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“Our journey has changed the world. May it be for the greater glory of God,” Columbus was then heard telling Queen Isabella I of Castile.

In 1492, Spain’s Catholic monarchs, Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand II of Aragon, decreed that Spain’s 200,000-strong Jewish population convert to Christianity or be expelled.

The statue in California’s Capitol depicts Columbus appealing to Queen Isabella I, who financed his voyage to the New World in 1492 that began an era of colonialism in the Americas.

The new statue joins others in town of figures I knew were Spanish — like Queen Isabella I, outside the Organization of American States — and those I didn’t.

Next to Granada’s cathedral is the late-Gothic Royal Chapel, which houses the tombs of King Ferdinand II and Queen Isabella I of Spain.