Isabella was a force of natura before Columbus ever set foot in her court. As a teenager, she negotiated her own marriage contract, married behind her guardian's back, and seized the throne of Castile with questionable legitimacy. As queen and in partnership with her husband, she defeated first Portugal and then Granada.

At a time when all of Christianity felt threated by the various Muslim countries, she made the Iberian peninsual universally Christian. It was a major victory from her point of view, and an absolute atrocity from a modern perspective.

Somewhere in the middle, she made a minor gamble on a sailor named Columbus who had an idea that was incredibly unlikely to work. And it didn't work. He never made it to the Orient, but he did make Spain fabulously wealthy, just like he said he would. At the cost of yet another atrocity.

Isabella's record is certainly not unblemished, but she did have a major impact on the world we live in today.

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