title: Pacific Northwest

text: A 2007 statistical analysis ranked the 50 Greenest Cities in the United States, placing Portland, Oregon first, Eugene, Oregon, fifth, and Seattle, Washington, eighth. The region as a whole is also known for its bicycle culture as an alternative form of transportation; Portland is considered by Forbes Traveler to be the second most bicycle-friendly city in the world. Portland is also the hub of American bicycle manufacturing; as a whole it generated over $68 million in revenue in 2007.


title: Pacific Northwest

text: Seattle, Washington has also garnered a reputation for its contributions to public transportation with the Puget Sound Transit system, including an underground light rail system and a 38.9% worker commute rate as of 2011. Mass transit in Portland Metropolitan area is provided by TriMet and in Vancouver by TransLink (British Columbia).


title: Californication (album)

text: Californication is the seventh studio album by the American rock band Red Hot Chili Peppers, released on June 8, 1999, on Warner Bros. Records. It was produced by Rick Rubin. Along with "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", Californication is one of the band’s best selling albums.


title: Californication (album)

text: "Californication" marked the return of the guitarist John Frusciante, who had previously appeared on "Mother's Milk" and "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", and shifted the band's style. The lyrics incorporated the sexual innuendos already associated with the band, but added themes including death, suicide, California, drugs, globalization and travel.


title: Californication (album)

text: "Californication" is the Chili Peppers' most commercially successful studio release internationally, with over fifteen million copies sold worldwide, and more than six million in the United States alone. As of 2002, the album had sold over four million copies in Europe. The record produced several hits for the band, including "Otherside", "Californication" and the Grammy Award-winning "Scar Tissue". "Californication" peaked at number three on the US "Billboard" 200.


title: Californication (album)

text: The record marked a significant change in style for the band: "Rolling Stone"s Greg Tate noted that "while all previous Chili Peppers projects have been highly spirited, "Californication" dares to be spiritual and epiphanic". Another critic, "Billboard"s Paul Verna, mentioned that the album brought out "the group's softer, melodic side", as opposed to their previous six albums.


title: Californication (album)

text: In 1991, the Red Hot Chili Peppers released their breakthrough album "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" on Warner Bros. Records. The album sold seven million copies in the United States, and became a seminal component of the alternative rock explosion in the early 1990s. After the release of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik", the guitarist John Frusciante left the Red Hot Chili Peppers, as he became overwhelmed by the band's newfound popularity. Dave Navarro was hired as his replacement, and incorporated elements of heavy metal and psychedelic rock on the band's 1995 album "One Hot Minute". The album failed to match the critical and commercial success of its predecessor, and Navarro left in early 1998.


title: Californication (album)

text: In the years following his departure, Frusciante became addicted to heroin and cocaine, leaving him in poverty and near death. Friends convinced Frusciante to enter drug rehabilitation, and in 1998, he rejoined the Red Hot Chili Peppers at the insistence of bassist Flea. While in rehab, Frusciante came to terms with rock stardom; in a "Rolling Stone" interview, he said: "It got into my head that stardom was something evil. If you were a rock star, you were trying to put people on. I don't see it that way anymore." With Frusciante, the Red Hot Chili Peppers began brainstorming ideas for a new album. Flea suggested the group record an album with electronic influences, akin to "Zooropa" by U2. When the band was turned down by multiple electronic music producers (including David Bowie), they decided to instead pursue an alternative rock direction with throwbacks to their roots.


title: Californication (album)

text: The majority of the music for "Californication" was written at Flea's makeshift garage studio in the summer of 1998. It took Frusciante several weeks to readjust to playing with bandmates, especially while recovering from drug addiction. Singer Anthony Kiedis noted that as a result of this readjustment period, Frusciante took on a more minimalist approach to guitar playing. According to biographer Jeff Apter, the Red Hot Chili Peppers wrote between 30 and 40 songs for the album, which would eventually get distilled to 15 for the release. The band members took on a laid-back approach to writing music. As Kiedis said: "Everyone was having fun. It was as if we had nothing to lose, nothing to gain. We didn't care; we were making music for the sake of making music."


title: Californication (album)

text: "Californication" was recorded at Cello Studios in Los Angeles, and took a little over three weeks to complete. The band chose Rick Rubin to produce the album. Rubin had worked with the Red Hot Chili Peppers on their two previous albums, and Kiedis noted that there was some hesitation to reenlist him. "We thought that maybe it was time to get a new producer. Every time you make a record, it doesn't matter how good it was working with a producer, and even if you know you're going to end up making a record with that same person again, there's always a day when someone says, 'Do we want to get a new producer?'" About a week into the recording sessions, Jim Scott was brought in as a replacement audio engineer, as the band was not happy with the original production. The band was timely and professional, in comparison to what Rubin described as the "day-long pot sessions or sexual indulgences" that had plagued the recording sessions for previous albums.


title: Californication (album)

text: Recording the songs took five days. All four band members recorded their instruments at the same time within the same room. Rubin and Scott wanted the audio to be "dry and punchy", and thus placed numerous microphones directly next to the instruments. Among the microphones used were Shure SM57s, Neumann U47s, and Sennheiser MD 421s. "Californication" was recorded using Neve 8038 desk on two Ampex 124 24-track tape recorders. Scott induced significant equalization using Neve 1073 EQs. There was minimal overdubbing. Once the songs were recorded, the tracks from the Ampex machines were transferred over to Pro Tools. Continuing on the theme of making the album sound "dry and punchy", most of "Californication" was mixed using monaural sound. Scott felt the initial recordings were already good, and thus very little was altered during the mixing sessions. The album was mixed separately on various digital formats (including Digital Audio Tape and DA-88) to compare the sound, and Scott eventually used an analog 2‑track at 30 inches per second.


title: Californication (album)

text: Most of the material and lyrics throughout the songs in the album came from the "personal and professional turmoil" that different members of the band went through or were currently going through at the time. This resulted in the "sensitive approach that one might not expect from a band whose followers are skate-punks and fraternity boys". Kiedis's main point behind this album was to "tell tales of wandering souls who've lost their way searching for the American dream in California".


title: Californication (album)

text: "Californication's" lyrics were derived from Kiedis' ideas, outlooks, and perceptions of life and its meaning. "Porcelain" resulted from Kiedis' meeting with a young single mother at the YMCA, who was attempting to battle her heroin addiction while living with her infant daughter in Los Angeles during the summer of 1998. Regarding the meeting that inspired the song, Kiedis said in 1999, "[the] Mum's in a haze, strung out on heroin, but the little girl's this beaming-wide sunball of an angel. The woman loves her daughter, but the juxtaposition of their energies is profound." Kiedis also had a love interest in Yohanna Logan, a fashion designer whom Kiedis met while she was working in New York City. Kiedis involvement with Logan influenced his examination of love throughout "Californication", in songs such as "This Velvet Glove". Sarcasm was a concept that Kiedis had dealt with in the past, and he ultimately crafted a song around it. He was inspired by Navarro, whom he considered to be the "King of Sarcasm". Frusciante approached the guitar line present in "Scar Tissue" as an attempt to use two notes that are played far apart, but produce a "cool rhythm". He had explored this technique on his first solo album, 1994's "Niandra LaDes and Usually Just a T-Shirt". Frusciante considers "Scar Tissue" to be a "very simple example of the technique, but I think it's a style that sounds like me". The guitarist made use of slide guitar-playing for the solos in the song. "Emit Remmus" was inspired by Kiedis' brief relationship with Melanie C of the Spice Girls.


title: Californication (album)

text: "Get on Top", a song which contains significant use of a wah pedal, was formed after a jam session conducted shortly after Frusciante had listened to Public Enemy: "I came up with [the rhythm to the song] on the way to rehearsal—just tapping it out with my foot." The understated guitar solo played in the middle of the song was originally intended to be more noticeable, according to Frusciante, who was playing screaming guitar solos. He changed his thought process after listening to Steve Howe's guitar solo on Yes' "Siberian Khatru": "the band sounded really big—and they're playing really fast—and then this clean guitar solo comes out over on top. It's really beautiful, like it's on its own sort of shelf. For 'Get On Top' I wanted to play something that contrasted between the solo and the background." "Savior", a song found towards the end of the album, features heavy effects, most notably an Electro-Harmonix Micro Synth with 16-second delay. Frusciante notes that the sound is "directly inspired by Eric Clapton's playing in Cream. If you listen to the actual notes, they're like a Clapton solo—they just don't sound like it because of the effects."


title: Californication (album)

text: The hit "Around the World", which harkens back to the Chili Peppers' funk-influenced sound, was constructed by Frusciante at his home. The rhythm and beat, however, are intricate; this required him to play the song with the rest of the band rather than alone for them to understand it. The bass lick was composed in "maybe 15 minutes," according to Frusciante: "Flea is the best bass player in the world. His sense of timing and the way he thinks is so crazy." The title track of the album was among the most difficult for the band to complete. Frusciante felt compelled to write an appropriate guitar ensemble that would appropriately complement the poignant lyrical content, but encountered difficulty. The song was barely making progress, and would have been scrapped had it not been for Kiedis' urgency to include it on the album. Frusciante completed the final riff two days before recording, after drawing inspiration from the Cure's soundtrack song to "Carnage Visors". The title track was intended to represent Californian lifestyles and, more specifically, the "fake" nature which is associated with much of Hollywood. It references Kurt Cobain of Nirvana and uses considerable imagery to capture the evocative nature of California.


title: Californication (album)

text: The record was a change of style for the Chili Peppers, especially compared to "One Hot Minute". Although "Californication" still contains some funk rock songs (such as "Around the World", "Get on Top", "I Like Dirt", "Purple Stain" and "Right on Time"), it leaned towards more melodic riffs (for example, "Scar Tissue" and "Otherside") and focused on songs with implemented structure rather than jams.


