page_title: Conquistador
section_title: Conquest
hierarchical_section_title: Conquistador / Conquest
caption_attribution_description: العربية: آخر مُلُوك غرناطة أبو عبد الله محمد الثاني عشر يُسلِّم غرناطة آخر معاقل المُسلمين في الأندلُس إلى الملك الكاثوليكي فرديناند الثاني الأراغوني، لِتسقط بِذلك الأندلُس وتقوم على أنقاضها الإمبراطوريَّة الإسپانيَّة. Español: La obra representa el momento en que Boabdil, que fue el último rey nazarí de Granada, rindió la ciudad de Granada en 1492 y entregó las llaves de la misma a los Reyes Católicos, Isabel I de Castilla y Fernando II de Aragón.
context_page_description: Conquistadors were the knights, soldiers and explorers of the Spanish and the Portuguese Empire. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, Oceania, Africa, and Asia, conquering territory and opening trade routes. They colonized much of the world for Spain and Portugal in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries.
  After arrival in the West Indies in 1492, the Spanish, primarily nobles from the west and south of Spain, began building an American empire in the Caribbean using islands such as Hispaniola, Cuba, and Puerto Rico as bases. From 1519 to 1521, Hernán Cortés waged a campaign against the Aztec Empire, ruled by Moctezuma II. From the territories of the Aztec Empire, conquistadors expanded Spanish rule to northern Central America and parts of what is now southern and western United States and from Mexico sailing the Pacific Ocean to the Philippines. Other conquistadors took over the Inca Empire after crossing the Isthmus of Panama and sailing the Pacific to northern Peru. As Francisco Pizarro subdued the empire in a manner similar to Cortés other conquistadores used Peru as base for conquering much of Ecuador and Chile.
context_section_description: Portugal established a route to China in the early 16th century, sending ships via the southern coast of Africa and founding numerous coastal enclaves along the route. Following the discovery in 1492 by Spaniards of the New World with Christopher Columbus' first voyage there and the first circumnavigation of the world by Ferdinand Magellan and Juan Sebastián Elcano in 1521, expeditions led by conquistadors in the 16th century established trading routes linking Europe with all these areas.
  Human infections gained worldwide transmission vectors for the first time: from Africa and Eurasia to the Americas and vice versa. The spread of old-world diseases, including smallpox, flu and typhus, led to the deaths of many indigenous inhabitants of the New World.
  In the 16th century perhaps 240,000 Spaniards entered American ports. By the late 16th century gold and silver imports from America provided one-fifth of Spain's total budget.
caption: The surrender of Granada in 1492. The last Moorish sultan of Granada, Muhammad XII, before Ferdinand and Isabella.
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "95987/1000", "Image YResolution": "95987/1000", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS5 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2014:12:18 23:41:28", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7482", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "8133", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "5210"}