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History of Spain
Coat of Arms of Spain
This article is part of a series
Early History
Prehistoric Iberia
Roman Hispania
Medieval Spain
Visigothic Kingdom
Kingdom of Asturias
Suebic Kingdom
Byzantine Spania
Kingdom of Spain
Age of Expansion
Age of Enlightenment
Reaction and Revolution
First Spanish Republic
The Restoration
Second Spanish Republic
Under Franco
Spanish Civil War
Spanish State
Modern Spain
Transition to Democracy
Modern Spain
Economic History
Military History

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The history of Spain spans the period from prehistoric Iberia, through the rise and fall of a global empire, to the recent history of Spain as a member of the European Union.

Modern humans entered the Iberian Peninsula about 32,000 years ago. Different populations and cultures followed over the millennia, including the Iberians, the Tartessians, Celts and Celtiberians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Suebi and Visigoths. In 711, the Moors, a Berber and Arab army, invaded and conquered nearly the entire peninsula. During the next 750 years, independent Muslim states were established, and the entire area of Muslim control became known as Al-Andalus. Meanwhile the Christian kingdoms in the north began the long and slow recovery of the peninsula, a process called the Reconquista, which was concluded in 1492 with the fall of Granada.

The Kingdom of Spain was created in 1492 with the unification of the Kingdom of Castile and the Kingdom of Aragon.[1] In this year also was the first voyage of Christopher Columbus to the New World, beginning the development of the Spanish Empire. The Inquisition was established and Jews and Muslims who refused to convert were expelled from the country.

For the next three centuries Spain was the most important colonial power in the world. It was the most powerful state in Europe and the foremost global power during the 16th century and the greater part of the 17th century. Spanish literature and fine arts, scholarship and philosophy flourished during this time. Spain established a vast empire in the Americas, stretching from California to Patagonia, and colonies in the western Pacific. Financed in part by the riches pouring in from its colonies, Spain became embroiled in the religiously-charged wars and intrigues of Europe, including, for example, obtaining and losing possessions in today's Netherlands, Italy, France, and Germany, and engaging in wars with France, England, Sweden, and the Ottomans in the Mediterranean Sea and northern Africa. Spain's European wars, however, led to economic damage, and the latter part of the 17th century saw a gradual decline of power under an increasingly neglectful and inept Habsburg regime. The decline culminated in the War of Spanish Succession, which ended with the relegation of Spain's from the position of a leading western power, to that of a secondary one, although it remained (with Russia) the leading colonial power.

The eighteenth century saw a new dynasty, the Bourbons, which directed considerable efforts towards the renewal of state institutions, with some success, finishing in a successful involvement in the American War of Independence. However, as the century ended, a reaction set in with the accession of a new monarch. The end of the eighteenth and the start of the nineteenth centuries saw turmoil unleashed throughout Europe by the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, which finally led to a French occupation of much of the continent, including Spain. This triggered a successful but devastating war of independence that shattered the country and created an opening for what would ultimately be the successful independence of Spain's mainland American colonies. Shattered by the war, Spain was destabilised as different political parties representing "liberal", "reactionary" and "moderate" groups throughout the remainder of the century fought for and won short-lived control without any being sufficiently strong to bring about lasting stability. Nationalist movements emerged in the last significant remnants of the old empire (Cuba and the Philippines) which led to a brief war with the United States and the loss of the remaining old colonies at the end of the century.

Following a period of growing political instability in the early twentieth century, in 1936 Spain was plunged into a bloody civil war. The war ended in a nationalist dictatorship, led by Francisco Franco which controlled the Spanish government until 1975. Spain was officially neutral during World War II, although many Spanish volunteers fought on both sides. The post-war decades were relatively stable (with the notable exception of an armed independence movement in the Basque Country), and the country experienced rapid economic growth in the 1960s and early 1970s. The death of Franco in 1975 resulted in the return of the Bourbon monarchy headed by Prince Juan Carlos. While tensions remain (for example, with Muslim immigrants and in the Basque region), modern Spain has seen the development of a robust, modern democracy as a constitutional monarchy with popular King Juan Carlos, one of the fastest-growing standards of living in Europe, entry into the European Community, and the 1992 Summer Olympics.