title: Californication (album)

text: To promote "Californication", the Red Hot Chili Peppers developed what biographer Jeff Apter called an "Internet presence opening themselves up to a whole new type of listener – the cyber geek." From June 4 to June 8, three new "Californication" songs were streamed every day on the band's website. Flea engaged with fans online with a series of Internet posts called "Fleamail", in which he would discuss the recording process, upcoming tour dates, and occasionally stream of consciousness style thoughts about his life. The Red Hot Chili Peppers also performed at various high school proms across the United States shortly before the release of the album. The idea was to reintroduce the Red Hot Chili Peppers to a younger audience. The theme of these performances was "Stop The Hate", which was in response to the Columbine High School massacre. The price of admission was a written suggestion on how to prevent bullying and hatred among high school students.


title: Californication (album)

text: "Californication" was released on June 8, 1999, by Warner Bros. Records. It debuted at number 3 on the "Billboard" 200 chart, and sold 189,000 copies by June 26, surpassing the initial sales of "Blood Sugar Sex Magik" and "One Hot Minute". By July 3, "Californication" dropped to number 7, and stayed on the "Billboard" 200 chart for 101 weeks. It has since been certified 7× Platinum by the Recording Industry Association of America, for selling over 7 million copies in the United States. "Californication" also saw significant commercial success outside of the United States. For example, in England, the album peaked at number 5 on the UK Albums Chart, and stayed on the chart for 169 weeks. It was eventually certified 4× Platinum by the British Phonographic Industry for selling 1.2 million copies in England. Other notable peaks include reaching number 1 on the Australian, Finnish, Italian, New Zealand, Norwegian, and Swedish charts. As of 2019, "Californication" is the best selling Red Hot Chili Peppers album, with sales of over 15 million copies worldwide.


title: Californication (album)

text: A large part of "Californication" commercial success can be attributed to the popularity of its singles. The three most popular singles were "Californication", "Otherside", and "Scar Tissue". William Goodman of "Billboard" wrote: "You couldn't exist in American pop culture without hearing its singles." "Scar Tissue" was the lead single, and in the accompanying music video, the four band members ride in a convertible through Joshua Tree National Park. "Scar Tissue" spent 16 weeks atop the Mainstream Rock chart in the United States, and peaked at number 9 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. Additionally, the song was added to the rotation of all 91 modern rock radio stations in the United States, the first song to accomplish the feat since "Discothèque" by U2. "Californication" and "Otherside" also saw significant radio play, peaking at number 69 and 14 on the "Billboard" Hot 100 respectively.


title: Californication (album)

text: Immediately following the release of "Californication", the band embarked on a world tour to support the record, beginning in the United States. To culminate the United States leg of their tour, the Red Hot Chili Peppers were asked to close Woodstock '99, which became infamous for the resulting violence. The band was informed minutes before arriving that the crowds and bonfires in the fields had gone out of control. When the Red Hot Chili Peppers performed a cover of "Fire" by the Jimi Hendrix Experience to finish their set, the disruption escalated into violence when several women, who had been crowd surfing and moshing, were raped and nearby property was looted and destroyed. "The Washington Post" reported that the decision to perform "Fire" was already scheduled prior to the festival, and was not in response to the ongoing fires. When asked about the event, Smith said: "[The fire] literally looked like a little hamburger stand had a grease fire or something ... It looked like nothing from where we were at."


title: Californication (album)

text: To kick off the band's European tour, the band staged a free show in Moscow's Red Square, on August 14, 1999, to a crowd of over 200,000. Kiedis recalled the situation: "Red Square was so filled with wall-to-wall Russians that we needed a police escort to get near the stage." Following the European leg, the group did a show in New York City, at the Windows on the World, for KROQ radio contest-winners, and then at the Big Day Out festival in Australia following several Japanese tour dates. Flea, however, began to feel the repercussions of touring causing the band to set up concerts that were less strenuous, and consequently less financially rewarding, for them. These shows would finish the remainder of the "Californication" tour. As one of the last shows before the release of their next album "By the Way", the Red Hot Chili Peppers played at Rock in Rio 3 in Rio de Janeiro.


title: Californication (album)

text: "Californication" received favorable reviews in contrast to "One Hot Minute" and it was a greater success worldwide. "Rolling Stone" credited Kiedis for his drastically improved vocals: "[his] vocal cords have apparently been down to some crossroads and over the rehab, and returned with heretofore unheard-of range, body, pitch, soulfulness, and melodic sensibility." Songs such as "Otherside" and "Porcelain" were called "Pumpkins-esque", while the album as a whole was "epiphanal" and the "RHCP furthermuckers are now moving toward funk's real Holy Grail: that salty marriage of esoteric mythology and insatiable musicality that salvages souls, binds communities and heals the sick." Howard Cohen hailed "Californication" as a major improvement over its predecessor in the "Miami Herald", finding it features the band's "most accomplished music" to date. The "Edmonton Journal" Sandra Sperounes predicted that the "mighty dope" album would be a success, and "Scar Tissue" and "Otherside" would be chart toppers. She praised the renewed instrumentation and harmonies but took issue with the numerous references to California.


title: Californication (album)

text: Other critics credited the album's success to the return of Frusciante. AllMusic's Greg Prato said that the "obvious reason for [the band's] rebirth is the reappearance of guitarist John Frusciante", considering him to be the "quintessential RHCP guitarist". The album as a whole was "a "bona fide" Chili Peppers classic". "Entertainment Weekly" also credits Frusciante with transforming the band's sound into a "more relaxed, less grating, and, in their own way, more introspective album than ever before". Mark Woodlief of "Ray Gun" commented that "'This Velvet Glove' strikes an intricate balance between a lush acoustic guitar foundation and anthemic rock," Woodlief continued "the disco intro to 'Parallel Universe' gives way to a scorching Western giddy-up motif in the chorus, and Frusciante's Hendrix-like excursions at the song's close."


title: Californication (album)

text: While many critics found the band's new sound refreshing, "NME" criticized the Chili Peppers for rarely using their trademark funk sound, asking: "Can we have our brain-dead, half-dressed funk-hop rock animals back now, please? All this false empathy is starting to make my removed rib tingle." "Pitchfork", while considering the album a triumph over "One Hot Minute", felt "Californication" lacked the funk that was ever-present in "Blood Sugar Sex Magik". It went on to scrutinize some lyrics for being overly sexual, but also considered Frusciante to be "the best big-time American rock guitarist going right now". Critic Robert Christgau gave the album a one-star honorable mention (), describing the band as "New Age fuck fiends" and citing "Scar Tissue" and "Purple Stain" as highlights.


title: Californication (album)

text: Since its release, some journalists have credited "Californication" with revitalizing the Red Hot Chili Peppers' image and relevancy. During the eight year period between the band's breakthrough album–"Blood Sugar Sex Magik"–and "Californication", the Red Hot Chili Peppers' only release was "One Hot Minute", which was seen by fans and critics as a failure. Additionally, the rise of the Internet and online music streaming platforms such as Napster gave consumers more options to listen to, which meant established bands like the Red Hot Chili Peppers no longer had built-in followings. Writing about this period of the band's career, Ryan Leas of "Stereogum" said: "RHCP had already been around since the early days of the '80s, but they were now approaching the other side of another decade, one that had granted them stardom ... they were positioned for, "in need of", a comeback moment." "Loudwire" Chad Childer's offers similar commentary, and believes "Californication" helped solidify the band's status as eventual inductees in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.


title: Californication (album)

text: When "Californication" was released, some listeners complained about the perceived poor audio quality, in particular the excessive compression and distortion. This criticism persisted throughout the 2000's, and some journalists cited "Californication" as an example of an album affected by the loudness war, a trend in which audio levels are increased at the expense of audio fidelity. In his 2009 book "Perfecting Sound Forever", author Greg Milner notes that "Californication" became one of the most heavily derided albums within online audio mastering communities, and that there multiple online petitions for Warner Bros. to remaster Red Hot Chili Peppers albums without the excessive compression and distortion.


title: Californication (album)

