Tangier is one of the oldest cities in North Africa and has also been one of the most highly sought after. Founded by Phoenician traders sometime around 1500 B.C., it's since seen Carthaginians, Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, Arabs, and a succession of European powers come and go. Even when the Arabs arrived in A.D. 706 on a wave of Islamic fervor across North Africa toward the Iberian Peninsula, Tangier was subsequently fought over by a succession of Muslim factions. The Umayyads of Andalusia; the Idrissids, the Almohads and Almoravids of Morocco; and even the Fatamids of Egypt all captured and eventually lost the city over a period of 765 years. During this period of the Middle Ages, Tangier was already making a name for itself in Europe as a materially rich but immoral city. The Portuguese, during their brief period of world maritime power, captured Tangier in 1471. Nearly 200 years later, in 1661, they handed the city -- along with Bombay, India -- to the British as part of Catherine of Braganza's dowry to Charles II. During their time, the Portuguese had built beautiful residences, chapels, monasteries, and a new cathedral, but a series of corrupt and inept British governors, along with their ill-disciplined troops, drove away both the Portuguese colonists and the sizable and economically important Jewish community. Sultan Moulay Ismail of Meknes was determined to regain Tangier as part of his campaign to rule over all Morocco, and in 1678 he eventually surrounde
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