Cádiz

The ocean the harbor looked toward soon came to it. Columbus sailed from Cádiz on his second and fourth voyages, the city became a home port of the treasure fleets, and that made it a target. In April 1587 Francis Drake held the harbor for three days and took or destroyed thirty-seven ships, delaying the Armada by a year; in 1596 an Anglo-Dutch fleet under the Earls of Essex and Nottingham captured the city itself, and when the crown refused a ransom they burned much of it before sailing away. Cádiz rose again in the 18th century, after the Casa de Contratación moved here from Seville in 1717 and the city held the trade of the Americas almost alone until 1778. Its proudest hour came in the war against Napoleon. Cádiz was one of the few Spanish cities the French never took, and the Cortes that sat behind its walls proclaimed here the liberal Constitution of 1812.