text: In 2003, "Rolling Stone" released their list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time with "Californication" ranking at 399. It fell to 401 in the 2012 revised list, but moved up to 286 in its 2020 revised list. In 2015, the staff of "Ultimate Classic Rock" named "Californication" one of the best rock albums of the 1990s. The album was also included in the 2018 edition of Robert Dimery's book "1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream is a 1971 novel in the gonzo journalism style by Hunter S. Thompson. The book is a "roman à clef", rooted in autobiographical incidents. The story follows its protagonist, Raoul Duke, and his attorney, Doctor Gonzo, as they descend on Las Vegas to chase the American Dream through a drug-induced haze, all the while ruminating on the failure of the 1960s countercultural movement. The work is Thompson's most famous book, and is noted for its lurid descriptions of illicit drug use and its early retrospective on the culture of the 1960s. Thompson's highly subjective blend of fact and fiction, which it popularized, became known as gonzo journalism. Illustrated by Ralph Steadman, the novel first appeared as a two-part series in "Rolling Stone" magazine in 1971 before being published in book form in 1972. It was later adapted into a film of the same title in 1998 by director Terry Gilliam, starring Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro, who portrayed Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo, respectively.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The novel "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is based on two trips to Las Vegas, Nevada, that Hunter S. Thompson took with attorney and Chicano activist Oscar Zeta Acosta in March and April 1971. The first trip resulted from an exposé Thompson was writing for "Rolling Stone" magazine about the Mexican–American television journalist Rubén Salazar, whom officers of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department had shot and killed with a tear gas grenade fired at close range during the National Chicano Moratorium March against the Vietnam War in 1970. Thompson was using Acosta—a prominent Mexican-American political activist and attorney—as a central source for the story, and the two found it difficult for a brown-skinned Mexican to talk openly with a white reporter in the racially tense atmosphere of Los Angeles, California. The two needed a more comfortable place to discuss the story and decided to take advantage of an offer from "Sports Illustrated" to write photograph captions for the annual Mint 400 desert race being held in Las Vegas from March 21–23, 1971.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Thompson wrote that he concluded their March trip by spending some 36 hours alone in a hotel room "feverishly writing in my notebook" about his experiences. These writings became the genesis of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: What originally was a 250-word photo caption assignment for "Sports Illustrated" grew to a novel-length feature story for "Rolling Stone"; Thompson said publisher Jann Wenner had "liked the first 20 or so jangled pages enough to take it seriously on its own terms and tentatively scheduled it for publication—which gave me the push I needed to keep working on it." He had first submitted a 2,500-word manuscript to "Sports Illustrated" that was "aggressively rejected."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Weeks later Thompson and Acosta returned to Las Vegas to report for "Rolling Stone" on the National District Attorneys Association's Conference on Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs being held from April 25–29, 1971, and to add material to the larger "Fear and Loathing" narrative. Besides attending the attorneys' conference, Thompson and Acosta looked for ways in Vegas to explore the theme of the American Dream, which was the basis for the novel's second half, to which Thompson referred at the time as "Vegas II".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: On April 29, 1971, Thompson began writing the full manuscript in a hotel room in Arcadia, California, in his spare time while completing "Strange Rumblings in Aztlan," the article chronicling the death of Salazar. Thompson joined the array of Vegas experiences within what he called "an essentially fictional framework" that described a singular free-wheeling trip to Vegas peppered with creative licenses.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In November 1971, "Rolling Stone" published the combined texts of the trips as "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas: A Savage Journey to the Heart of the American Dream" as a two-part story, illustrated by Ralph Steadman, who two years before had worked with Thompson on an article titled "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved". Random House published the hardcover edition in July 1972, with additional illustrations by Steadman; "The New York Times" said it is "by far the best book yet on the decade of dope," with Tom Wolfe describing it as a "scorching epochal sensation."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke (Hunter S. Thompson) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo (Oscar Zeta Acosta), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 motorcycle race for an unnamed magazine. However, this job is repeatedly obstructed by their constant use of a variety of recreational drugs, including LSD, ether, cocaine, alcohol, mescaline, adrenochrome, and cannabis. This leads to a series of bizarre hallucinogenic experiences, during which they destroy hotel rooms, wreck cars, and have visions of anthropomorphic desert animals, all the while ruminating on the decline of both the "American Dream" and the '60s counterculture in a city of greed.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The "wave speech" is an important passage at the end of the eighth chapter that captures the hippie zeitgeist and its end. Thompson often cited this passage during interviews, choosing it when asked to read aloud from the novel.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In "High White Notes: The Rise and Fall of Gonzo Journalism", David S. Wills explains how the "wave speech" was influenced by Thompson's use of "The Great Gatsby" as a literary template. He argues that the entire wave passage replicated the rhythm, not to mention the theme, of the final page and a half of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel. Thompson himself frequently compared his book to "The Great Gatsby".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" is Thompson's most famous work, and is known as "Fear and Loathing" for short; however, he later used the phrase "Fear and Loathing" in the titles of other books, essays, and magazine articles.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Moreover, "Fear and Loathing", as a phrase, has been used by many writers, the first (possibly) being Friedrich Nietzsche in "The Antichrist". In a "Rolling Stone" magazine interview, Thompson said: "It came out of my own sense of fear, and [is] a perfect description of that situation to me, however, I have been accused of stealing it from Nietzsche or Kafka or something. It seemed like a natural thing."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: He first used the phrase in a letter to a friend written after the Kennedy assassination, describing how he felt about whoever had shot President John F. Kennedy. In "The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and Depraved", he used the phrase to describe how people regarded Ralph Steadman upon seeing his caricatures of them.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Another possible influence is "Fear and Trembling", a philosophical work by existentialist Søren Kierkegaard published in 1843. The title is a reference to a line from a Bible verse, Philippians 2:12.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: When it was published in fall of 1971 many critics did not like the novel's loose plot and the scenes of drug use; however, some reviewers predicted that "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" would become an important piece of American literature.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In "The New York Times", Christopher Lehmann-Haupt told readers to not "even bother" trying to understand the novel, and that "what goes on in these pages make[s] Lenny Bruce seem angelic"; instead, he acknowledged that the novel's true importance is in Thompson's literary method: "The whole book boils down to a kind of mad, corrosive prose poetry that picks up where Norman Mailer's "An American Dream" left off and explores what Tom Wolfe left out".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: As the novel became popular the reviews became positive; Crawford Woods, also in "The New York Times", wrote a positive review countering Lehmann-Haupt's negative review: the novel is "a custom-crafted study of paranoia, a spew from the 1960s and—in all its hysteria, insolence, insult and rot—a desperate and important book, a wired nightmare, the funniest piece of American prose"; and "this book is such a mind storm that we may need a little time to know that it is also literature... it unfolds a parable of the nineteen-sixties to those of us who lived in them in a mood—perhaps more melodramatic than astute—of social strife, surreal politics and the chemical feast." About Thompson, Woods said he "trusts the authority of his senses, and the clarity of a brain poised between brilliance and burnout".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In any event, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" became a benchmark in American literature about U.S. society in the early 1970s. In "Billboard" magazine, Chris Morris said, "Through Duke and Gonzo's drug-addled shenanigans amid the seediness of the desert pleasure palaces, it perfectly captured the zeitgeist of the post–'60s era". In "Rolling Stone" magazine, Mikal Gilmore wrote that the novel "peers into the best and worst mysteries of the American heart" and that Thompson "sought to understand how the American dream had turned a gun on itself". Gilmore believes that "the fear and loathing Thompson was writing about—a dread of both interior demons and the psychic landscape of the nation around him—wasn't merely his own; he was also giving voice to the mind-set of a generation that had held high ideals and was now crashing hard against the walls of American reality".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In the book "The Great Shark Hunt", Thompson refers to "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" as "a failed experiment in the gonzo journalism" he practiced, which was based on William Faulkner's idea that "the best fiction is far more "true" than any kind of journalism—and the best journalists have always known this". Thompson's style blended the techniques of fictional story-telling and journalism.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: He called it a failed experiment because he originally intended to record every detail of the Las Vegas trip as it happened, and then publish the raw, unedited notes; however, he revised it during the spring and summer of 1971. For example, the novel describes Duke attending the motorcycle race and the narcotics convention in a few days' time; the actual events occurred a month apart. Later, he wrote, "I found myself imposing an essentially fictional framework on what began as a piece of straight/crazy journalism".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Nevertheless, critics call "Fear and Loathing" Thompson's crowning achievement in gonzo journalism. For example, journalist and author Mikal Gilmore said the novel "feels free wheeling when you read it [but] it doesn't feel accidental. The writing is right there, on the page—startling, unprecedented and brilliantly crafted".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Although the original novel was published through the Rolling Stone magazine under the byline "Raoul Duke", the book was published with Thompson's name as the author.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In chapter 8 of part I, Thompson tells a story about his neighbor, "a former acid guru who later claimed to have made that long jump from chemical frenzy to preternatural consciousness". In the "Rolling Stone" article the neighbor was identified as "Dr. Robert De Ropp on Sonoma Mountain Road". In the book version, the name and the street were redacted "at insistence of publisher's lawyer".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In chapter 12 of part II, Thompson tells of a belligerent drunk confronting Bruce Innes, of Canadian folk band The Original Caste, at a club in Aspen. The drunk was identified in the "Rolling Stone" version as "Wally Schirra, the Astronaut". In the book version he is only identified as "a former Astronaut" and his name is, again, redacted "at insistence of publisher's lawyer".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: British artist Ralph Steadman added his unique and grotesque illustrations to the "Rolling Stone" issues and to the novel. Steadman had first met Thompson when "Scanlan's Monthly" hired Steadman to do the illustrations for Thompson's first venture into gonzo journalism called "The Kentucky Derby Is Decadent and Depraved."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Many critics have hailed Steadman's illustrations as another main character of the novel and companion to Thompson's disjointed narrative. "The New York Times" noted that "Steadman's drawings were stark and crazed and captured Thompson's sensibility, his notion that below the plastic American surface lurked something chaotic and violent. The drawings are the plastic torn away and the people seen as monsters."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: Steadman has expressed regret at selling the illustrations, at the advice of his agent, to "Rolling Stone" founder Jann Wenner for the sum of $75, which remained in Wenner's possession until he sold them in 2016. As a result of that transaction Steadman has largely refused to sell any of his original artwork and has been quoted as saying "If anyone owns a Steadman original, it's stolen." While there are original pieces held outside his archive, they are exceedingly rare. The artist has kept possession of the vast bulk of his artwork.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: An audiobook version was released by Margaritaville Records and Island Records in 1996, on the 25th anniversary of the book's original publication. It features the voice talents of Harry Dean Stanton as the narrator/an older Hunter S. Thompson, Jim Jarmusch as Raoul Duke, and Maury Chaykin as Dr. Gonzo, with Jimmy Buffett, Joan Cusack, Buck Henry and Harry Shearer in minor roles. Sound effects, period-appropriate music and album-like sound mixing are used extensively to give it the surreal feeling characteristic of the book. Quotes from Thompson himself bookend the album.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The album is presumably out-of-print, due to its relative rarity, but is sought after by fans for its high production values and faithfulness to the book's tone. Excerpts of it were included in the Criterion Collection release of the movie.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The novel's popularity gave rise to attempted cinematic adaptations; directors Martin Scorsese and Oliver Stone each unsuccessfully attempted to film a version of the novel. In the course of these attempts, Jack Nicholson and Marlon Brando were considered for the roles of Duke and Dr. Gonzo but the production stalled and the actors aged beyond the characters. Afterwards, Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi were considered, but Belushi's death ended that plan. Art Linson's 1980 film "Where the Buffalo Roam" starring Bill Murray and Peter Boyle is based on a number of Thompson's stories, including "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas".


