War · 1291 CE
The fall of Acre ends the crusader states
Acre (Akko, Israel)
In 1187 Saladin destroyed the crusader armies at Hattin and Jerusalem was lost, and later crusades, including the Fourth Crusade that sacked Christian Constantinople in 1204, failed to restore the crusader states. On 18 May 1291, after a six-week siege, the Mamluk sultan al-Ashraf Khalil captured Acre, the crusaders' last major stronghold, and their remaining mainland strongholds were lost the same year.
Why it mattered
Acre's fall ended two centuries of crusader rule on the Levantine mainland; the crusades had deepened the split between Catholic and Orthodox Christians and helped Italian merchants come to dominate Mediterranean trade.
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