711 - A Muslim force of about 7,000 fighters (mainly Arabs and Berbers) under Tariq ibn Ziyad, loyal to the Umayyad Emir of Damascus, Al-Walid I, enter the Iberian peninsula from North Africa.
At the Battle of Guadalete Tariq ibn Ziyad defeats King Roderic, the last Visigothic ruler of Hispania, at the Guadalete River in the south of the Iberian peninsula. Tariq goes on to take Toledo, while a detachment under Mugit al-Rumi takes Córdoba.