On 2 January 1492 Muhammad XII of Granada (Boabdil) handed the city's keys to Isabella I of Castile and Ferdinand II of Aragon, ending a Reconquista that had lasted some eight centuries. The terms of surrender guaranteed Muslims their religion and property; the guarantee broke down within a decade, Islam was banned in Castile in 1502, and in 1609 the converted population known as the Moriscos was expelled as well.

The Alhambra Decree, signed on 31 March 1492, gave Jews four months to be baptised or leave. Estimates of the number expelled range from 40,000 to 200,000; the sources conflict and no firm figure exists. Some went to Portugal and North Africa, and a large share settled in the Ottoman Empire at the invitation of Bayezid II. Within decades Thessaloniki became a city with a Jewish majority; Ladino-speaking communities were established in Istanbul, İzmir and Edirne, and endured for five hundred years.

In European memory 1492 is mostly Columbus's voyage. In the same year, by decision of the same monarchs, the multi-confessional order of the Iberian Peninsula also ended. The two are not unconnected: the fiscal and military resources freed by the fall of Granada helped finance the Atlantic expeditions. Founding accounts of modern Europe foreground the discoveries; the other face of that same moment is religious uniformity becoming state policy.