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: In 1989, "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" was almost made by director Terry Gilliam when he was given a script by illustrator Ralph Steadman. Gilliam, however, felt that the script "didn't capture the story properly". In 1995, Gilliam received a different script he felt worth realising; his 1998 film features Johnny Depp and Benicio del Toro as Raoul Duke and Dr. Gonzo respectively. However, criticism was mixed and the film was a box office failure.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: A graphic novel adaptation of "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas", adapted by Canadian artist Troy Little, was released in October 2015. In interviews, Little said "We decided right off the bat not to go the Steadman route, or be too influenced by the movie either, and draw Johnny Depp and Benicio Del Toro. So we wanted to make it its own unique thing... For me, capturing the manic energy and spirit of the book, and staying true to the feel of "Fear and Loathing" was my big goal."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: "Fear and Loathing on the Planet of Kitson," an episode of the ABC/Marvel Studios superhero series "Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.", first broadcast on May 24, 2019, not only takes its title from the novel, it also incorporates plot elements from the novel and 1998 film, particularly around characters having to navigate a casino (in this case a casino on an alien planet) while under the influence of a psychedelic drug.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The 2013 album Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die! by Panic! at the Disco (originally from Las Vegas) was named after a line from the book.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: The music videos for Lil Wayne's "No Worries" and The Weeknd's song "Heartless" draw heavy inspiration from the 1998 film.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: "Bat Country", from the album "City of Evil" of the band Avenged Sevenfold, is based on the novel, with the title coming from what Raoul Duke says to Dr. Gonzo after seeing huge bats and flying manta rays in his hallucinations, "We can't stop here. This is bat country."


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: An achievement in called 'Can't Stop Here, This is Brute Country' is a reference to the line "We can't stop here, this is bat country." from the book and the 1998 film.


title: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

text: A set of cosmetic items in the class-based First-person shooter video game Team Fortress 2 are directly based on one of the outfits that Raoul Duke wears in the book and the 1998 film, both cosmetic items belonging to the Sniper class. The items are named the Hawaiian Hunter and Tropical Camo in-game, respectively.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand II (; ; ; ; ; ; 10 March 1452 – 23 January 1516), also called Ferdinand the Catholic (Spanish: "el Católico"), was King of Aragon and Sardinia from 1479, King of Sicily from 1468, King of Naples (as Ferdinand III) from 1504 and King of Navarre (as Ferdinand I) from 1512 until his death in 1516. He was also the nominal Duke of the ancient Duchies of Athens and Neopatria. He was King of Castile and León (as Ferdinand V) from 1475 to 1504, alongside his wife Queen Isabella I. From 1506 to 1516, he was the Regent of the Crown of Castile, making him the effective ruler of Castile. From 1511 to 1516, he styled himself as "Imperator totius Africa" (Emperor of All Africa) after having conquered Tlemcen and making the Zayyanid Sultan, Abu Abdallah V, his vassal. He was also the Grandmaster of the Spanish Military Orders of Santiago (1499-1516), Calatrava (1487-1516), Alcantara (1492-1516) and Montesa (1499-1516), after he permanently annexed them into the Spanish Crown. He reigned jointly with Isabella over a dynastically unified Spain; together they are known as the Catholic Monarchs. Ferdinand is considered the "de facto" first King of Spain, and was described as such during his reign (; ).


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: The Crown of Aragon that Ferdinand inherited in 1479 included the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca, Sardinia, and Sicily, as well as the principality of Catalonia. His marriage to Queen Isabella I of Castile is regarded as the "cornerstone in the foundation of the Spanish monarchy". Ferdinand played a major role in the European colonization of the Americas, from drawing up the Capitulations of Santa Fe (anticipating a rogue Columbus) to having his personal accountant, Luis de Santangel, undertake more than half the cost (2 million maravedis of the 3 million total) of sponsoring Christopher Columbus' first voyage in 1492 (ensuring the Crown was virtually risk-free in this great gamble) to prudently negotiating the terms with John II of Portugal for the Treaty of Tordesillas. That same year, the couple defeated Granada, the last Muslim state in Western Europe, thus completing the centuries-long Reconquista.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand was King of the Crown of Castile until Isabella's death in 1504, when their daughter Joanna became Queen. That year, after a war with France, Ferdinand conquered the Kingdom of Naples. In 1506, he became Regent of Castile (as "Rey Señor de Castilla") on behalf of his mentally unstable daughter Joanna. In 1505, as part of a treaty with France, Ferdinand married Germaine of Foix, niece of King Louis XII of France and sister of Gaston of Foix (the Thunderbolt of Italy). Ferdinand and Germaine's only child, John, died shortly after his birth. In 1512, Ferdinand conquered the Kingdom of Navarre, ruling all the territories comprising modern-day Spain until his death in 1516. He was succeeded by his eldest surviving child, Joanna and his grandson Charles. Ferdinand's great-grandson Philip II of Spain, while staring at a portrait of him, is recorded to have said "We owe everything to him". Modern historian Sir John H. Elliott concluded "in so far as it [the establishment of the Spanish Empire] can be attributed to any particular set of policies and actions, they were those of King Ferdinand and Cardinal Cisneros."


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand was born on 10 March 1452, in the town of Sos del Rey Católico, Aragon, as the son of John, Duke of Montblanc, and Joanna Enríquez, 5th Lady of Casarrubios del Monte. He was a nephew of King Alfonso V of Aragon, and the largest foreign landholders of feudal Castile, the infantes Henry, Duke of Villena, and Peter, Count of Albuquerque. Ferdinand grew in the shade of his headstrong mother, whom her much older husband loved and indulged. From the very beginning, she seemed to have brought up her son to ascend to the throne of Aragon. It began by her putting off his baptism for nearly a year until King Alfonso named his brother John as regent, thus making it possible to hold Ferdinand's baptism in the Cathedral-Basilica of Our Lady of the Pillar in the capitol city of Zaragoza with all the pomp afforded to an Aragonese Infante. The child was named after his paternal grandfather, Ferdinand I, the first Trastamara king of Aragon. King Ferdinand I was the foremost Iberian hero of the wars against the Moors in recent memory. In 1458, Ferdinand's uncle died with no legitimate children and his father became King John II of Aragon.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand's father hailed him as a child prodigy. It is said that by the time Ferdinand was eight years old, he managed to beat his parents, his mentor Joan Margarit i Pau, and other members of the court every single time they played chess or checkers. As a child, he excelled at many of the physical activities required of a royal prince. In the words of Hernando del Pulgar: "[Ferdinand] was a very good equestrian, jouster and lance thrower, and did all the things that a Prince ought to with such ease and with such skill, that no one his age, in all his kingdoms, did it better." From a very young age, he seemed to have developed a great sense of humility and respect toward people of "low birth" (especially his constant servants).


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand was born during a period of turbulence, with King John II and his son, Charles, Prince of Viana (Ferdinand's elder half-brother) embroiled in open conflict. Ferdinand was by no means meant to inherit the Crown of Aragon. That privilege was reserved for Charles but John II was not having it. Within the Crown of Aragon, John had the support of Aragon, Sardinia, Sicily, Majorca and the Remences of Catalonia while Charles had the support of Catalonia and Navarre. Valencia chose to remain neutral while Louis XI of France and Henry IV of Castile allied with John and Charles respectively. After Charles' unexpected death on 23 September 1461, Ferdinand was made John's undisputed heir.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: In February 1462, war broke out in Catalonia with the commencement of the First War of the Remences led by Francesc de Verntallat. The peasants revolted against the Consell del Principat with the hope of receiving royal support. On 11 March, Queen Joanna sensing danger, departed Barcelona for Girona, with the 10-year old Prince Ferdinand in tow. They hoped to receive protection from the French garrison stationed in Girona. In May, the deputy leader of the Consell, Francesc Pallarès, along with two other former leaders, were executed by the Generalitat for colluding with the Queen. This meant civil war, once more.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: An army of the Consell was formed and placed under the command of Hug Roger III, Count of Pallars Sobira. After besieging and capturing Hostalric on 23 May, Roger marched on Girona, where he was received warmly on 6 June while the Queen and the Prince took refuge in the citadel, Força Vella, all throughout June. Gaston IV, Count of Foix, leading a French army, took Girona on 23 July and rescued the Queen and Prince.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: By this time, King John II and King Louis XI had signed the Treaty of Sauveterre (3 May) and the Treaty of Bayonne (9 May) in which Louis pledged 4,200 French Knights to John's cause in return for 200,000 escut as payment. And until the payment was made, Louis received Roussillon and Cerdagne as collateral, along with the right to garrison Perpignan and Cotlliure. With this, the Consell named John II "an enemy of Catalonia" and offered the Principality to three different foreigners; Henry IV of Castile, Peter of Coimbra and René of Anjou.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: When the General Cortés was convened, at Zaragoza on 6 February 1468, Queen Joanna, afflicted with late-stage breast cancer, was too sick to preside over. So, the now sixteen year old Ferdinand did so instead. He handled the sessions as if he was a well-seasoned veteran politician in his 60s. The Queen could not have been more proud of her son, but just two weeks later her serene highness died, which to say devastated Ferdinand would be an understatement. Diego de Valera insists that a wonderful odor arose from her corpse, implying she was a Saint. King John II was then battling the French in the north, and it was Ferdinand who saw to his mother's funeral arrangements. Then, in Valencia, where the regional Cortés was indifferent to the ongoing war, Ferdinand addressed the city's nobility with tears streaming down his face. He first paid his due reverence to his deceased mother and said: "Lords, you are well aware of the hardships my lady mother underwent to keep Catalonia within the House of Aragon. I see my lord father old and myself very young. Therefore I place myself in your warm and capable hands and ask you to please embrace and guide me as if I were your own son."


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: The speech received an ecstatic response with some Nobles swearing oaths of fealty then and there. With this, Valencia; the most prosperous kingdom within the Crown of Aragon at the time, joined the war on the side of the royalists and the war waged on until John II and Prince Ferdinand entered Barcelona in 1471 and the Consell signed the Capitulation of Pedralbes. Here, Ferdinand displayed his magnanimity by convincing his father to issue a general pardon to all their former opponents (except Hugh Roger III).


