Spanish Empire
▶ Explore on the mapThe Spanish empire was the first global empire, holding the Americas, the Philippines, parts of Italy and the Netherlands, and it changed the world by the silver it moved. Ferdinand and Isabella completed the conquest of Granada in January 1492 and licensed Columbus's voyage in the same year; within three decades Cortes had taken Mexico and Pizarro Peru. The treaty of Tordesillas divided the non-Christian world with Portugal. Silver from Potosi and the Mexican mines funded the wars of Charles V and Philip II, flowed to Manila and on to China, and caused inflation across Europe that historians call the price revolution. The crown organised the Americas through viceroys, the council of the Indies and the encomienda, while the church converted millions and the Jesuits taught in reductions. The armada sent against England sank in 1588, the Dutch revolt succeeded, and the peace of Utrecht in 1713 gave Britain the asiento. Napoleon's occupation of Spain in 1808 let the colonies declare independence between 1810 and 1826, and the loss of Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in 1898 ended the empire as a world power. The empire was the first in which the sun, in the old saying, never set.