Early history

The earliest record of hominids living in Europe has been found in the Spanish cave of Atapuerca; fossils found there are dated to roughly 1.2 million years ago.[2] Modern humans in the form of Cro-Magnons began arriving in the Iberian Peninsula from north of the Pyrenees some 35,000 years ago. The most conspicuous sign of prehistoric human settlements are the famous paintings in the northern Spanish cave of Altamira, which were done ca. 15,000 BC and are regarded as paramount instances of cave art.[3] Furthermore, archeological evidence in places like Los Millares in Almería and in El Argar in Murcia suggests developed cultures existed in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula during the late Neolithic and the Bronze Age.

The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1100 BC, Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 9th century BC, the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the east, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, apparently after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BC, the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia, struggling first with the Greeks, and shortly after, with the newly-arriving Romans for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).[4]

The native peoples whom the Romans met at the time of their invasion in what is now known as Spain were the Iberians, inhabiting from the southwest part of the Peninsula through the northeast part of it, and then the Celts, mostly inhabiting the north and northwest part of the Peninsula. In the inner part of the Peninsula, where both groups were in contact, a mixed, distinctive, culture was present, the one known as Celtiberian.[2] The Celtiberian Wars or Spanish Wars were fought between the advancing legions of the Roman Republic and the Celtiberian tribes of Hispania Citerior from 181 to 133 BC.[5][6]

Roman Hispania

Roman bridge in Cordoba


The base Celtiberian population remained in various stages of Romanisation,[7] and local leaders were admitted into the Roman aristocratic class.[8]


The first Germanic tribes to invade Hispania arrived in the 5th century, as the Roman Empire decayed.[10] The Visigoths, Suebi, Vandals and Alans arrived in Spain by crossing the Pyrenees mountain range.[11] The Romanized Visigoths entered Hispania in 415. After the conversion of their monarchy to Roman Catholicism, the Visigothic Kingdom eventually encompassed a great part of the Iberian Peninsula after conquering the disordered Suebic territories in the northwest and Byzantine territories in the southeast.[8]


Germanic Occupation of Hispania (5th–8th centuries)

After the decline of the Roman Empire, Germanic tribes invaded the former empire. Several turned sedentary and created successor-kingdoms to the Romans in various parts of Europe. Iberia was taken over by the Visigoths after 410.




The period of Visigothic rule saw the spread of Arianism briefly in Spain.[15] In 587, Reccared, the Visigothic king at Toledo, having been converted to Catholicism put an end to dissension on the question of Arianism and launched a movement in Spain to unify the various religious doctrines that existed in the land. The Council of Lerida in 546 constrained the clergy and extended the power of law over them under the blessings of Rome.



Muslim Era and the Reoccupation by Christian Kings (8th–15th centuries)


Caliph Al-Walid I paid great attention to the expansion of an organized military, building the strongest navy in the Umayyad era. It was this tactic that supported the ultimate expansion to Spain. Caliph Al-Walid I's reign is considered as the apex of Islamic power.[citation needed]

The rulers of Al-Andalus were granted the rank of Emir by the Umayyad CaliphAl-Walid I in Damascus. After the Umayyads were overthrown by the Abbasids, some of their remaining leaders escaped to Spain under the leadership of Abd-ar-rahman I who challenged the Abbasids by declaring Cordoba an independent emirate. Al-Andalus was rife with internal conflict between the Arab Umayyad rulers and the Visigoth-Roman Christian population.

Limits of the Kingdom of Castile and Kingdom of Aragon in 1210.

The first navy of the Emirate was built after the humiliating Viking ascent of the Guadalquivir in 844 when they sacked Seville. In 942, pagan Magyars raided as far west as Al-Andalus.[16]


Al-Andalus coincided with La Convivencia, an era of religious tolerance and with the Golden age of Jewish culture in the Iberian Peninsula (912, the rule of Abd-ar-Rahman III - 1066, Granada massacre).[17]


Medieval Spain was the scene of almost constant warfare between Muslims and Christians. The Almohads, who had taken control of the Almoravids' Maghribi and Andalusian territories by 1147, far surpassed the Almoravides in fundamentalist outlook, and they treated the dhimmis harshly. Faced with the choice of death, conversion, or emigration, many Jews and Christians left.[19] By the mid-13th century Emirate of Granada was the only independent Muslim realm in Spain, which would last until 1492.


