In 192 B.C., rising Rome met a remnant of the empire of Alexander the Great on the storied ground of Thermopylae, nearly 200 years after the Spartans had made it famous fighting Persia. The battle played a significant role in the course of history in the Mediterranean.
The Reconquista, or Christian reconquest of Iberia, took nearly 800 years. The fighting did not come without great attempts by Muslim powers across the strait trying to reestablish their presence in mainland Europe. The last gasp of that effort came in the 1330s, when the powerful Marinid sultanate of what is modern Morocco invaded in an attempt to reverse Christian gains and secure the perilous position of the Sultanate of Granada.