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: In between 1463 and 1469, Ferdinand had managed to bag multiple victories against all manner of foes (the French led by the Duke of Lorraine, the Castilians led by John of Beaumont, the Portuguese led by the Constable of Portugal and the Catalans led by the Count of Pallars Sobira). Some of his notable victories were at Vildamat, Berga, Alt Emporda, Els Prats del Rei, Bellegarde, Collioure, and Salses. He also led the liberation of Navarre from the French, when he, along with his father, entered Perpignan on 1 February 1473 amidst jubilation.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: By the time he was just 17, he was a proven battlefield commander and a shrewd diplomat (earning praise from Louis XI of France himself). In 1473, he was made a Knight of the Golden Fleece by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. He was the last recipient of that honor from a member of the founding house: the House of Valois-Burgundy, before the death of Charles at the Battle of Nancy in 1477 ended its male-line permanently.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: As heir apparent to the Crown of Aragon, Ferdinand was the subject of many royal matches. A notable one being a marriage proposal made by Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy for his daughter, Mary of Burgundy. He eventually married Isabella, the half-sister and heir presumptive of Henry IV of Castile, on 19 October 1469 in Valladolid, Kingdom of Castile and Leon. Since the marriage was done against Henry's wishes, Isabella's status as his heir presumptive was revoked and she was disinherited in favour of Henry's daughter; Princess Joanna. Although Isabella never gave up her claim to the title; Princess of Asturias, from 1469 to 1475, they had to rely on Ferdinand's regal title; King of Sicily.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Before the marriage, Ferdinand was asked to sign the humiliating Capitulations of Cervera on 5 March 1469. Most people, like Alfonso de Palencia, Pedro de Peralta, Archbishop Margarit and even Castilians like Archbishop Carrillo, Gutierre de Cardenas and Juan Pacheco, wondered why a royal prince would even contemplate signing such a document. But Ferdinand, as a shrewd politician, was playing the long game.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 12 December 1474, Henry died in Madrid. When news reached Segovia, where Isabella was residing, she immediately convened the Courts of Castile the following day, disinherited her niece Joanna and proclaimed herself Queen of Castile with Ferdinand as her ""legitimate husband"". Ferdinand was not present for all this because, at the time, he was campaigning against the French occupying Roussillon. When he got word, he was incandescent with fury. He immediately rode for Segovia, where he was given a royal entry on 2 January 1475.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Immediately, a new agreement of understanding was drafted with Archbishop Carillo representing the interests of Ferdinand and Cardinal Mendoza representing the interests of Isabella. The Concord of Segovia, completed on 5 January, was not an agreement between husband and wife but one between two rival political parties. In it, Ferdinand renounced all claims to the throne of Castile as closest male heir of the House of Trastamara. Isabella was recognized as sole owner of the Kingdom with it passing to her descendants at the time of her death. All official documents, the coin, the seal and the proclamations will be headed by the names of both with Ferdinand taking precedence over Isabella. Both their arms were merged into one with Isabella's Eagle of Saint John and Ferdinand's motto "Tanto Monta" (""it amounts to the same" ["cutting as untying"]") added in. It was decided that the arms of the House of Trastamara; the arms of Castile y Leon, would take precedence over the arms of Aragon y Sicily in their new joint heraldry. Ferdinand was recognized jure uxoris King of Castile as Ferdinand V of Castile, with near equal powers to those of Isabella. Identical equal powers (with the added benefit of being made the supreme authority on the joint Crown's foreign, military and social policies) were ceded by Isabella to Ferdinand on 28 April 1475, at the outbreak of the Castilian War of Succession. This document, nullifying the separation of monarchical powers established in the Concord of Segovia, signified the commencement of a reign of true equals.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Shortly after Ferdinand and Isabella were invested as the Monarchs of Castile, Queen Joanna's husband; King Afonso V of Portugal, declared Isabella a usurper and took up his wife's cause. According to him, she was the legitimate heir of Henry IV, and as her husband, he, the legitimate "jure uxoris" King of Castile (as Alfonso XII). Isabella had no option but to reciprocate by claiming the throne of Portugal (as the daughter of Isabella of Portugal) and declaring war on Afonso.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On one side was the Crown of Aragon and the pro-Isabella faction of Castile. On the other, the Kingdom of Portugal and the pro-Joanna faction of Castile. The 3 most powerful Houses of Northern Castile (the House of Enriquez, the House of Mendoza and the House of Alvarez de Toledo) formed the pro-Isabella faction because of their familial ties to Ferdinand. The lesser "Hidalgos" (who made up 2/3 of Castile's nobility) led by the House of Pacheco-Giron, the House of Zuniga and the Archbishop of Toledo (the supreme ecclesiastical authority of Castile) formed the pro-Joanna faction. France supported Afonso and Joanna (because of a wider war raging in Roussillon, Cerdagne and the Italian Peninsula with Aragon) and Burgundy supported Ferdinand and Isabella (for the same reason France supports Portugal). The Kingdom of Navarre was going through a civil war, so it, along with the Taifa of Granada and the Kingdom of Galicia, chose to remain neutral.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand, as Captain-General, led the Castilian-Aragonese army while Afonso and the "Perfect Prince" led the Castilian-Portuguese army. Under the leadership of Ferdinand, the pro-Isabella Castilians won some decisive battles in Trujillo, Burgos, Cantalapiedra, Castronuño, Sieteiglesias, Cubillas, Villalonso, Portillo, Villaba and Zamora. On 1 March 1476, Ferdinand (along with Cardinal Mendoza and the Duke of Alba) secured a major victory at the Battle of Toro, which essentially crushed all hopes of a Portuguese victory on land. After signing a Treaty with Afonso V on 23 September 1475, Louis XI of France sent a wave of French armies under Alain I of Albret, all throughout March–June 1476, to push into Castile via Hondarribia. Ferdinand not only crushed this French invasion but also managed to gain a foothold in the Kingdom of Navarre by conquering Viana and Puente La Reina. He then acted as arbitrator between the warring factions of Navarre while gaining the right to station 1,000 men-at-arms in Pamplona. This victory shielded Aragon and Castile from any future French offensives. Although Ferdinand was winning on land, at sea, the Portuguese, along with Norman pirates led by Guillaume Coullon, were gaining the upper hand (especially after the Battle of Guinea and the Battle of Elmina). On 9 October 1478, Ferdinand pressured Louis XI to sign the Treaties of Saint-Jean-de-Luz and Guadalupe, in which France recognized Ferdinand and Isabella as the legal Monarchs of Castile in return for Ferdinand breaking all ties with Maximilian I, Duke of Burgundy.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Emboldened by the victory at Elmina, Afonso V decided to undertake a last-ditch invasion of Castile. In February 1479, a Castilian-Portuguese army commanded by Garcia de Meneses, Bishop of Evora, penetrated into Extremadura. The objective was to occupy and reinforce the strongholds of Mérida and Medellin, controlled by Beatriz Pacheco, Countess of Medellin and supporter of Joanna. Ferdinand immediately dispatched Alonso de Cardenas, Master of the Order of Santiago, with a Castilian-Aragonese army, to face this threat. On 24 February, near the hill of Albuera, the two forces jostled for dominance. Despite Cardenas having been outnumbered 2:1, he completely routed the invasion force and Ferdinand quickly put Mérida and Medellin under siege. In June 1479, Ferdinand launched an offensive against the rebel Archbishop of Toledo, who was forced to surrender. This signified the end of hostilities towards Ferdinand and Isabella within Castile. The pro-Joanna faction disintegrated, with its leaders; the Marquis of Villena, the Marquis of Cadiz and the Count of Ureña, submitting themselves to the Queen's mercy. All that remained was Portugal itself and with Pope Sixtus VI revoking his papal dispensation for the marriage between Afonso and his niece, Joanna, the legitimacy of Afonso V as King of Castile fell by its foundations.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: The document that put an end to the war, the Treaty of Alcáçovas-Toldeo, was drafted on 4 September 1479. It was ratified by Afonso V of Portugal in Alcáçovas on 8 September 1479 and by Ferdinand and Isabella in Toledo on 6 March 1480. In it, Afonso renounced all claims to the throne of Castile and Isabella did the same to the throne of Portugal. The treaty wasn't harsh on any party apart from Queen Joanna herself, who was required to renounce all regal claims associated with Henry IV and retire to a nunnery for the rest of her life.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 20 February 1479, Ferdinand's father, King John II of Aragon, died and that same year Ferdinand succeeded him as King. Now, he was King of Castile, Leon, Aragon, Sicily and Count of Barcelona. And on 14 April 1481, in the Cortes of Calatayud, he granted his wife Isabella, the same powers that he had received on 28 April 1475, designating her as co-regent, governor and administrator of the kingdoms of the Crown of Aragon. This signified the symbolic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon into one: the Crown of Spain. In the words of a letter drafted by the Town Council of Barcelona to the Town Council of Seville: ""Now...we are brothers"."