Dynastic Union

Iberian polities circa 1360

As the Reconquista continued, Christian kingdoms and principalities developed. By the 15th century, the most important among these were the Kingdom of Castile (occupying a northern and central portion of the Iberian Peninsula) and the Kingdom of Aragon (occupying northeastern portions of the peninsula). The rulers of these two kingdoms were allied with dynastic families in Portugal, France, and other neighboring kingdoms. The death of Henry IV in 1474 set off a struggle for power between contenders for the throne of Castile, including Joanna La Beltraneja, supported by Portugal and France, and Queen Isabella I, supported by the Kingdom of Aragon, and by the Castilian nobility. Following the War of the Castilian Succession, Isabella retained the throne, and ruled jointly with her husband, King Ferdinand II.

Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon were known as the "Catholic Monarchs" (Spanish: los Reyes Católicos), a title bestowed on them by Pope Alexander VI. They married in 1469 in Valladolid, uniting both crowns and effectively leading to the creation of the Kingdom of Spain, at the dawn of the modern era. They oversaw the final stages of the Reconquista of Iberian territory from the Moors with the conquest of Granada, conquered the Canary Islands and expelled the Jews and Muslims from Spain under the Alhambra decree. They authorized the expedition of Christopher Columbus, who became the first European to reach the New World since Leif Ericson, which led to an influx of wealth into Spain, funding the coffers of the new state that would prove to be a dominant power of Europe for the next two centuries.

Isabella ensured long-term political stability in Spain by arranging strategic marriages for each of her five children. Her firstborn, a daughter named Isabella, married Alfonso of Portugal, forging important ties between these two neighboring countries and hopefully to ensure future alliance, but Isabella soon died before giving birth to an heir. Juana, Isabella’s second daughter, married into the Habsburg dynasty when she wed Philip the Handsome, the son of Maximilian I, King of Bohemia (Austria) and entitled to the crown of the Holy Roman Emperor. This ensured alliance with the Habsburgs and the Holy Roman Empire, a powerful, far-reaching territory that assured Spain’s future political security. Isabella’s first and only son, Juan, married Margaret of Austria, further maintaining ties with the Habsburg dynasty. Her fourth child, Maria, married Manuel I of Portugal, strengthening the link forged by her older sister’s marriage. Her fifth child, Catherine, married Henry VIII, King of England and was mother to Queen Mary I.


If until the 13th century religious minorities (Jews and Muslims) had enjoyed quite some tolerance in Castilla and Aragon - the only Christian kingdoms where Jews were not restricted from any professional occupation - the situation of the Jews collapsed over the 14th century, reaching a climax in 1391 with large scale massacres in every major city, with the exception of Avilla. Over the next century, half of the estimated 200,000 Spanish Jews converted to Christianity (becoming "conversos"). The final step was taken by the Catholic Monarchs, who, in 1492, ordered the remaining Jews to convert or face expulsion from Spain. Depending on different sources, the number of Jews actually expelled is estimated to be anywhere from 40,000 to 120,000 people. Over the following decades, Muslims faced the same fate and about 60 years after the Jews, they were also compelled to convert ("moriscos") or be expelled. Jews and Muslims were not the only people to be persecuted during this time period. Gypsies also endured a tragic fate: all Gypsy males were forced to serve in galleys between the age of 18 and 26 - which was equivalent to a death sentence - but the majority managed to hide and avoid arrest.

The Spanish language and universities

In the 13th century, there were many languages spoken in the Christian sections of what is now Spain, among them Castilian, Aragonese, Catalan, Basque, Galician, Aranese and Leonese. But throughout the century, Castilian (what is also known today as Spanish) gained more and more prominence in the Kingdom of Castile as the language of culture and communication. One example of this is the El Cid. In the last years of the reign of Ferdinand III of Castile, Castilian began to be used for certain types of documents, but it was during the reign of Alfonso X that it became the official language. Henceforth all public documents were written in Castilian, likewise all translations were made into Castilian instead of Latin.

Furthermore, in the 13th Century many universities were founded in León and in Castile, some, like those of the leonese Salamanca and Palencia were among the earliest universities in Europe. In 1492, under the Catholic Monarchs, the first edition of the Grammar of the Castilian Language by Antonio de Nebrija was published.

Imperial Spain

A map of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires in the period of Iberian Union under the personal union of the Spanish monarchs (1580-1640).

