Prehistory and pre-Roman peoples
Archaeological research at Atapuerca indicates the Iberian Peninsula was populated by hominids 1.2 million years ago. In Atapuerca fossils have been found of the earliest known hominins in Europe, Homo antecessor. Modern humans first arrived in Iberia, from the north on foot, about 35,000 years ago. The best known artefacts of these prehistoric human settlements...
Roman Hispania and the Visigothic Kingdom
During the Second Punic War, roughly between 210 and 205 BCE the expanding Roman Republic captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast. Although it took the Romans nearly two centuries to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, they retained control of it for over six centuries. Roman rule was bound together by law,...
Muslim era and Reconquista
From 711 to 718, as part of the expansion of the Umayyad Caliphate, nearly all of the Iberian Peninsula was conquered by Muslim armies from across the Strait of Gibraltar, resulting in the collapse of the Visigothic Kingdom. Only a small area in the mountainous north of the peninsula stood out of the territory seized...
Spanish Empire
In 1469, the crowns of the Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon were united by the marriage of their monarchs, Isabella I and Ferdinand II, respectively. 1478 commenced the completion of the conquest of the Canary Islands. In 1492, Jews were forced to choose between conversion to Catholicism or facing expulsion. As a result, as...
Liberalism and nation state
In 1793, Spain went to war against the revolutionary new French Republic as a member of the first Coalition. The subsequent War of the Pyrenees polarised the country in a reaction against the gallicised elites and following defeat in the field, peace was made with France in 1795 at the Peace of Basel in which...
Civil War and Francoist dictatorship
The Spanish Civil War broke out in 1936: on 17 and 18 July, part of the military carried out a coup d'état that triumphed in only part of the country. The situation led to a civil war, in which the territory was divided into two zones: one under the authority of the Republican government, that...
Restoration of democracy
In 1962, a group of politicians involved in the opposition to Franco's regime inside the country and in exile met in the congress of the European Movement in Munich, where they made a resolution in favour of democracy. With Franco's death in November 1975, Juan Carlos succeeded to the position of King of Spain and...