An impressive study of the country’s past sheds much light on the present
In the two decades that followed the fall of Granada in 1492, the Spanish crusade against Muslims was encroaching on north Africa. For the notables of Algiers, then a very small port, the end had seemed near when in 1510 they conceded the islet commanding their bay to a force led by Don Pedro de Navarro. But the tide would turn. In 1519, having appealed in desperation to the Ottoman Barbarossa brothers for protection, Algiers succeeded in repelling a massive Spanish attack; in 1541, a more conclusive victory prompted the retreat of Spain from the north African coast east of Oran and turned a precarious town into a seemingly invincible city whose navy would mount its own …. read more.
