Spain History
Spain is a country that has been shaped by the influence of many civilizations throughout history. Travelling around Spain means getting to know the fascinating legacy of varied cultures: Iberians and Celts, Greeks and Phoenicians, Romans and Carthaginians, Visigoths and Arabs. Spain is a Western European country in its culture and way of life yet with some peculiar additions that make it quite unique in the European context.
Rome was the first major power of ancient times that conquered the whole Peninsula and left an imposing culture (after six centuries of rule) that is somehow still present directly and indirectly in the country, in astounding monuments (like the Segovia aqueduct or the Roman Theatre in Mérida) and powerful social and cultural elements like the Latin language (of which the Spanish language is derived), Roman law and also the Christian religion.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, several Northern European peoples invaded the country, of which the Visigoths were the ones finally prevailing by the end of the 6th century. They were defeated by North African Arabs at the beginning of the 8th century. The Moors were to remain in Spain for almost eight centuries effectively changing the country’s culture and traditions, and building stunning monuments like the big mosque in Cordoba and the Alhambra and Generalife palaces in Granada.
The Middle Ages were marked in Spain by the struggle and coexistence of Arab and Christian kingdoms, but since the 13th.
century it became obvious that Christians were regaining most of what had been lost and Moorish kingdoms were confined to Andalusia.
Finally, in 1492, the so-called Catholic Monarchs, Isabella of Castile and Ferdinand of Aragon, unified the two kingdoms that made up most of Christian Spain, and conquered Granada, the last Moorish stronghold in Spain. 1492 was also the year when Christopher Columbus reached the Americas on behalf of the Crown of Castile, initiating a period of great imperial hegemony in Europe, the American continent and elsewhere, even today reflected in El Escorial and in cities like Toledo, Segovia, Seville or Madrid.
The next two centuries, the 16th and the 17th, witnessed the build-up of the Spanish Empire that became the world’s foremost power. That period saw also the apogee of Spanish culture with writers like Cervantes, the author of Don Quixote, Quevedo and Calderón, mystics like St. Therese and St. John of the Cross, or painters like Greco, Murillo, Ribera, Zurbarán and Velázquez. Later, the War of Succession to the Spanish Crown (1701-1714) meant the end of the Habsburg dynasty in the country and the coming of the Bourbons (who built royal palaces like those of Madrid and La Granja). Spain was by then already a declining power and the decay continued with Napoleon´s invasion in 1808 (reflected by Goya in his mature paintings) and the subsequent loss of the Spanish colonies in the Americas.
The end of the 19th century was significantly marked by the loss of its last overseas possessions, after the Spanish-American War of 1898, with disastrous results both nationally and internationally.
A backward, convulsive Spain did not take part in World War One but was shocked by political and social crisis that ended up in dictatorship first and then the fall of the Bourbon monarchy. Yet it was also a time of cultural renewal, with modern talents like Dalí, Picasso, Lorca and Buñuel. The Republic proclaimed in 1931 could not overcome a time of turmoil, conspiracy and revolutionary tensions that led to the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939), a conflict that resounded all over the world.
The war concluded with the victory of General Franco´s authoritarian regime that kept the country impoverished and isolated. Spain´s slow modernization occurred only since the 1960s thanks to mass tourism, industrialization and migration to cities.
Franco died in 1975, and a constitutional monarchy was established in the person of king Juan Carlos I. Democracy was re-established and measures of regional home rule were introduced. Spain became member of NATO in 1985 and entered the European Community in 1986. Spain had a socialist government from 1982 to 1996 and a Conservative government from 1996 to 20. On March 14, 2004 the Socialists were re-elected.