“SPAIN SHOULD RETURN CEUTA TO MOROCCO.” Sure. Let’s start the clock in 711 and see who owes who: In 711, a Berber commander named Tariq ibn Ziyad crossed from North Africa and landed in Spain. His launch point was Ceuta. Within seven years almost the entire Iberian Peninsula was under Arab occupation, governed from Damascus. By 732 the Arab raiders were even at Tours, deep inside France. Taking it back took 781 years: Covadonga 722. Toledo 1085. Lisbon 1147. Las Navas de Tolosa 1212. Córdoba 1236. Valencia 1238. Seville 1248. Portugal finished in 1249 when Faro fell. The Portuguese-Spanish border has barely moved since and is one of the oldest continuous borders in Europe. Castile and Aragon needed another 243 years. What was left was Granada, which survived from 1238 mostly by paying tribute to Castile and waiting out Christian civil wars. Here is the part none of those “Ceuta is a Spanish colony” shills talk about: In 1415 King João I of Portugal sailed across the strait and took Ceuta from the Marinids in a single day. One of his sons was Henry the Navigator. The Age of Discovery starts there. So Portugal was conquering African soil while European soil, less than 300 km to the northeast, was still under Muslim rule. Boabdil, the last Nasrid Sultan of Granada, handed the keys to the Alhambra to Ferdinand II of Aragon and Isabella I of Castile on 2 January 1492, marking the end of nearly eight centuries of Muslim rule in Iberia. Later that same year, the Catholic Monarchs issued the Alhambra Decree, ordering the expulsion of Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. Coincidently, 1492 also marked the beginning of Spain’s rise as a global power, ushering in the Spanish Golden Age. For context and scale: the First Crusade began in 1096. That is 385 years after Spain was invaded. Anyone who starts this story with the Crusades is starting in the middle. Also, Spain never conquered Ceuta. In 1580 the Portuguese royal line died out and Philip II inherited the throne. When Portugal broke away again in 1640, Ceuta chose Madrid. Portugal formally ceded it in the Treaty of Lisbon in 1668. TL;DR: – Ceuta has been in Iberian hands since 1415. 611 years, uninterrupted. – Spanish since 1640, by treaty since 1668. 386 and 358 years. – Morocco independent in its current form since 1956. 70 years. Ceuta was Roman, then Byzantine, then fought over by Visigoths, then taken by Arab armies around 710. It has never been part of an independent Morocco. NOT ONE SINGLE DAY. Before anyone calls Ceuta a colony, explain what was founded in Andalusia in 711. Go ahead. I’m waiting.