Queen Isabella of Castile issues the Alhambra Decree, ordering her 150,000 Jewish and Muslim subjects to convert to Christianity or face expulsion.
The Alhambra Decree (also known as the Edict of Expulsion; Spanish: Decreto de la Alhambra, Edicto de Granada) was an edict issued on 31 March 1492, by the joint Catholic Monarchs of Spain (Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon) ordering the expulsion of practising Jews from the Crowns of Castile and Aragon and its territories and possessions by 31 July of that year. The primary purpose was to eliminate the influence of practising Jews on Spain's large formerly-Jewish converso New Christian population, to ensure the latter and their descendants did not revert to Judaism. Over half of Spain's Jews had converted as a result of the religious persecution and pogroms which occurred in 1391. Due to continuing attacks, around 50,000 more had converted by 1415. A further number of those remaining chose to convert to avoid expulsion. As a result of the Alhambra decree and persecution in the years leading up to the expulsion, of Spain's estimated 300,000 Jewish origin population, a total of over 200,000 had converted to Catholicism to remain in Spain, and between 40,000 and 100,000 remained Jewish and suffered expulsion. An unknown number of the expelled eventually succumbed to the pressures of life in exile away from formerly-Jewish relatives and networks back in Spain, and so converted to Catholicism to be allowed to return in the years following expulsion.:17The edict was formally and symbolically revoked on 16 December 1968, following the Second Vatican Council. This was a full century after Jews had been openly practicing their religion in Spain and synagogues were once more legal places of worship under Spain's Laws of Religious Freedom.
In 1924, the regime of Primo de Rivera granted Spanish citizenship to the entire Sephardic Jewish diaspora. In 2014, the government of Spain passed a law allowing dual citizenship to Jewish descendants who apply, to "compensate for shameful events in the country's past." Thus, Sephardi Jews who can prove they are the descendants of those Jews expelled from Spain because of the Alhambra Decree can "become Spaniards without leaving home or giving up their present nationality."
Isabella I (Spanish: Isabel I; 22 April 1451 – 26 November 1504) was Queen of Castile from 1474 until her death in 1504, reigning over a dynastically unified Spain together with her husband, King Ferdinand II of Aragon. She was Queen of Aragon after Ferdinand II ascended to that throne in 1479. Together, Isabella and Ferdinand are known as the Catholic Monarchs.After a struggle to claim the throne, Isabella reorganized the governmental system, brought the crime rate to the lowest it had been in years, and unburdened the kingdom of the enormous debt her half-brother King Henry IV had left behind. Isabella's marriage to Ferdinand in 1469 created the basis of the de facto unification of Spain. Her reforms and those she made with her husband had an influence that extended well beyond the borders of their united kingdoms.
Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon are known for being the first monarchs to be referred to as "Queen of Spain" and "King of Spain" respectively, labeled such for completing the Reconquista, for issuing the Alhambra Decree which ordered the mass expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain, for establishing the Spanish Inquisition, for supporting and financing Christopher Columbus's 1492 voyage that led to the discovery of the New World by Europeans and established the Spanish empire, for making Spain a major power in Europe and much of the world, and for ushering in the Spanish Golden Age. Isabella was granted, together with her husband, the title of "Catholic monarch" by Pope Alexander VI, and was recognized in 1974 as a Servant of God by the Catholic Church.