#88 – Christian Terrorism

When King Manuel of Portugal evicted the Jews in 1497, he didn’t actually want them to leave. He wanted them to convert to Christianity. When, instead, they chose to leave, he tried to stop them – by seizing their children and forcibly converting them. Rather than see their children raised as Christians, many Jews killed their own kids and then committed suicide. The Jews who did convert didn’t get it any easier, either. As in Spain, they were subjected to violence and then, finally, the Inquisition came to Portugal. It’s just your basic Christian terrorism.

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Starting in Florence in the 14th century, a new era began to emerge in the West. People like Petrarch, who re-discovered Cicero’s lost letters, and the new humanists - who valued the study of classical antiquity - ushered in a rebirth, or as we know it today, a “renaissance" - in the study of the arts, the sciences, philosophy, and the theatre. They rediscovered what it meant to be human.