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Article: Mediterranean Basin
- Article from:
- Europe, 1450 to 1789: Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 The Gale Group Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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MEDITERRANEAN BASIN
MEDITERRANEAN BASIN.
The advent of the early modern era in the Mediterranean Basin is easy to identify, thanks to two quite spectacular events. In 1453 the Turkish Ottomans conquered the great city of Constantinople and put an end to the Byzantine Empire.
Although help for the Byzantines had been fitful and reluctant, Christian Europe was shocked nevertheless.
At the other end of the inland sea the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand II and Isabella I (ruled 1474
–
1504) completed the centuries-long reconquest, as they called it, of the Iberian Peninsula in 1492, when they defeated the last Muslim kingdom, Granada. In that same momentous year they expelled the Jews ...