The Spanish Empire was one of the first modern global empires. It was also one of the largest empires in world history. In the 16th century Spain and Portugal were in the vanguard of European global exploration and colonial expansion and the opening of trade routes across the oceans, with trade flourishing across the Atlantic between Spain and the Americas and across the Pacific between East Asia and Mexico via the Philippines. Conquistadors toppled the Aztec, Inca and Maya civilizations and laid claim to vast stretches of land in North and South America. For a time, the Spanish Empire dominated the oceans with its experienced navy and ruled the European battlefield with its fearsome and well trained infantry, the famous tercios: in the words of the prominent French historian Pierre Vilar, "enacting the most extraordinary epic in human history". Spain enjoyed a cultural golden age in the 16th and 17th centuries.

This American empire was at first a disappointment, as the natives had little to trade, though settlement did encourage trade. The diseases such as smallpox and measles that arrived with the colonizers devastated the native populations, especially in the densely populated regions of the Aztec, Maya and Inca civilizations, and this reduced economic potential of conquered areas.[21]

Columbus setting foot in the New World

In the 1520s large scale extraction of silver from the rich deposits of Mexico's Guanajuato began, to be greatly augmented by the silver mines in Mexico's Zacatecas and Bolivia's Potosí from 1546. These silver shipments re-oriented the Spanish economy, leading to the importation of luxuries and grain. They also became indispensable in financing the military capability of Habsburg Spain in its long series of European and North African wars, though, with the exception of a few years in the seventeenth century, Spain itself (Castile in particular) was by far the most important source of revenue. From the time beginning with the incorporation of the Portuguese empire in 1580 (lost in 1640) until the loss of its American colonies in the 19th century, Spain maintained the largest empire in the world even though it suffered fluctuating military and economic fortunes from the 1640s. Confronted by the new experiences, difficulties and suffering created by empire-building, Spanish thinkers formulated some of the first modern thoughts on natural law, sovereignty, international law, war, and economics; there were even questions about the legitimacy of imperialism — in related schools of thought referred to collectively as the School of Salamanca.

Spanish Kingdoms under the Habsburgs (16th–17th centuries)

Spain's powerful world empire of the 16th and 17th centuries reached its height and declined under the Habsburgs. The Spanish Empire reached its maximum extent in Europe under Charles I of Spain, as he was also Emperor Charles V of the Holy Roman Empire.

Charles I of Spain (better known in the English-speaking world at the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) was the most powerful European monarch of his day.[22]




The coastal villages of Spain and of the Balearic Islands were frequently attacked by Barbary pirates from North Africa. Formentera was even temporarily left by its population. This occurred also along long stretches of the Spanish and Italian coasts, a relatively short distance across a calm sea from the pirates in their North African lairs. The most famous corsair was the Turkish Barbarossa ("Redbeard"). According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by North African pirates and sold as slaves in North Africa and Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries This was gradually alleviated as Spain and other Christian powers began to check Muslim naval dominance in the Mediterranean after the 1571 victory at Lepanto, but it would be a scourge that continued to afflict the country even in the next century.[23]

The great plague of 1596-1602 killed 600,000 to 700,000 people, or about 10% of the population. Altogether more than 1,250,000 deaths resulted from the extreme incidence of plague in 17th century Spain.[24]

Map of Europe in 1648, after the Peace of Westphalia.

Philip II died in 1598, and was succeeded by his son Philip III, in whose reign a ten year truce with the Dutch was overshadowed in 1618 by Spain's involvement in the European-wide Thirty Years' War. Government policy was dominated by favorites, but it was also the reign in which the geniuses of Cervantes and El Greco flourished.



The Golden Age (Siglo de Oro)




Enlightenment: Spain under the Bourbons (18th century)

Philip V, the first Bourbon king, of French origin, signed the Decreto de Nueva Planta in 1715, a new law that revoked most of the historical rights and privileges of the different kingdoms that formed the Spanish Crown, specially Crown of Aragon, unifying them under the laws of Castile, where the Cortes had been more receptive to the royal wish. Spain became culturally and politically a follower of absolutist France. The rule of the Spanish Bourbons continued under Ferdinand VI and Charles III. Great influence was exerted over Elisabeth of Parma on Spain's foreign policy. Her principal aim was to have Spain's lost territories in Italy restored. She eventually received Franco-British support for this after the Congress of Soissons.[25]

An 18th century map of the Iberian Peninsula
Attacking Spanish infantry (about 1740)

Under the rule of Charles III and his ministers, Leopoldo de Gregorio, Marquis of Esquilache and José Moñino, Count of Floridablanca, Spain embarked on a program of enlightened despotism that brought Spain a new prosperity in the middle of the eighteenth century. Fearing that Britain's victory over France in the Seven Years War threatened the European balance of power, Spain allied themselves to France but suffered a series of military defeats and ended up having to cede Florida to the British at the Treaty of Paris. Despite being on the losing alongside France against the British in the Seven Years' War, Spain recouped most of her territorial losses in the American Revolutionary War, and gained an improved international standing.