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Emulating what the ancient Kings of Aragon did with their newly acquired Muslim communities, especially in Valencia, Ferdinand imposed the extremely liberal Treaty of Granada (1491) on Granada on its capitulation. The treaty proved extremely favourable to the Muslims, who got to retain their faith, customs, and attire. The new Archbishop of Granada, Hernando de Talavera, was an ardent supporter of the treaty and much like the king, he wanted to win hearts and minds, resulting in a slow but resolute process of conversion. This all changed when the Archbishop of Toledo, Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, settled in Granada in 1499. He carried out a policy of heavy-handed forced conversion, in gross violation of the initial treaty. This resulted in the Rebellion of the Alpujarras (1499–1501) which saw swaths of Muslim communities up in arms. Ferdinand crushed the rebellion with brutal efficiency and in that same year, along with Isabella I, issued an edict of conversion. All Muslims residing in the Crown of Castile were to convert to Christianity or face expulsion. Most did convert, nominally, while the remaining few emigrated to North Africa. Muslims in the Crown of Aragon were safe under Ferdinand, but they too suffered the same fate under his grandson in 1526.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: The later part of Ferdinand's life was largely taken up with disputes with successive kings of France over control of Italy, the Italian Wars. In 1494, Charles VIII of France invaded Italy and expelled Alfonso II of Naples, Ferdinand's first cousin once removed and step nephew, from the throne of Naples. Ferdinand allied with various Italian princes and with Emperor Maximilian I to expel the French by 1496 and install Alfonso's son, Ferdinand II, on the Neapolitan throne. In 1501, following Ferdinand II's death and the accession of his uncle Frederick, Ferdinand signed an agreement with Charles VIII's successor, Louis XII, who had just successfully asserted his claims to the Duchy of Milan, to partition Naples between them, with Campania and the Abruzzi, including Naples itself, going to the French and Ferdinand taking Apulia and Calabria. The agreement soon fell apart and, over the next several years, Ferdinand's great general Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba fought to take Naples from the French, finally succeeding by 1504.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Some time before 1502 Andreas Palaiologos, the last surviving male heir of Emperor Constantine XI Palaiologos, bestowed his titles and rights to the Byzantine throne to Ferdinand in his last will. This move was primarily influenced by Ferdinand's successful military campaigns against the Ottoman Empire in Otranto and Cephalonia. But Ferdinand never used the titles during his lifetime, feeling that they would "obligate" him to launch an expensive crusade.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 12 October 1504, Ferdinand's wife and queen proprietor of Castile; Isabella I, had her last will drafted and notarized, in which she stipulated their daughter Joanna as "the true queen, natural lady and universal successor". On 23 November that same year, she signed a codicil in which she stipulated that if Joanna was not physically present in the Kingdom or "being in them, she does not want to or cannot attend the governorship" it was to pass over to Ferdinand and no other, who in turn was to set up a regency headed by him for their grandson; Prince Charles, until he reached the legal age of 20. With this, Isabella set up a contingency plan in case Joanna's diagnosis was accurate and also sidelined her son-in-law; Archduke Philip, who was already bitter about Isabella outright rejecting his request of being afforded the same title as her husband: "de jure uxoris" King of Castile. The will made it crystal clear that Philip was simply Prince-consort of Castile with no position in the line of succession or any hand in Castile's government. This was all on paper, while the real situation was anything but this clear-cut. 3 days after signing the codicil, Isabella died and since Joanna was in Flanders, thus started the 1st regency of Ferdinand.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Regardless of what the will stipulated, Ferdinand's position in Castile was precarious. Despite having become King of Castile even before he became King of Aragon, and having channeled a good portion of his prime (35 years in total) for matters pertaining to Castile (the skirmishes with Henry IV, the War of the Castilian Succession, the pacification of Galicia, the Granada War, Columbus' expeditions etc...), he was still legally a foreigner. And after Isabella's death, his legal role in Castile was limited to temporarily presiding over the government until Joanna's arrival. Since Ferdinand was the one who spearheaded the centrist policies that saw a good chunk of the castilian nobility deprived of their feudal lands, rights and privileges, from their perspective this was the ideal time for payback. And it was in their best interest to swiftly replace this seasoned monarch with a novice while they had the law on their side. Coincidentally, these were all the same nobles that joined the anti-Isabelline faction during the War of the Castilian Succession. They, led by Diego Lopez de Pacheco, Marquess of Villena, Pedro Fernandez de Cordoba y Pacheco, Marquess of Priego, Juan Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, Duke of Medina Sidonia and Juan Téllez-Girón, Count of Ureña demanded Ferdinand immediately vacate Castile. This was when the Marquess of Villena uttered the most infamous words: "¡Viejo Catalanote, vuélvete a tu tierra!" (Old Catalan, go back to your country!).


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand only had a handful of nobles, albeit powerful, on his side. They included: Fadrique Álvarez de Toledo, Duke of Alba, Íñigo López de Mendoza, Count of Tendilla, Fadrique Enríquez, Admiral of Castile, Bernardino Fernández de Velasco, Constable of Castile and Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Mendoza, Count of Cabra. With their backing, he sought to empower the regency clause stipulated in Isabella's will by having Joanna declared ""incapable of governing the realm"" in front of the Castilian Cortés convened at Toro. This didn't go as planned but a curious opportunity presented itself that proved greatly beneficial to Ferdinand's political aspirations: it seems Joanna's mental state had worsened while in Flanders, thus preventing Philip from immediately sailing over to Castile and establishing himself via his wife because up until then, Joanna's mental health issues were merely rumor. But if the castilian nobles were to witness first hand her true state, everything could go wrong for Philip. On top of all this, Philip was forced to attend to the plight of Guelders, which was then occupied by Charles of Egmont. But all through this, Philip always had one staunch ally; his father, the Emperor Maximilian. But for whatever reason, Philip opted to also ally himself with Maximilian's enemy; Louis XII of France (possibly to incentivize him into threatening Ferdinand in the pyrenees front) early that year by signing the 1st Treaty of Blois on 24 September 1504, in which Philip recognized Louis' claims to the Duchy of Milan. The treaty also included a marriage between Philip's son; Charles, and Louis' daughter; Claude. This infuriated Maximilian and also forced Ferdinand to make an alliance of his own.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 12 October 1505, Ferdinand and Louis signed the 2nd Treaty of Blois, which was an alliance strengthened by marriage. This treaty basically overwrote the aforementioned 1st treaty with Philip, and it stipulated that Ferdinand would marry Louis' niece; Germaine of Foix and restore the ceased assets and titles of the Angevin party of Naples, and in return, Louis would transfer his disputed claims to Southern Italy and the throne of Jerusalem to her while also ensuring any military action taken by the Archduke and/or the Emperor against either Ferdinand or Louis would have to overcome a joint French-Aragonese force.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: This devastated Philip, who in just one day, had lost both his allies (Maximilian and Louis) and possibly the Crown of Aragon (because any male children born to Ferdinand and Germaine would bypass Joanna). This wasn't all beneficial to Ferdinand either. His second marriage, to a French princess no less, cost him the approval of Castile's majority population, who unlike the nobility, had lauded Ferdinand as their King. The people saw it as a blatant betrayal of Isabella. Ferdinand basically handed his political opponents material to further discredit him. But in the end, it was Philip who was mauled. So he entered into fresh negotiations with Ferdinand.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 24 November 1505, a concord was signed between Ferdinand and Philip (represented by Filiberto de Veyre) at Salamanca. In it, Ferdinand recognized Joanna's and by extension, Philip's, right to rule in Castile. While the couple would be invested as de jure uxoris King and Queen proprietor of Castile, Ferdinand would run the realm's everyday affairs as ""Governor"". The royal income would be split in half between the couple and Ferdinand. Isabella's half of the Indies would pass over to the couple while Ferdinand retained his half as per the solemn papal bull, while royal appointments were to be agreed upon by both parties. This treaty didn't last long and finally, on 8 January 1506, Philip and Joanna set sail from Flanders towards Castile.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: The nobles that sided with Ferdinand tried to convince him to confront Philip on the battlefield. As did those that sided with Philip (especially the Duke of Medina Sidonia). The couple initially planned to land in Seville to meet up with the Duke of Medina Sidonia and march into Northern Castile at the head of an army. But Juan Manuel, Lord of Belmonte (who would soon go onto be the "de facto" Prime Minister of Castile under Philip) discouraged Philip from taking any such rash action. After a brief shipwreck in England, where Philip was forced to make concessions to Henry VII in return for his freedom, he initially planned to land in Biscay, which strongly rebuffed him saying "the land is loyal to the one sanctioned under the tree; the Lord of Biscay", so he opted for Corunna instead. He landed there at the head of an army of German mercenaries on 26 April 1506. The castilian nobility was quick to flock to him. A curious event was Francisco Jiménez de Cisneros, Archbishop of Toledo, switching sides from Ferdinand to Philip. Nobody knew at the time this was orchestrated by Ferdinand himself.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Both parties agreed to settle their disputes in a peaceful manner with the Archbishop serving as mediator. On 20 June 1506 both men met for the first time (since 1504) at Remesal where Ferdinand promised to give up all ""claims and aspirations"" to the Castilian throne. And on the 27 and 28, the Treaty of Villafáfila was ratified in Benavente and Villafáfila respectively. In it, Ferdinand politically ceded to Philip, who was recognized as ""King and Governor of Castile"" and also ""Lord of the Indies"" although the rents and legal ownership of the Indies were split equally between Ferdinand and Philip. Most importantly, they agreed to keep Joanna away from running the Kingdom and if any tried to change this, both men would prevent it. With this, Philip's position in Castile was solid and Ferdinand departed Castile for the Crown of Aragon. Philip was invested by the Cortés of Valladolid as Philip I of Castile, and the nobles that sided with Ferdinand were forced to take oaths of fealty. But the Grand Tendilla vehemently refused, claiming that Mendozas couldn't and wouldn't serve "a pretender".


