On a cold November day in 1095, Pope Urban II delivered one of the most consequential speeches in history, calling upon Christians to march to Jerusalem. "Deus vult!" the crowd roared — "God wills it!" Over three years, an army of knights, peasants, women, and children marched across Europe and Anatolia, enduring starvation, disease, and fierce Muslim resistance, ultimately breaching Jerusalem's walls on July 15, 1099. What followed was a massacre so terrible that eyewitnesses reported blood running ankle-deep through the streets.
Summary: The First Crusade was launched by Pope Urban II in November 1095. Two waves set out: the ill-fated "People's Crusade" (massacred in Anatolia in 1096), and the "Princes' Crusade" led by Godfrey of Bouillon, Raymond of Toulouse, and Bohemond of Taranto. Despite immense suffering, they captured Nicaea (1097), Antioch (1098), and Jerusalem (July 15, 1099). The victory was followed by a horrific massacre of Muslim and Jewish inhabitants. The Crusaders established the Kingdom of Jerusalem and three other Crusader states.