During most of the eighteenth century Spain had made substantial progress since its steady decline in the latter part of the 17th century, under an increasingly inept Habsburg dynasty. But despite the progress, it continued to lag in the political and mercantile developments then transforming other parts of Europe, most notably in the United Kingdom, France and the Low Countries. The chaos unleashed by the Napoleonic intervention would cause this gap to widen greatly.

Napoleonic Wars: War of Spanish Independence (1808–1814)


Spain initially sided against France in the Napoleonic Wars, but the defeat of her army early in the war led to Charles IV's pragmatic decision to align with the revolutionary French. Spain was put under a British blockade, and her colonies—for the first time separated from their colonial rulers—began to trade independently with Britain. The defeat of the British invasions of the River Plate in South America emboldened an independent attitude in Spain's American colonies. A major Franco-Spanish fleet was annihilated, at the decisive Battle of Trafalgar in 1805, prompting the vacillating king of Spain to reconsider his alliance with France. Spain broke off from the Continental System temporarily, and Napoleon—aggravated with the Bourbon kings of Spain—invaded Spain in 1808 and deposed Ferdinand VII, who had just been on the throne forty-eight days after his father's abdication in March.

The Spanish people vigorously resisted Napoleon's move, and juntas were formed across Spain that pronounced themselves in favor of Ferdinand VII. Initially, the juntas declared their support for Ferdinand VII, and convened a "General and Extraordinary Cortes" for all the kingdoms of the Spanish Monarchy. The Cortes assembled in 1810 and took refuge at Cádiz. In 1812 the Cádiz Cortes created the first modern Spanish constitution, the Constitution of 1812 (informally named La Pepa).


Spain in the nineteenth century (1814–1873)

Although the juntas that had forced the French to leave Spain had sworn by the liberal Constitution of 1812, Ferdinand VII openly believed that it was too liberal for the country. On his return to Spain, he refused to swear by it himself, and he continued to rule in the authoritarian fashion of his forebears.

Although Spain accepted the rejection of the Constitution, the policy was not warmly accepted in Spain's empire in the New World. Revolution broke out. Spain, nearly bankrupt from the war with France and the reconstruction of the country, was unable to pay her soldiers, and in 1819 was forced to sell Florida to the United States for 5 million dollars. In 1820, an expedition intended for the colonies (which, at the time, were on the verge of being lost themselves, to rebels and the Monroe Doctrine) revolted in Cadiz. When armies throughout Spain pronounced themselves in sympathy with the revolters, led by Rafael del Riego, Ferdinand relented and was forced to accept the liberal Constitution of 1812. Ferdinand himself was placed under effective house arrest for the duration of the liberal experiment.







Isabella II of Spain took a more active role in government after she came of age, but she was immensely unpopular throughout her reign. She was viewed as beholden to whoever was closest to her at court, and that she cared little for the people of Spain. In 1856, she attempted to form a pan-national coalition, the Union Liberal, under the leadership of Leopoldo O'Donnell who had already marched on Madrid that year and deposed another Espartero ministry. Isabella's plan failed and cost Isabella more prestige and favor with the people.
Isabella launched a successful war against Morocco, waged by generals O'Donnell and Juan Prim, in 1860 that stabilized her popularity in Spain. However, a campaign to reconquer Peru and Chile during the Chincha Islands War proved disastrous and Spain suffered defeat before the determined South American powers.


Revolution and anarchy broke out in Spain in the two years that followed; it was only in 1870 that the Cortes declared that Spain would have a king again. As it turned out, this decision played an important role in European and world history, for a German prince's candidacy to the Spanish throne and French opposition to him served as the immediate motive for the Franco-Prussian War. Amadeus of Savoy was selected, and he was duly crowned King of Spain early the following year.


