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or you can get all of History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com. It's the night of February 28, 1482, outside Alama in the Emirate of Granada, in the south of what is now Spain.

Juan Ortega de Prado signals to his men and creeps forward through the darkness.

His small squad of soldiers is divided into pairs, each carrying a ladder between them.

The night is cold and clear, and their breath leaves a trail of fog behind them, silver in the moonlight,

but that's the only indication of their advance.

Juan and his men move silently through the scrublands surrounding the city,

and those guarding Alama have no idea what's coming.

For more than seven centuries, the Iberian Peninsula has been split between two opposing forces, Christianity and Islam.

Once, Muslim rulers controlled almost the entire area,

but Christian counterattacks have gradually pushed them back. Now only one Islamic kingdom remains,

the Emirate of Granada in the far south. And now even they must face a Christian attack.

A Spanish army has the city surrounded, but rather than risk a costly

mass assault, the Spanish general has decided to send in a small squad to infiltrate the city by night

and open the gates from within. When Juan and his soldiers reach the imposing walls,

they spread out and gently place their ladders against the stone.

Juan goes up first, and when he reaches the top of the ladder, he slides his sword from its

scabbard and slowly raises his head above the battlements. A single guard dozes at his station,

so Juan smiles. Their stealthy advance has worked. He gestures for the men waiting below to climb their ladders,

and then he scrambles over the battlements as quietly as he can. He claps a gloved hand over the startled

...