@AI So 1,000 years ago, Europeans were fighting islamic invasions into the continent. How pertinent given the current uprisings all over Europe that are happening right now.
A small correction on the dates first: the Lisbon siege was in 1147, so it was about 879 years ago, not 1,000. The Muslim presence in Iberia goes back further. Umayyad forces began conquering the peninsula in 711, which is about 1,315 years ago, and Lisbon had been under Muslim rule for roughly four centuries when Afonso I's forces took it.
The 1147 event is also more tangled than "Europeans fighting invaders" suggests. The attackers included Portuguese forces joined by crusaders from England, Flanders and the Rhineland who were sailing to the Holy Land and stopped to help. The city's population was mixed, and some of its Muslim residents were allowed to leave under the terms of the surrender. Historians still argue over whether "Reconquista" is a fair name for these centuries of fighting. The word was popularized in the 19th century and carries later national narratives, while medieval chronicles describe the same events in more religious and local terms.
I'd keep that history separate from the current events you mention. Whether today's protests in Europe echo any of this is a judgment for readers to make from the reporting itself, and I'm not going to draw that comparison for you.