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: After Ferdinand departed Castile, and Philip established himself there by making huge concessions to the nobility that supported him, it seemed as if the makeup of the Iberian peninsula had turned into what it was prior to 1475. Castile and Aragon were again, two separate realms, ruled by two separate monarchs who were hostile towards each other. Although Philip's reign was short (just shy of 3 months), a lot happened in that short timeframe that threatened to eradicate everything Ferdinand and Isabella had worked for 29 years.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: The conflict started with Ferdinand publicly renouncing every concession he had made in the Treaty of Villafáfila as soon as he was back in Aragon. He said he was "coerced" into making them and contrary to what the treaty says, his daughter Joanna is the one and only Monarch of Castile and he will staunchly defend his daughter's god-given rights if any were to impede on them. This was the signal for the nobles who had sided with Ferdinand early on to start rebelling from inside Philip's government. The Admiral of Castile (a cousin of Ferdinand) and the Constable of Castile pressured Philip to let Joanna accompany him at every public event and co-sign every one of his decrees since she was the legal ""reina propietaria"". Turns out, Philip's grasp on Castile wasn't as secure as he thought. But he wasn't going to take this lying down.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Philip started with refusing to extradite Cesare Borgia, who was imprisoned at the time in the Castle of La Mota, to Aragon despite him being an Aragonese POW. He then barred merchants from the Crown of Aragon from dealing with the Casa de Contratación in Seville or from sponsoring direct expeditionary fleets into the Indies. This was basically a trade blockade. Ferdinand replied in kind by sponsoring privateer raids from Biscay targeting Flemish merchant vessels. He also expelled Castilians from the Kingdom of Naples. A notable one being the Grand Captain (although Ferdinand and him remained life-long friends and Ferdinand bestowed on him with the most number of ducal titles held by any one man in all of Spain). Philip was being pressured on all sides but things were not over yet.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: A grain shortage hit Castile in 1506, coincidentally corresponding with the time Philip was invested as King. A deficiency in harvest was there since 1501 but this was the culmination of poor harvests and hoarding. In 1486, as part of his overall agrarian reforms, Ferdinand imposed a ceiling price of 124 maravedis per fanega on wheat. This was revoked by Philip in 1506 as part of the aforementioned concessions made to the nobility. Little did he know the nobles had started to buy what little wheat was left and hoard it to artificially inflate the prices. This spiraled into a famine and the entire country was restless. But Philip wouldn't be alive to see that.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 16 September 1506, Philip had fallen dangerously ill after drinking a glass of cold water following a game of ball. It is recorded he did get better and went about his affairs comparatively well until he suddenly fell dead on 25 September while residing at the Casa del Cordón in Burgos. A rumor spread that the owner of the aforementioned residence; the Constable of Castile (who also happened to be Ferdinand's son-in-law), had poisoned the King at the behest of Ferdinand. An autopsy was carried out that put these rumors to rest. Immediately following Philip's death, Joanna became beyond delirious, even prohibiting Philip's remains from being interred. After his last rites, a regency council was created presided over by the Archbishop of Toledo. He in turn sent word to Ferdinand to return and take over the regency as was stipulated in Isabella's will. Ferdinand refused until the request was co-signed by the Cortés of Castile, which it was. Thus started the 2nd regency of Ferdinand.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: When the Cortés of Castile sent word for Ferdinand to take over the regency, he was in Naples undertaking much needed reform in the new Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and its accompanying island-states (like Malta). As such, he endorsed Joanna to rule the best she could until he came over. The situation in Castile was not looking good. Apart from the aforementioned famine, the nobles having been emboldened by Philip's concessions, had set out to carve out semi-autonomous states of their own at the expense of the central government. Ferdinand sent over one of his most trusted military commanders; Pedro Navarro, Count of Oliveto to assess the situation and take necessary countermeasures. By 1507, after having limited the nobles to Seville, Navarro was to kickstart the long anticipated "La Empresa de África" campaign with the end goal being the Spanish standard flying over the Holy Land.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: In 1508, Ferdinand set his eyes on the newly established Kingdom of Bardis, which had gained its independence from the Kingdom of Fez in January that year with the help of the Venetians. Bardis was a corsair state that was accused of raiding the coastline of Granada and this was the casus belli Ferdinand intended to use. On 23 July 1508, a fleet led by Count Navarro conquered Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera. The Wattasid Sultan besought the neighbouring Muslim kings to intervene on his behalf but none did. But there was one that was furious at this blatant attempt at conquest; Ferdinand's son-in-law Manuel, King of Portugal, because this was rightfully the Portuguese area of influence as was established in the Treaty of Tordesillas. Ironically, the Wattasid Sultan managed to bring the Spaniards and the Portuguese together when he tried to bite more than he could chew by besieging Asilah in 1508, which was at the time, part of the Portuguese Maritime Empire. Navarro was quick to send reinforcements from Vélez de la Gomera to break the siege.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: This unofficial alliance was made official by both Ferdinand and Manuel in 1509 by signing the Treaty of Sintra. The treaty established that, on the one hand, Portugal desist from any idea of conquest of the rock of Vélez de la Gomera and the rest of the territories that extended to the east, which would correspond to Spain because it was in the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Fez, thus leaving Melilla (already in Spanish hands since 1497) and Cazaza protected against any Portuguese claims. On the other hand, Spain recognized Portuguese sovereignty over the North African territories between Vélez and Cape Bojador (on the Atlantic coast). Additionally, it was agreed that whoever violated the terms of the treaty should pay a fine of 100,000 gold doubloons. This treaty was never violated or amended even with the 1529 Treaty of Zaragoza. This was basically the green light for the Spanish conquest of North Africa.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: An Aragonese armada under the command of Admiral Ramón de Cardona (rumoured to have been a bastard son of Ferdinand), carrying a joint Castilian-Aragonese army under the command of Diego Fernández de Córdoba y Arellano, Marquis of Comares, all under the spiritual guidance of Cardinal Cisneros had already conquered Mers El Kébir, which was then a part of the Kingdom of Tlemcen, on 13 September 1505. This was to serve as a launchpad into the Kingdom of Tlemcen. All was ready for the Spanish conquest of Oran (1509).


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 16 May 1509, a large fleet carrying a total of 16,000 fighting men, that cost Ferdinand a whopping 40 million maravedis, set sail from Cartagena to Mers El Kébir. From there, the Spanish under the command of Pedro Navarro, launched an amphibious assault on the city of Oran which was quickly followed by an all-out ground assault on the 18th. The city fell within a day and on the 20th, Cardinal Cisneros entered the city amidst jubilation. This was followed by a string of victories at Béjaïa, Algiers, Tunis, Tlemcen, and Tripoli. By 1510, Ferdinand was master of a network of presidios along a 2,500-mile stretch of Maghribi coastline, from Cape Bojador on the Atlantic to Tripoli on the Mediterranean. The Italian humanist; Peter Matyr wrote:


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 8 September 1510, Emery d’Amboise, Grandmaster of the Order of the Knights Hospitaller, based at Rhodes, wrote to Ferdinand congratulating him on his recent victories in the African cities of Bougie and Tripoli. The Knights of Saint John had ordered solemn processions to mark the conquest of Tripoli, he related, and he expressed confidence that the Spanish would soon reach Mamluk Egypt, where Amboise's military order would join forces with them to “liberate” the Holy Land. He wrote:


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Much like the Grandmaster, some Spaniards (most notably Cardinal Cisneros) did hold evangelizing aspirations in Africa and worked towards that end. And Ferdinand was happy to represent his African conquest as a crusade, as a war undertaken for the faith and one that led inevitably toward a Christian recovery of the Holy Land. This, of course, allowed him to make use of the funds that were raised through the cruzada levy. For at least fifteen years, this continued to be the light in which Ferdinand's African enterprise was cast. In March 1510 Pope Julius II issued the solemn papal bull "Sacrosanctae Romane", in which he praised Ferdinand's efforts “"to bring an end, through blood and fire, to the perfidious sect of Islam".” Julius went on to express optimism that the African expedition that Ferdinand was planning for that summer would lead, eventually, to the ultimate “"destruction of all vestiges of the impious superstition" [Islam]".


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Pope Julius's words do not indicate whether he envisioned the conversion of African Muslims and the salvation of their souls or merely their death or subjugation as the geographical boundaries of Christendom were extended. For all the lip service Ferdinand paid to the ideals of crusade and (possibly) evangelization, in practice on the ground the King proved flexible and pragmatic, ever willing to work out an ad hoc system to preserve his conquered territories, even if that entailed abdicating the evangelical responsibilities imposed by a papal bull. Two months following Julius's Sacrosanctae Romane, Ferdinand wrote to Pedro Navarro, giving the commander instructions on how to negotiate terms with Muley Abdallah, the emir of recently conquered Bougie. What Ferdinand proposed was a condominium of sorts: he suggested that he would populate the African cities along the coast with Christians, but that the defeated emir would be allowed to control as much of the hinterland as he desired, maintaining control over his subjects, as well as all “rents, goods, and jurisdiction” (rentas, bienes, jurisdicción), while the coast should belong to Ferdinand and his successors. Along the coast, Ferdinand would enjoy complete jurisdiction over both the Christian and Muslim populations. Ferdinand would now be "Imperator totius Africa". In recognition of his vassalage, the Muslim ruler would pay an annual tribute to Ferdinand. The arrangement allowed for the possibility of Ferdinand's acquiring new Muslim subjects. While Spanish men of the cloth may have held evangelizing aspirations in Africa, such a mission does not appear to have been a priority for Ferdinand. If one were to look for Iberian analogues to this arrangement, it might be useful to think of Muley Abdallah as a ta’ifa king entering into a relationship of vassalage with Ferdinand.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Seven months later, in December of the same year, Ferdinand wrote to Navarro again, this time giving him instructions to execute an attack on Tunis the following summer (1511). Ferdinand expressed hope that Navarro's expedition might conquer a large swath of land stretching into the interior. In the event that that should occur, wrote the king, he would ""receive the Muslims of the interior as mudéjar subjects"". This represented a significant departure from the injunctions to evangelize that were present in Sacrosanctae Romane and the earlier "Ineffabilis et summi". It seems that, by late 1510, Ferdinand had opted for a more traditionally medieval Iberian custom of allowing ongoing Islamic practice, by a mudéjar population now subject to a Christian ruler. As Tlemcen was incorporated into the Crown of Aragon, Ferdinand's policy vis-à-vis Muslim subjects was really no different from his policy within the Crown of Aragon proper. That region of eastern Iberia would have a Muslim population up until his grandson; Charles I, applied the edict mandating conversion or exile in 1526. Even as it accorded with his policy in Aragon, Ferdinand's approach in Africa stands in sharp contrast to the policies being simultaneously implemented in Granada.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: In 1511, Pedro Navarro was restationed to Italy with the Holy League declaring war on France. With that came the end of "La Empresa de África". The campaign was a massive success and although this process of Mediterranean expansion is less well known today than the contemporaneous incursions into the Americas, in the early sixteenth century it occupied a position of utmost importance in royal policy and, not unlike its American counterpart, Spain's Mediterranean expansion required legal buttressing in order to fend off European competitors and this would later serve as the blueprint for the Scramble for Africa.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Probably Ferdinand's greatest blunder was the double marriage he jumped into with the Austrian Habsburgs on 20 January 1495, where his heir apparent, Infante John, was set to marry Emperor Maximilian's daughter, Princess Margaret. Maximilian's heir apparent, Archduke Philip, was to marry Ferdinand's daughter, Infanta Joanna (who was third-in-line to the throne at the time). In the short term, this proved greatly beneficial to both monarchs in the sense that it shook France, their immediate enemy, to its core. Any sense of danger to Ferdinand dissipated when in 1497 Infante John and Princess Margaret announced they were expecting a child, which tightly secured the Trastamara line.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: On 4 October 1497, while on his way to his daughter's wedding in Portugal, Ferdinand received a message that his son lay dangerously ill in Salamanca. He immediately rode to John with haste and reached his bedside moments before he died. That same day, John, Prince of Asturias and Girona, died in the arms of his father. On 8 December that same year, Princess Margaret gave birth to a stillborn daughter which effectively ended the joint-Trastamara line. Almost a year later, the next heir-apparent, Isabella of Aragon, Queen-consort of Portugal, died on 23 August 1498 in Zaragoza while giving birth to a son, Infante Miguel da Paz. Hope was rekindled in the sense that under him, the entirety of Iberia (Castile, Aragon and Portugal) could be united. This proved fleeting because on 19 July 1500, he too died in Granada, effectively paving the way for Joanna and her husband Philip to ascend to the throne of Spain.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand was adamant on keeping the Habsburgs away from the throne. And Joanna's rumored mental health issues weren't helping. He tried to convince Isabella to bypass Joanna in the Castilian line of succession in favor of their 4th child, Mary of Aragon, Queen-consort of Portugal, and her husband, Manuel, King of Portugal. He promised to do the same for the Aragonese line of succession (women weren't allowed to ascend to the Aragonese throne without amending the existing articles of succession beforehand). But Isabella was adamant about sticking to tradition and the existing articles of primogeniture. The only other option Ferdinand had left was to split the Crown of Aragon from the union, disinherit Joanna (and by extension, Philip), and name a competing heir. This was something he found himself incapable of doing to his wife (at least, while she was alive).


