Battle of Tours (732 AD)

At Tours in modern France, Frankish forces under Charles Martel halted the northward advance of the Umayyad Caliphate from the Iberian Peninsula. Had the Umayyads prevailed, Islamic rule might have extended across Gaul into Britain. Instead, the Franks contained Muslim expansion to Spain, and Charles Martel's victory enabled the rise of the Carolingian empire and the political framework of medieval Europe.