Spain

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Historie

The earliest record of Homo genus representatives living in Western Europe has been found in the Spanish cave of Atapuerca, located in the province of Burgos; a flint tool found there dates from 1.4 million years ago, and early human fossils date to roughly 1.2 million years ago.
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 c. 15,000 BC and are regarded as paramount instances of cave art.

The Greeks, who founded the first Greek colonies in the 9th century BC are responsible for the name Iberia, apparently after the river Iber (Ebro). 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).
During the Second Punic War (218-201 BC), 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.

The Visigoths, having sacked Rome two years earlier, arrived in the region in 412 AD, founding the Visigothic kingdom of Toulouse (in the south of modern France) and gradually expanded their influence into the Iberian peninsula. The Visigothic Kingdom shifted its capital to Toledo and reached a high point during the reign of Leovigild (568-586 AD).

The Arab Islamic conquest dominated most of North Africa by 640 AD. In 711 an Islamic Berber and Arab raiding party, led by
Tariq ibn-Ziyad, was sent to Iberia to intervene in a civil war in the Visigothic Kingdom. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, they won a decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigothic King Roderic was defeated and by 718 the Muslims were in control of nearly the whole Iberian 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 of the peninsula began the long and slow Christian recovery, a process called the Reconquista, which was concluded in 1492 with the fall of Granada.
On 30 July 1492, as a result of the Alhambra Decree, the Jewish communities in Castile and Aragon some 200.000 people were forcibly expelled. The conquest was followed by a series of edicts (1499-1526) which forced the conversions of Muslims in Spain, who were later expelled from the Iberian peninsula by the decrees of King Philip III in 1609. Approximately 3.000.000 Muslims emigrated or were driven out of Spain between 1492 and 1610.

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 which laid the basis for modern Spain and the Spanish Empire.
The Spanish Empire was one of the first global empires and it was also one of the largest empires in world history. Beginning with the 1492 arrival of Christopher Columbus and continuing for over three centuries, the Spanish Empire would expand across the Caribbean Islands, half of South America, most of Central America and much of North America as well as colonies in the western Pacific, among them the Philippines.
Spain's 16th-century maritime supremacy was demonstrated by the victory over the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 and over Portugal at the Battle of Ponta Delgada in 1582, and then after the setback of the Spanish Armada in 1588, in a series of victories against England in the Anglo-Spanish War of 1585-1604. However, during the middle decades of the 17th century Spain's maritime power went into a long decline with mounting defeats against the Dutch Republic and then England in the Anglo-Spanish War of 1654-1660; by the 1660s it was struggling to defend its overseas possessions from pirates and privateers.
The decline culminated in a controversy over succession to the throne which consumed the first years of the 18th century. The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1715) was a wide-ranging international conflict combined with a civil war, and was to cost the kingdom its European possessions and its position as a leading European power.

The end of the 18th and the start of the 19th centuries saw turmoil unleashed throughout Europe by the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars, and the military occupation of Spain by the Bonapartist regime.
The 2 May 1808 revolt was one of many uprisings across the country against the French occupation. These revolts marked the beginning of a devastating War of Independence against the Napoleonic regime.
Further military action by Spanish armies, guerrilla warfare and an Anglo-Portuguese allied army, combined with Napoleon's failure on the Russian front, led to the retreat of French imperial armies from the Iberian Peninsula in 1814, and the return of King Ferdinand VII.

Following a period of growing political instability in the early 20th 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.
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.

I visited Spain in mei 2011

It was part of the West Africa Pelagic 2011

During this trip, i have seen
Canary Islands

In july 2014 I have visited Andalusia

During this trip, i have seen
Sierra Nevada & Alpujarras

In june 2023 I have visited the province of Huesca

During this trip, i have seen
Jaca

Please let me know when you're having questions.
i would be pleased to help you.

Things to do and other tips

This illustrate's my memories of Spain:

A group of Short-finned Pilot Whales at the Canary Islands

See my "Things to do" pages for more pictures.
These are divided in:

"Spain"
"Macaronesia"