- Henry The Navigator
Infante Henrique, Duke of Viseu <small>KG</small> (Porto, March 4, 1394-Sagres, November 13, 1460); pron.), was an "infante" (prince) of the Portuguese House of Aviz and an important figure in the early days of the Portuguese Empire. He is known in English as Prince Henry the Navigator or the Seafarer (Portuguese: "o Navegador"). Prince Henry the Navigator was the third son of King John I of Portugal, …
- José Saramago
José de Sousa Saramago, <small>GColSE</small> is a Nobel-laureate Portuguese writer, playwright and journalist. His works commonly present subversive perspectives on historic events, emphasizing the human factor rather than the official story. Some of his works can also be seen as allegories. Saramago was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1998. He currently lives on Lanzarote in the Canary Islands, Spain.
- Abd-Ar-Rahman III
Abd-ar-Rahman III was the Emir and Caliph of Cordoba (912-961), and a prince of the Ummayad dynasty in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). He ascended the throne when he was twenty-two and reigned for half a century. His life was so completely identified with the government of the state that he offers less material for biography than his ancestor Abd-ar-Rahman I. Abd-ar-Rahman III was the grandson of his predecessor, Abdullah, one of the Andalusian Umayyads.
- Abd Ar-Rahman I
Abd ar-Rahman I (born 731; ruled from 756 through his death circa the year 788) was the founder of a Muslim dynasty that ruled the greater part of Iberia for nearly three centuries. The Muslims called the regions of Iberia under their dominion al-Andalus. Montgomery Watt said that the name al-Andalus "was used exclusively for that part of the peninsula under Muslim rule".
- Viriathus
Viriathus (known as "Viriato" in Portuguese and Castilian) (180 BC - 139 BC) was the most important leader of the Lusitanian tribe that resisted Roman expansion into the regions of Western Iberia, where the Roman province of Lusitania would be established (in the areas comprising Portugal, south of the Douro river, and Extremadura in Spain).
- Yusuf Ibn Tashfin
Yusuf ibn Tashfin or Tashufin was the Berber Almoravid ruler in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). He took the title of "amir al-muslimin" ("commander of the Muslims"). He was either a cousin or nephew of Abu Bakr ibn Umar, the founder of the Almoravid dynasty, and married Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat, a former wife of Abu Bakr.
- Juan Ponce de León
Juan Ponce de León (c. 1460 - July 1521) was a Spanish conquistador. He was born in Santervás de Campos (Valladolid). As a young man he joined the war to conquer Granada, the last Moorish state on the Iberian peninsula. Ponce de León accompanied Christopher Columbus on his second voyage to the New World. He became the first Governor of Puerto Rico by appointment of the Spanish Crown. He is also notable for his voyage to Florida, the first known European excursion there, …
- Al-Walid I
Al-Walid ibn Abd al-Malik or Al-Walid I (668 - 715) was an Umayyad caliph who ruled from 705 - 715. He continued the expansion of the Islamic empire that was sparked by his father, and was an effective ruler. Al-Walid I was the eldest son of Abd al-Malik and succeeded him to the caliphate upon his death. Like his father, he continued to allow Al-Hajjaj bin Yousef free rein, …
- Martial
Marcus Valerius Martialis, known in English as Martial, was a Latin poet from Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula) best known for his twelve books of "Epigrams", published in Rome between AD 86 and 103, during the reigns of the emperors Domitian, Nerva and Trajan. In these short, witty poems he cheerfully satirises city life and the scandalous activities of his acquaintances, and romanticises his provincial upbringing.
- Vímara Peres
Vímara Peres, Count of Portugal (Galicia, circa 820 - Guimarães, 873) from Vimara (Weimar or Guimar) and Peres (son of Peter) was a Christian warlord of the 9th century in west Iberia. He was a vassal of the King of Léon and was sent to conquer and secure from the Moors (Arabs and Berbers who invaded Visigothic Hispania) in the west coastal fringe of Gallaecia, from the Minho River to the Douro River, including the city of "Portus Cale", later 'O Porto' (Oporto), …
- Hisham II
Hisham II was the third Caliph of Cordoba, of the Umayyad dynasty. He ruled 976-1009, and 1010-1013 in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). Hisham II succeed his father Al-Hakam II as Caliph of Cordoba in 976 at the age of 10, with his mother Subh and the first minister Jafar al-Mushafi acting as regents. General Ghalib and Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir (Almansor) managed to prevent the eunuchs from placing a brother of al-Hakam II on the throne.
