Postage Stamps as witness of Spain history
Spain’s location at the crossroads of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, Europe and Africa, has made it a key political and cultural bridge across five continents. Through exploration and conquest, Spain became a world power in the 16th Century, and maintained a vast overseas empire until the 19th Century.
Its modern history was marked by the bitter civil war of 1936-39, and the ensuing decades-long dictatorship of Francisco Franco. Since General Franco’s death in 1975, Spain has made the transition to democracy, and built a modern economy.
The country’s 17 regions have their own directly-elected authorities, but separatism remains a live issue in wealthy Catalonia in the north-east.
Some key dates in Spain’s history:
- 1492 – The Christian kingdoms of Castile and Aragon conquer the emirate of Granada, ending nearly 800 years of Muslim rule in the peninsula and founding modern Spain as a united state.
- 1492 – Christopher Columbus arrives in the Americas, heralding the conquest of much of South and Central America.
- 16th Century – Jews and later Muslims are expelled from Spain during the Inquisition.
- 16th-17th Centuries – Spanish Empire at its height, with Spain the predominant European power. The rise of Protestant states in northern Europe coupled with struggles with the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean see the country’s gradual decline.
- 18th Century – The War of the Spanish Succession: Spain loses its European possessions outside the Iberian peninsula.
- The Bourbon dynasty, originally from France, centralises the Spanish state, shutting down many regional autonomous assemblies and modernising government and the military.
- 1807-1814 – Napoleon’s France occupies Spain, which had been a French satellite since 1795. Fierce nationalist resistance and British intervention in the Peninsular War gradually forces French troops out.
- 19th Century – Napoleonic legacy of political division and economic dislocation leaves Spain weak and unstable, with frequent changes of government and a low-level insurgency by Carlist supporters of a rival branch of the royal family.
- All Latin American colonies win their independence, with Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Philippines in Asia lost during a disastrous war with the United States in 1898.
- 1910s – Spain seeks compensation in conquering colonies in Africa, most significantly northern Morocco and the Spanish Sahara.
- 1920s – The trade boom achieved by neutrality in World War One is squandered through fighting Moroccan rebels in the Rif War 1921-26 and the financial mismanagement of the Primo de Rivera dictatorship at home.
- 1931 – The return of democratic government leads to an electoral backlash against the monarchy and its allies, and a republic is declared. Radical policies of land reform, labour rights, educational expansion and anti-Church legislation deepen the political divide.
- 1936 – After two years of right-wing government, a Popular Front coalition of left-wing and liberal parties narrowly wins parliamentary elections and seeks to reintroduce the radical policies of 1931.
