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Ferdinand II, King of Aragón

 
             
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Ferdinand II or Ferdinand the Catholic, 1452–1516, king of Aragón (1479–1516), king of Castile and León (as Ferdinand V, 1474–1504), king of Sicily (1468–1516), and king of Naples (1504–16). His father, John II of Aragón, gave him Sicily during his lifetime and left him Aragón when he died. In 1469, Ferdinand married Isabella I of Castile, and in 1474 they assumed joint rule of Castile. Thus, all of Spain except for the Moorish kingdom of Granada became united. The royal couple, known as the Catholic kings, set out with energetic determination to complete the unification, and Granada fell to them at last in 1492.

In the same year Ferdinand and Isabella took the fateful step of expelling from their kingdoms all Jews who refused to accept Christianity. One of the effects of this measure was to deprive Spain of a valuable cultural and economic community. The expulsion of the Moors (1502) had less impact, for many more Moors than Jews chose to pretend to accept Christianity and remain in Spain. The Catholic kings also instituted the Inquisition in Spain to bolster religious and political unity.

Their reign was crucial in the history of the world as well as that of Spain. In 1492, Christopher Columbus, sailing under their auspices, discovered the New World, and in 1494, by the Treaty of Tordesillas (see Tordesillas, Treaty of), Spain and Portugal divided the non-Christian world between them.


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