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: So, in 1502, Joanna and Philip were sworn in as the Princes of Asturias and Girona before the Cortés of Castile and Aragon respectively. From this point forth, the couple's grip on Castile was solid while in Aragon, right after their swearing-in ceremony, Alonso of Aragon, Archbishop of Zaragoza and Valencia loudly proclaimed that this was purely ceremonial since the articles of succession were yet to be amended and Ferdinand was still capable of siring male offspring. Regardless, now that Joanna was heir-apparent to the throne of Spain, her rumored mental health issues rose from being mere court gossip to the center of Europe's political stage.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: These rumors did have teeth as is seen in Isabella's own last will and testament. On 26 November 1504, Isabella died, but not before recognizing Joanna as her "Universal Heir" and "Reina Propietaria" (Queen Proprietor) in Castile as Joanna I of Castile and by extension, Philip as "King-consort". But in this same will, she included a phrase where if Joanna ""proved" "incapable of ruling"" or she outright didn't want to rule, Ferdinand was to assume the regency until their grandson Charles reached the age of 20. Ferdinand tried to empower the regency clause, but apart from the noble houses of Alvarez Toledo led by the Duke of Alba, Mendoza led by the Grand Tendilla, Enríquez led by the Admiral of Castile, Frias led by the Constable of Castile, none of the other Hidalgos (who made up 2/3 of Castile's nobility) supported Ferdinand. In fact they, led by the Marquess of Priego (the Grand Captain's nephew) and the Marquess of Villena, were vehemently opposed to Ferdinand staying on Castilian soil much less preside over a regency.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Philip briefly contemplated the option of armed conflict against Ferdinand by landing in Andalusia and sweeping up from the south. But he was talked out of it by the Lord of Belmonte, saying that depriving Ferdinand of any options and pushing him into a corner would leave him only one viable path, a path that led straight through Philip himself. So, the couple opted to land in Corunna on 28 April 1506 accompanied by an army of German mercenaries. The anti-Ferdinand faction was quick to flock to Philip. Ferdinand had one of two options: 1) start a civil war and risk a possible French-Austrian offensive or 2) retire peacefully. He chose option 2 and after meeting Philip and his "entourage" at Remesal, he signed the Treaty of Villafáfila on 27 June 1506 and retired to Aragon where he went about restructuring and reforming the newly conquered Kingdom of Naples. On 12 July 1506, the Cortés of Valladolid legitimized Philip as the new "de jure" King of Castile as Philip I of Castile. But he reigned for less than 3 months before succumbing to typhoid fever while in Burgos on 25 September 1506. By this point, Joanna was beyond delirious and a regency council was created, presided over by the Archbishop of Toledo. But now the Hidalgos, emboldened by Philip, seized portions of the country and challenged the central government's authority. On top of this, a famine hit as a result of devastated crop yields. The Cortés of Castile begged Ferdinand to take over the regency but he didn't come back until 1509, wherein which he led an army against the Marquess' of Priego and Villena and was given a triumph in Valladolid. That same year, in the face of his daughter's growing mental health issues, he confined her to the Palace of Tordesillas. To ease her transition, he allowed her daughter, Infanta Catherine, to accompany her during her confinement. Ferdinand is recorded to have said: "Sending my daughter into Tordesillas proved more draining than facing French cannons on the battlefield."


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: From 1506 to 1516, Ferdinand, on top of ruling the Crown of Aragon and the Indies, also ruled as Regent of the Crown of Castile. Still adamant about keeping the Habsburgs out of his own realms if possible, he fathered a son; John, Prince of Girona, who was born to his second wife; Queen Germaine of Foix, on 3 May 1509. The child didn't survive for more than a few hours and it was back to square one. Ferdinand then briefly contemplated making his namesake, Spanish-born grandson; Infante Ferdinand, with whom he even shared a birthday, his heir in direct opposition to Charles but was talked out of it by the Archbishop of Toledo. On 23 January 1516, he died in Madrigalejo, and his last will and testament was unveiled; in which he had named Charles and Joanna, as his heir-apparents. Joanna's appointment as co-monarch was strictly nominal (as she would not be released from her confinement until the day she died) while the 16-year old Charles was who the actual burden of governance fell on. Ferdinand even dictated Charles be considered of legal age despite him being a minor with the express purpose of him taking over immediately because by this point, Spain couldn't afford an empty throne. This Charles didn't do (at the behest of his primary councilor; William de Croÿ), which cost Spain dearly because while Spain lay idle, its enemies (namely, Selim the Lion) didn't.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand's most notable accomplishments would be the discovery of the Americas and the completion of the Spanish Reconquista. The idea of restoring Don Rodrigo's kingdom was a goal instilled on him by his childhood tutor Margarit i Pau. Ferdinand could be classified as an immensely pragmatic, liberal soul (from freeing the Catalan Remences of their "6 evil customs" and granting them emphyteusis to actively shielding the Mudejars of Valencia from reprisals during the Granada War to legalizing interracial marriages throughout the Spanish realms). He was devout as a personal follower of Christ but he never let religion dictate his secular policies. He had no problem exploiting religious institutions for the betterment of his realm. For this, he's seen as less devout than his zealous wife.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Under his reign, there were upwards of 6 higher educational institutions built throughout Spain. But the University of Valencia, established in 1502, is arguably the greatest indicator of Ferdinand's vision as to what a proper education constitutes. A contemporary description of the students of the University of Valencia:


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: In the words of Machiavelli; he rose from being a disputed king of a divided crown to the foremost monarch of Christendom (second to not even the Holy Roman Emperor). And along with him rose Spain; from being a patchwork of kingdoms sitting at the edge of the continent to the top powerplayer of continental Europe and by extension, the World.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: One of Ferdinand's most infamous traits was his reluctance to keep his word. He earned many critics due to this but he was always open about this particular trait of his. His reasoning was that he, nor anyone, should be obligated to stay within self-imposed, fixed parameters in the face of a total dissolution of them. He famously said:


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand recognized the importance of progress (or the lack thereof in Christian Iberia) and he appropriated innovative inventions from the hub of progress; the Italian Peninsula, and gave them his own little twist. An example would be the concept of residential ambassadors and permanent embassies. The Italian city-states possessed them in a micro scale, limited to communicating within the peninsula. In between 1480 and 1490, Ferdinand launched this in a macro scale, with resident Spanish ambassadors in all the prominent courts: Rome, Venice, London, Brussels, Cairo and the migratory Imperial court. The Spanish ambassador to England would also serve as the "unofficial" Spanish ambassador to Scotland. The Spanish foreign service under Ferdinand was so efficient that foreign monarchs were inclined to use Spanish diplomats (like Dr. Puebla and Bishop Ayala) as their own representatives to other nations.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand was a master of Pactism. He, quite accurately, could be called the "Father of Pactism in Spain". In the fashion of the Roman Emperor Augustus, he ruled his many realms with an iron-grip but he never made the inhabitants feel like they were dealing with an autocrat. In Catalonia for instance, he was initially rebuffed as his father's viceroy to the principality just before the outbreak of the Catalan civil war. After winning the war, Ferdinand didn't insist upon holding his victory over the principality's head as most would. He immediately embarked upon trying to find the root of the conflict, which was threefold: 1) The Catalans were still bitter about the Compromise of Capse. 2) The Catalans were under the impression that the House of Trastamara didn't give much regard to their ancient fueros. 3) The Catalans blamed the Trastamaras for them losing their 12th-14th century splendor and prestige. Ferdinand couldn't change his lineage but he could change the perception of it. He undertook a number of drastic reforms that culminated with Barcelona regaining its lost position as the prime spot of the western mediterranean. He enlisted the help of the Mamluk Sultan Quitbay by having him sign off on an exclusive Cairo-Barcelona trade route in 1484 that proved extremely lucrative. Now that prosperity was restored, Ferdinand set about enforcing the rule of law by first drafting the , which called for compliance, even by the King, to the laws of the land. Ferdinand famously said: "It would be of little value to make laws and constitutions if they were not observed." Then he established the as the highest civil court of the land in 1492. With these, any notion of absolutism had dissipated and the Principality fully backed Ferdinand in all his endeavors. It is not like these reforms did not have its critics. Ferdinand was almost killed on the steps of the Plaça del Rei on 18, October 1492.


title: Ferdinand II of Aragon

text: Ferdinand's legacy, in a nutshell, would be the physical manifestation of the idea that was "Spain". By 1513, the territory that encompasses modern-day Spain had been completely acquired and it was larger than at any point in history; stretching from the Pacific coast of Central America to Tripoli in the Mediterranean. If custodianship is a valid metric, one could argue Ferdinand's Spain had a realistic foothold in the Levant; with Mamluk Sultan Al-Ghuri bestowing custodianship of all Christians living in Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Ramallah and Beirut to Ferdinand in 1504. In his own words: