Thus terminated the war of Granada, after ten years of incessant fighting; equalling the far-famed siege of Troy in duration, and ending, like that, in the capture of the city. Thus ended also the dominion of the Moors in Spain, having endured seven hundred seventy-eight years, from the memorable defeat of Roderick, the last of the Goths, on the banks of the Guadalete. This great triumph of our holy Catholic faith took place in the beginning of January, 1492, being three thousand six hundred fifty-five years from the population of Spain by the patriarch Tubal; three thousand seven hundred ninety-seven from the general deluge; five thousand four hundred fifty-three from the creation of the world, according to Hebrew calculation; and in the month Rabic, in the eight hundred ninety-seventh year of the Hegira, or flight of Mahomet. [Footnote 1: Musa ben Abil Gazan, Boabdil's best cavalier--a fiery soldier, of royal lineage.] [Footnote 2: A mountainous region in the provinces of Granada and Almeria.] [Footnote 3: So say Arabian historians. According to another account, Musa, meeting a party of Andalusian cavaliers, killed several of them, but, being disabled by wounds, threw himself into the Xenel and was drowned.] COLUMBUS DISCOVERS AMERICA A.D. 1492 CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS FERDINAND COLUMBUS The year 1492, in which Columbus discovered America, is adopted by some writers as separating the modern from the mediaeval period in history. It marks the culmination of the wonderful achievements in discovery for which the fifteenth century is so memorable. By 1492 the world had advanced far beyond the ignorance of the period when Marco Polo made and described his famous travels from Europe to the East, 1324, and when Sir John Mandeville's extravagant account of Eastern journeys, 1357-1371, was published. European knowledge of the Orient had been greatly increased by the crusades, and this, together with the spread of commerce, had quickened the desire of Western peoples for still further explorations of the world. During the first half of the fifteenth century the Portuguese were most enterprising in the work of discovery, and before 1500 they had searched the western coast of Africa, passed the equator, and seen the Cape of Good Hope, which Vasco da Gama doubled in 1497, on his way to India.