El Cid

Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, known as El Cid from the Arabic honorific as-Sayyid, the Lord, and also called El Campeador, the Champion, was a Castilian knight and medieval ruler born around 1043 near Burgos. He entered the service of King Sancho II of Castile in 1065 and fought in engagements including the Battle of Graus in 1063, but was exiled by Sancho's successor Alfonso VI in 1081. As an exile he entered the service of the Muslim ruler of Zaragoza, al-Mutamin, successfully defending the city against rival kingdoms between 1081 and 1086, and his career illustrated the fluid alliances of the period, in which he fought for both Christian and Muslim rulers. He gradually built his own power over the following years and, after a prolonged siege, conquered the city of Valencia in 1094, ruling it afterward as an independent principality in which both Moors and Christians served in his army and administration. That same year he defeated an invading Almoravid army at Cuarte, the North African dynasty's first major setback in the region. He died in Valencia on 10 July 1099.