Conquest of Melilla, 1497



The Reconquista on the Iberian peninsula having ended with the fall of Granada in 1492, in 1497 it was taken across the sea. A combined Castilian-Aragonese fleet, equipped, financed and commanded by Pedro de Estopinan, Duke of Medina Sidonia (with the blessing of Isabel of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon), departed from Gibraltar and took the city of Melilla on the Moroccan coast on September 17th.

Melilla until 1556 was treated as a domain of the Duke of Medina Sidonia; in 1556, Spain formally annexed the city. Melilla still remains a Spanish outpost on the Moroccan coast; it suffered siege in 1562-1565, 1687, 1696, 1697, 1771, 1774, 1893-1894.




EXTERNAL
FILES 		Article Melilla, from Encyclopedia of the Orient, from Wikipedia
Resumen de la Historia de Melilla, by Francisco Mir Berlanga, in Spanish
Archivo de Medina Sidonia, in Spanish
DOCUMENTS
REFERENCE



This page is part of World History at KMLA
First posted on March 7th 2004, last revised on November 16th 2004

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