- Américo Castro
Américo Castro y Quesada was a Spanish cultural historian, philologist, and literary critic who challenged some of the prevailing notions of Spanish identity, raising heated controversy with his conclusions that (1) Spaniards didn't become the distinct group they are today until after the Islamic conquest of Hispania of 711 CE, an event that turned them into a Christian caste coexisting among Muslims and Jews, …
- Abd Al-Mu'Min
Abd al-Mu'min was the first Caliph of the Almohad Empire. Abd al-Mu'min was a member of the group of Masmuda Berbers living in the Atlas Mountains. They had long been at odds with the Almoravids who then ruled Morocco and had been forced into exile in the mountains. Some time around 1117 he became a follower of Ibn Tumart a religious leader of renowned piety who had founded the Almohads as a religious order with the goal of restoring purity in Islam.
- Priscillian
Priscillian of Ávila (died 383), a theologian from Roman Gallaecia (in the Iberian Peninsula), was the first person in the history of Christianity to be executed for heresy (though the civil charges were for the practice of magic). He founded an ascetic group that, in spite of persecution, continued to subsist in Hispania and Gaul until the later 6th century. The first writings attributed to him, which had seemed certainly lost, were recovered in 1885.
- Gnaeus Pompeius
Gnaeus Pompeius (ca. 75 - April 12, 45 BC), also known as Pompey the Younger, was a Roman politician and general from the late Republic (1st century BC). Gnaeus Pompeius was the oldest son of Pompey the Great (Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus) by his third wife, Mucia Tertia. Both he and his younger brother Sextus Pompeius grew up in the shadow of their father, …
- Athanagild
Athanagild (d. 567) was a king of Visigothic Hispania (today, Spain and Portugal). With the help of a Roman force, including a fleet to watch the coasts, sent from Gaul in 551 by the emperor of the eastern Roman empire, Justinian, Athanagild defeated and killed his predecessor, King Agila, near Seville in 554. Athanagild then became king. But the ports and coastal fortifications taken in the name of Athanagild weren't swiftly turned over by his Byzantine allies.
- Munuza
Munuza (8th century) was the Moorish governor of northern Iberia (including the region of Asturias in modern Spain). He was subject to the wali of al-Andalus, Anbasa ibn Suhaym Al-Kalbi. He was defeated and killed by Pelayo of Asturias at the beginning of the Reconquista. Tradition has it that he fell in love with Pelayo's sister, Ormesinda, and that, together with Kazim, kidnapped and married her.
- Quintus Sertorius
Quintus Sertorius (died 72 BC) was a Roman statesman and general, born in Nursia, in Sabine territory. After acquiring some reputation in Rome as a jurist and an orator, he began a military career. His first recorded campaign was under Quintus Servilius Caepio at the Battle of Arausio, where he showed unusual courage. Serving under Marius in 102 BC, Sertorius succeeded in spying on the wandering German tribes that had defeated Caepio.
- Al-Mansur Ibn Abi Aamir
Abu Aamir Muhammad Ibn Abdullah Ibn Abi Aamir, Al-Hajib Al-Mansur أبو عامر محمد بن عبد الله بن أبي عامر الحاجب المنصور (c. 938-August 8, 1002) was the de facto ruler of Muslim Al-Andalus in the late 10th to early 11th centuries. His rule marked the peak of power for Moorish Iberia.
- Hisham I
Hisham I or Hisham Al-Reda was the second Umayyad Emir of Cordoba, ruling from 788 to 796 in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). Hisham was born in Cordoba. He was the 1st son of Abd ar-Rahman I and his wife, Halul and the younger half brother of Suleiman. He built many mosques and completed the Mezquita. In 792 he called for a jihad. Muslims arrived from abroad.
