This Day in History: <br />Pope Urban II Orders <br />the First Crusade November 27, 1095 During a speech to <br />several hundred clerics <br />and noblemen at the <br />Council of Clermont in France, Pope Urban II called on <br />all Christians in Europe to <br />war against Muslims in order <br />to reclaim the Holy Land. In what was perhaps the <br />most influential speech of the <br />Middle Ages, Urban called out,<br /> “Deus vult!” or “God wills it!” Christians had been <br />barred from entering <br />Jerusalem by the Seljuk Turks. Urban’s war cry roused <br />between 60,000 and <br />100,000 people who <br />marched on Jerusalem. The sheer number of <br />respondents was eventually <br />enough to triumph <br />against the Muslim armies. It was the first of seven <br />military campaigns fought <br />over the next two centuries <br />known as the Crusades.
