At 10:58 am on Wednesday, April 7, 1926, the 50 year old daughter of the former Lord Chancellor of Ireland stepped out of a crowd, drew a revolver, and shot Italian prime minister Benito Mussolini in the face. Had she done so a decade later, she might have been hailed as a hero. Had she been a better shot, history might have been different.
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.