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One of the first people on record to have anchored
his ships in Menorca Mahon was a Carthaginian general in 206BC. His name
was Mago, brother of the famous Hannibal. When the Romans named the village
Municipium Flavianum Magontanum, they may have been naming it after him.
After the Romans, Vandals and the Byzantines occupied Mahon arrived
the Moors, and in 902AD Menorca became part of the Emirate of Cordova.
The Moors wanted a harbour closer to Spain, and situated their capital
at Ciutadella, but it was at Menorca Mahon where the Reconquest
of Menorca began.
In 1287 King Alfonso III of Aragon sailed into the harbour and landed
on the Isla del Rei (the King's Island). After defeating the Moors,
Alfonso resettled the island. Later more and more settlers came
from that eastern province of Spain, so that the language of the
island came to be a form of Catalan known as 'Menorquin'. (This
has been strongly revived since the accession of King Juan Carlos,
and most of the former Spanish street names have been replaced with
Menorquin names).
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