Knights of Malta Receive Their Island

1530

Charles V gave the homeless Knights Hospitaller the arid island of Malta in exchange for an annual tribute of one Maltese falcon. They fortified Birgu and the Grand Harbour, turning the rock into a corsair-hunting base. They would need every gun when Suleiman came calling in 1565. The annual tribute of one falcon became one of history's most famous symbolic rents, later inspiring Dashiell Hammett's novel.