Cuando España echó a andar

On November 23, 1221, King Alfonso X, known as the Wise, was born in Toledo, and a few months later he was named heir to the new Gothic-style cathedral in Burgos. When in 1252, after the death of his father Fernando III, Alfonso X became King of Castilla y León, the situation of the kingdom would be very different from when he was born. The monarch will experience an unprecedented expansion of the borders of the Hispanic kingdoms to the south, which will even reach the other side of the Strait. It is here, in this borderland constantly exceeded by the Christian push, where a State organization will be set up whose action will result in the Spanish nation, which will unite against Islam a highly varied population from all parts of the Peninsula. Galicians, Basques, Castilians, Aragonese or Catalans, among others, will be merged by the double route of territorial distribution and the genealogical link (of patrimony and marriage), and all of them will acquire the status of Spaniards. From the 13th century Spain will become a key nation in history whose influence will reach a global scale.