- Hisham III
Hisham III was the last Umayyad ruler in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia) (1026-1031), and the last person to hold the title Caliph of Cordoba. Hisham III, the brother of Abd ar-Rahman IV, was chosen as Caliph after long negotiations between the governers of the border regions and the people of Cordoba. He could not enter Cordoba until 1029 as the city was occupied by the Berber armies of the Hammudids.
- Hermenegild
Saint Hermenegild (d. 13 April 585), or Saint "Ermengild" (from Gothic "Ermen Gild": "inmense tribute"), was a member of the Visigoth Royal Family in Hispania (the Iberian Peninsula, comprising modern Spain and Portugal), important in the Visigoths' conversion from Arianism to Catholicism.
- Ali Ibn Yusuf
Ali ibn Yusuf was a Berber ruler in North Africa and Al-Andalus (Morrish Iberia), reigned 1106-1142, also a member of Almoravid dynasty.
- Pedro de Escobar
Pedro de Escobar (c.1465 - after 1535), a.k.a. "Pedro do Porto", was a Portuguese composer of the Renaissance, mostly active in Spain. He was one of the earliest and most skilled composers of polyphony in the Iberian Peninsula, whose music has survived.
- Tudmir
Teodomiro, or Theodemir, cited by contemporary Arabs as Tudmir sometimes "Tadmir", was a Visigothic count from the VIII century. He was governor of an Eastern region of the Iberian peninsula (in the current Spanish provinces of Alicante and Murcia). He fought against the Muslims when they invaded the Iberian peninsula, but finally capitulated in 713 AD signing the Treaty of Orhuela, which allowed the region to keep some autonomy.
- Witteric
Witteric. In invading the royal palace and deposing the young king, Liuva II, he counted on the support of a faction of nobles in opposition to the dynasty of Leovigild. A large fraction of the Visigothic population could always be relied upon to oppose dynastic rule. Witteric cut off the king's right hand and later had him condemned and executed (Summer 603). He spent time fighting the Byzantines "during" his reign, however, …
- Al-Mundhir
Al-Mundhir was Emir of Cordoba from 886 to 888. He was a member of the Umayyad dynasty of Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia), the son of Muhamad bin Abd al-Rahman, amir al-Qurtubi.
- Imperator Totius Hispaniae
The title of "Imperator (totius) Hispaniae" was borne, traditionally, by the monarchs of León, from at least the tenth century. It was used, somewhat sporadically, in the following two centuries as the kings of the various kingdoms of Christian Iberia fought for supremacy and for the "imperiale culmen", León. Notice that, before the emergence of the modern country of Spain (beginning with the union of Castile and Aragon in 1492), …
- Servius Sulpicius Galba
Servius Sulpicius Galba was a consul of Rome in 144 BC. He served as tribune of the soldiers in the second legion in Macedonia, under Lucius Aemilius Paullus Macedonicus, to whom he was personally hostile. After the conquest of Perseus in 167 BC, when Aemilius had returned to Rome, Galba endeavoured to prevent a triumph being conferred upon the former; he did not succeed, although his efforts created considerable sensation.
- Sancho I of Portugal
Sancho I, King of Portugal, nicknamed the Populator (Portuguese "o Povoador"), second monarch of Portugal, was born on November 11 1154 in Coimbra and died on March 26, 1212 in the same city. He was the third but only surviving son of Afonso I Henriques of Portugal by his wife, Maud of Savoy. Sancho succeeded his father in 1185. He used the title King of the Algarve and/or King of Silves between 1189 and 1191 In 1170, Sancho was knighted by his father, …
- Abd Ar-Rahman II
Abd ar-Rahman II was Umayyad Emir of Cordoba in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia). The son of Emir Al-Hakam I, he became Emir of Córdoba in 822 and engaged in nearly continuous warfare against Alfonso II of Asturias, whose southward advance he halted (822-842). In 837 he suppressed a revolt of Christians and Jews in Toledo and repulsed an assault by Vikings in 844. Thereafter he constructed a fleet and naval arsenal at Seville to repel future raids.
- Pelayo Of Asturias
Pelayo (in Spanish), Pelayu (in Asturian), Pelágio, or Pelagius (in Latin) (690–737) was the founder of the Kingdom of Asturias, ruling from 718 until his death. He is credited with beginning the "Reconquista", the Christian reconquest of the Iberian peninsula (modern Portugal and Spain) from the Moors.
- Al-Samh Ibn Malik Al-Khawlani
Al-Samh ibn Malik al-Khawlani was the Arab governor general of the Muslim occupied region of the Iberian Peninsula called Al-Andalus in the beginning of the 8th century. He led a Muslim incursion into southern France in the early part of the 8th century. After some initial success leading a large Arab army into France and besieging a number of French towns and cities including Narbonne, Béziers, Agde, Lodève, Maguelonne (Montpellier) and Nîmes, …
- Chindasuinth
Chindasuinth was king of Visigothic Hispania from 642 to 653. According to Edward Gibbon, during his reign, Moslem raiders began harrying Iberia: "As early as the time of Othman (644–656), their piratical squadrons had ravaged the coast of Andalusia". Legend has it that Pelayo, the first king of Asturias, was a direct descendant of Chindasuinth, but this claim hasn't been proven.
- George Scovell
George Scovell was a member of the quartermaster's staff of the British Army in Iberia during the Peninsular War. He is most remembered for the crucial role he played in breaking the codes of the French forces during that war. A gifted linguist, he was put in charge of a motley crew of various nationalities recruited for their local knowledge and language skills and called the Army Guides. They developed a system for intercepting and deciphering French communiqués.
- Isaac Abrabanel
Isaac ben Judah or Yitzchak ben Yehuda Abravanel was a Jewish statesman, philosopher, Bible commentator, and financier. He was a scion of the Abravanel family. In many works he is referred to solely by his last name, which is variously spelled as Abravanel, Abarbanel, and Abrabanel. Many Torah and Talmud scholars today, simply refer to him as "The Abarbanel". He was born in Lisbon, Portugal.
- Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar
Abu-Bakr Ibn-Umar was an Almoravid ruler. He was appointed General of the al Murabitūn sect by its leader Abdallah ibn Yasin on the death of his brother Yahya ibn Ibrahim in 1056. He captured Sūs and its capital Aghmat in southern Morocco in 1057, and became leader of the Murabitūn on the death of Ibn Yasin in battle with the Berghwata Berbers in 1059. He married the wealthiest woman in Aghmat, Zaynab an-Nafzawiyyat, and began to found a new capital at Marrakech in 1070.
- Raymond Of Burgundy
Raymond of Burgundy was the fourth son of William I, Count of Burgundy and was Count of Amous. He came to the Iberian Peninsula for the first time during the period 1086-1087 with Eudes I, Duke of Burgundy. He came for the second time (1090) to marry Urraca of Castile, eventual heiress of Alfonso VI of Castile, King of León and Castile. He came with his cousin Henry of Burgundy, who married the other daughter of Alfonso VI, Teresa of León (or Portugal).
- Abd Ar-Rahman IV
Abd ar-Rahman IV Mortada was the Caliph of Cordoba in the Umayyad dynasty of the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia), succeeding Suleiman II, in 1017. That same year, he was murdered at Cadiz while fleeing from a battle in which he had been deserted by the very supporters which had brought him into power. His brief reign was similar to that of Abd ar-Rahman V Mostadir.
- Abd Ar-Rahman V
In the agony of the Umayyad dynasty in the Al-Andalus (Moorish Iberia), two princes of the house were proclaimed Caliph of Cordoba for a very short time, Abd-ar-Rahman IV Mortada (1017), and Abd-ar-Rahman V Mostadir (1023-1024). Both were the mere puppets of factions, who deserted them at once. Abd-ar-Rahman IV was murdered the same year he was proclaimed at Cadiz, in flight from a battle in which he had been deserted by his supporters.