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