No founder, sponsoring organization, proclamation, or establishment record has been identified for National Isabella Day. It circulates on holiday-listing sites and in social posts, and no source explains why the October date was chosen.
CHAPTER 01
The queen who was not called Isabella
The name's weight came from a queen, and she did not use this form of it. Isabella I of Castile was born in 1451, and in her own language she is Isabel la Catolica.
Her reign is documented in detail, and two of its defining acts fell in the same year. Granada fell in 1492, ending the Reconquista, and in the same year she and Ferdinand ordered Spain's Jews out of their kingdoms.
The decree gave them until the end of July to go, on pain of death and confiscation of everything they owned. Writing for Britannica, the Oxford historian J.R.L. Highfield calls that expulsion a serious mistake when it is judged by its economic consequences alone.
Columbus sailed under her authority that same year. Britannica credits her and her councillors with making the decision that let him go.