First Spanish Republic (1873–1874)

Following the Hidalgo affair, Amadeus famously declared the people of Spain to be ungovernable, and fled the country. In his absence, a government of radicals and Republicans was formed that declared Spain a republic.


The Restoration (1874–1931)

Although the former queen, Isabella II was still alive, she recognized that she was too divisive as a leader, and abdicated in 1870 in favor of her son, Alfonso, who was duly crowned Alfonso XII of Spain. After the tumult of the First Spanish Republic, Spaniards were willing to accept a return to stability under Bourbon rule. The Republican armies in Spain — which were resisting a Carlist insurrection — pronounced their allegiance to Alfonso in the winter of 1874–1875, led by Brigadier General Martinez Campos. The Republic was dissolved and Antonio Canovas del Castillo, a trusted advisor to the king, was named Prime Minister on New Year's Eve, 1874. The Carlist insurrection was put down vigorously by the new king, who took an active role in the war and rapidly gained the support of most of his countrymen.


Cuba rebelled against Spain in the Ten Years' War beginning in 1868, resulting in the abolition of slavery in Spain's colonies in the New World. American interests in the island, coupled with concerns for the people of Cuba, aggravated relations between the two countries. The explosion of the USS Maine launched the Spanish-American War in 1898, in which Spain fared disastrously. Cuba gained its independence and Spain lost its remaining New World colony, Puerto Rico, which together with Guam and the Philippines it ceded to the United States for 20 million dollars. In 1899, Spain sold its remaining Pacific islands—the Northern Mariana Islands, Caroline Islands and Palau—to Germany and Spanish colonial possessions were reduced to Spanish Morocco, Spanish Sahara and Spanish Guinea, all in Africa.

The "disaster" of 1898 created the Generation of '98, a group of statesmen and intellectuals who demanded change from the new government. Anarchist and fascist movements were on the rise in Spain in the early twentieth century. A revolt in 1909 in Catalonia was bloodily suppressed.


Mistreatment of the Moorish population in Spanish Morocco led to an uprising and the loss of this North African possession except for the enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla in 1921. (See Abd el-Krim, Annual). In order to avoid accountability, King Alfonso XIII decided to support the dictatorship of General Miguel Primo de Rivera, ending the period of constitutional monarchy in Spain.


Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939)



Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)






The dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1936–1975)

Spain remained officially neutral in World Wars I and II, but suffered through a devastating Civil War (1936–1939). During Franco's rule, Spain remained largely economically and culturally isolated from the outside world, but began to catch up economically with its European neighbors.



The latter years of Franco's rule saw some economic and political liberalization, the Spanish Miracle, including the birth of a tourism industry. Francisco Franco ruled until his death on 20 November 1975, when control was given to King Juan Carlos.


Spain since 1975

Transition to democracy

The Spanish transition to democracy or new Bourbon restoration was the era when Spain moved from the dictatorship of Francisco Franco to a liberal democratic state. The transition is usually said to have begun with Franco’s death on 20 November 1975, while its completion is marked by the electoral victory of the socialist PSOE on 28 October 1982.




Modern Spain


In 1996, the centre-right Partido Popular government came to power, led by José María Aznar. On 1 January 1999, Spain exchanged the Peseta for the new Euro currency. On 11 March 2004 a number of terrorist bombs exploded on busy commuter trains in Madrid during the morning rush-hour days before the general election, killing 191 persons and injuring thousands. Although José María Aznar and his ministers were quick to accuse ETA of the atrocity, soon afterwards it became apparent that the bombing was the work of an extremist Islamic group linked to Al-Qaeda. Many people believe that the fact that qualified commentators abroad were beginning to doubt the official Spanish version the very same day of the attacks while the government insisted on ETA's implication directly influenced the results of the election. Opinion polls at the time show that the difference between the two main contenders had been too close to make any accurate prediction as to the outcome of the elections. The election, held three days after the attacks, was won by the PSOE, and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero replaced Aznar as prime minister.

On 3 July 2005, the country became the first country in the world to give full marriage and adoption rights to homosexual couples (Belgium allows same-sex marriage since 2003 and co-parenting since April 2006, and the Netherlands allows same-sex marriage since 2001 and has a law being prepared now to provide full adoption rights in equal conditions to opposite-sex marriages).

