner announced the flu was under control. At the end of the month there were fewer than 300 cases reported in the city. By mid-October the city reported 1,200 new cases per day. Chicago shut down schools, businesses, banned public gatherings, closed parks, and requested for churches to curtail services. Chicago reported over 38,000 cases of influenza, and 13,000 cases of pneumonia attributed to the flu, before restrictions were lifted in mid-November. One restriction imposed, vigorously opposed by conservative newspapers and businesses, had been the banning of smoking on streetcars and elevated trains. The Chicago Tribune opposed the ban and referred to the Health Commissioner who imposed it as “his highness.”

2. Authorities in Philadelphia announced the flu was no worse than seasonal flu and held a parade to sell war bonds

In mid-September 1918, influenza was present in all the major Eastern cities of the United States, with Boston suffering the highest number of cases. Philadelphia had seen some cases of the flu, though health officials in the city regarded it lightly. The city’s Health Commissioner, Wilmer Krusen, a political appointee, ignored the pleas of doctors and public health experts to ban large public gatherings. Krusen announced the flu was no worse than any seasonal flu, despite the evidence presented by other cities. The Health Commissioner warned the people of Philadelphia to be careful, covering their faces when they coughed or sneezed, and allowed the city’s scheduled Liberty Bonds parade to take place on September 28, a patriotic spectacle attended by an estimated 200,000 people.

By the middle of November, over 12,000 Philadelphians had died of influenza. The city’s morgue, designed to hold 36 bodies, was obviously overwhelmed, and bodies were stored in the city wherever space was found. A streetcar manufacturing company was hired to build simple wooden boxes to serve as coffins. In the tenements, whole families were stricken and died, undiscovered for weeks. Only three days after the parade, every hospital bed in the city was filled. Over 500,000 cases of the highly contagious flu struck Philadelphia before the end of the year. The final death count was over 16,000. In contrast to Philadelphia, the city of Milwaukee, which imposed the most stringent social distancing laws in the nation, also saw the lowest death rate of any city in the United States.

1. A third of the world’s population contracted the flu during the pandemic

The 1918-20 influenza pandemic, the worst of the 20th century, caused at least 50 million deaths, and probably as many as 100 million across the globe. In remote Tahiti, 10% of the population died. In British ruled India more than 13 million citizens died, with some estimates ranging up to 17 million. German Samoa lost 22% of its population. American Samoa imposed a blockade, and escaped the pandemic unscathed. Brazil’s 300,000 dead included its President, Rodrigues Alves. In the United States over a quarter of the population contracted the flu during one of its several waves. Official death counts usually cite 675,000 American deaths, though some estimates include deaths on Indian Reservations and in Alaskan communities, and elevate the count to 850,000.

Bacterial pneumonia, a complication brought on by the flu, served as the primary killer. When the flu returned for its third wave in the late winter and early spring of 1919, rates of death were comparatively low. Sporadic outbreaks continued in the fall of 1919 and the winter of 1919-20. As the 1920s began the pandemic faded from memory, and remained largely forgotten until the coronavirus pandemic restored it to public attention. All the weapons used to control the spread of coronavirus — distancing, closing of schools, banning large crowds and gatherings, shutting down businesses, and others — were deployed against the Spanish flu. History shows that those communities which deployed them most stringently, throughout the first and second waves, were most successful saving lives.