Portugal takes Ceuta

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A Portuguese expedition captured the Moroccan port of Ceuta on the southern side of the Strait of Gibraltar. It is conventionally treated as the opening move of Portuguese overseas expansion, though it was in form a crusading raid on a Mediterranean city rather than an act of exploration, and holding it proved expensive and strategically disappointing: the caravan trade the Portuguese hoped to capture simply routed elsewhere. The lesson drawn — that an inland trade cannot be intercepted by seizing its port — points directly towards the alternative of going round.

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