At present, Spain is a constitutional monarchy, and comprises 17 autonomous communities (Andalucía, Aragón, Asturias, Islas Baleares, Islas Canarias, Cantabria, Castile and León, Castile-La Mancha, Cataluña, Extremadura, Galicia, La Rioja, Community of Madrid, Region of Murcia, País Vasco, Comunidad Valenciana, Navarra) and two autonomous cities (Ceuta and Melilla).


  1. ^ European Voyages of Exploration: Imperial Spain
  2. ^ a b "Spain". Encarta Online Encyclopedia. 2007. http://encarta.msn.com/text_761575057___0/Spain.html.  See also: "'First west Europe tooth' found". BBC. 30 June 2007. Archived from the original on 2009-10-31. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwqnGivb. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
  3. ^ "Spain - History - Pre-Roman Spain - Prehistory". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 2008. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/557573/Spain/214578/History#toc=toc70344. 
  4. ^ "Spain - History - Pre-Roman Spain - Phoenicians". Britannica Online Encyclopedia. 2008. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/557573/Spain/70346/Phoenicians#toc=toc70346. 
  5. ^ Grout, James (2007). "The Celtiberian War". Encyclopaedia Romana. University of Chicago. http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/hispania/celtiberianwar.html. Retrieved 2008-06-08. 
  6. ^ "Major Phases in Roman History". Rome in the Mediterranean World. University of Toronto. http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~corbett/clab42/RomChron.htm. Retrieved 2008-06-08. 
  8. ^ a b Rinehart, Robert; Seeley, Jo Ann Browning (1998). "A Country Study: Spain - Hispania". Library of Congress Country Series. http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/estoc.html. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
  10. ^ Payne, Stanley G. (1973). "A History of Spain and Portugal; Ch. 1 Ancient Hispania". The Library of Iberian Resources Online. http://libro.uca.edu/payne1/spainport1.htm. Retrieved 2008-08-09. 
  11. ^ This led to the establishment of the Suebi Kingdom in Gallaecia, in the northwest, the Vandal Kingdom of Vandalusia (Andalusia) and the Visigothic Kingdom in Toledo.
  13. ^ Rhea Marsh Smith, Spain: A Modern History, p. 25.
  14. ^ rhea Marsh Smith, Spain: A Modern History, p. 14.
  16. ^ Timelines - Vikings, Saracens, Magyars
  17. ^ Granada by Richard Gottheil, Meyer Kayserling, Jewish Encyclopedia. 1906 ed.
  19. ^ The Almohads
  20. ^ Catalan Company (1302-1388 AD)
  22. ^ Patrick, James (2007). Renaissance and Reformation. Marshall Cavendish. pp. 207. ISBN 0761476512, 9780761476511. http://books.google.com/books?pg=PA207&dq=charles+V+was+the+most+powerful+monarch+of+his+day&id=i6ZJlLHLPY8C&output=html. 
  23. ^ When Europeans were slaves: Research suggests white slavery was much more common than previously believed
  24. ^ The Seventeenth-Century Decline
  25. ^ Simms p.211



External links

  • Carmen Pereira-Muro. Culturas de España. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Company 2003. ISBN

See also


Up to date as of January 23, 2010

From Wikibooks, the open-content textbooks collection

History of Spain

Goya's Second of May 1808: The Charge of the Mamelukes
Contents >>

Simple English

Spain is a country located in Europe.


= Early History


The Roman Empire controlled Spain for three hundred years; then people from Northern Europe called the Visigoths fought for Spain and won it from the Romans. They were Christians, and they controlled Spain for two hundred years.

File:Dama de
Lady of Elche made by the Iberians

A lot of people took over Spain from the 13th century but by the end of the 19th Century Spain was fairly poor ,and was ruled by French people. Britain sent its own troops to defend Spain since it was so weak. This put first France, then Britain, in control of Spain for the rest of that century. Today Britain has strong ties to Spain from this time.


In the year 1492, they took the last part of Spain that had belonged to the Moors. Internal feuds, corruption, and divisions had caused Baghdad to fall to the Mongols in 1258. Spain went similarly. Boabdil, the last Moorish Prince of Granada, gave the keys to King Ferdinand of Aragon on 2 January 1492. It was he who now ruled all of Spain:



Late 15th century



16th century and 17th century






The great satire Don Quixote was written about this time.

18th century



20th century



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