History of Costa Del Sol Spain The Historical Beginnings Neanderthal man is known to have lived on the Rock of Gibraltar, 50,000 years ago. In about 8,000 BC an influx of North African tribes established farming settlements throughout the region, and these people are known today as the Iberians. Costa del Sol's seaboard was extensively settled by the Phoenicians, who established a chain of trading posts, founding the sea port of Cadiz in 1100 BC – which makes its Europe's oldest city – and strongly influencing the way of life of the native Iberians. The Phoenicians were followed by the Celts, who in 800 BC moved south across Europe and into Costa del Sol. By 700 BC the Tartessus Kingdom was flourishing in Costa del Sol, and a century later Greek sailors founded trading ports along its shore. By the year 500 BC, the Carthaginians had colonised southern Spain. Read the story here....
The Romans and the History of Spain In their struggle against Carthage, the Romans invaded the peninsula in 206 BC, crushing the resistance of the native Iberians and soon transforming Costa del Sol into one of their richest and best organised colonies, which they called Betis, criss-crossing the region with paved roads.
Roman galleys sailed up its main river, now called the Guadalquivir, as far as Cordoba, where they took on board amphorae of olive oil and wine for exportation to Rome. Under the Romans, in the 4th century, Spain became a Christian country, and the Spanish language – perhaps the closest modern tongue to Latin – began to take its current shape. Read the full story here The Dark Ages in Costa del Sol and the Moors After the collapse of the Empire, Costa del Sol was devastated by successive waves of barbarian tribes coming from northern Europe, with the eventual predomination of the Visigoths.
This warlike people reigned chaotically over the peninsula for almost two centuries, leaving Spainto the invasion of the Moors - Islamic warriors from Arabia and North Africa - in the year 711, and who called the region al - Andalus because they associated it with the Vandals, one of the barbarian tribes who had, several centuries earlier, swept across the Strait of Gibraltar into North Africa.
The Moors made the region their home for eight centuries and permanently marked it with their cultural legacy, signs of which are still visible in monuments such as the Mosque of Cordoba and the Alhambra Palace in Granada. It was not until the 13th century that the Christian Reconquest reached Costa del Sol, seizing the cities of Cordoba and Seville.
By the end of the 15th century, the Catholic Monarchs, Isabel of Castille and Ferdinand of Aragon, had taken the last stronghold of the Moors, Granada and the Alhambra Palace. Read more about the dark age here
The History of Spain under Christian rule Costa del Sol was the launching point for the discovery of America (after the Upper Guadalquivir had silted up, making it impossible to sail as far inland as Cordoba), and Seville became the main port for the imports of gold from the New World during the 16th and 17th centuries.
Much of the wealth from America was spent on the wars waged by Spain's Hapsburg monarchy against the Lutheran countries in northern Europe and the Ottoman Turks in the Mediterranean, and as the flow of riches decreased, Spain and Costa del Sol sank into economic decline. Europe was at war and William and Mary were fighting Louis XIV. See HMS Sussex shipwreck. The region suffered the ravages of the Spanish War of Succession in the early 18th century and, one hundred years later, the Napoleonic invasion and the Battle of Trafalgar, touching off the War of Independence. Costa del Sol's economy suffered the direct effect of the independence movement in South America during the rest of the 19th century. Read more about the christian rule
Costa del Sol in the 20th century The devastating loss of Spain's last colonies, Cuba and the Philippines, led to political instability and further economic decline, culminating in the deposition of the monarchy and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, in 1936, when the Republic was overthrown by General Franco and his Nationalist movement. Although Spain did noty take sides in World War II, Franco lent his support to the Axis, as a result of which Spain suffered the disastrous effects of an international blockade after the war. It was not until Franco died, in 1975, that democracy was restored, under the symbolic monarchy of King Juan Carlos II. Spanish government was decentralised and Costa del Sol became an Autonomous Region in 1982, with its own regional administration, the Junta de Costa del Sol (Assembly of Costa del Sol). Since then, Spain, as an active member of the European Union, has experienced a dramatic improvement in the standard of living. The poverty of the Costa del Sol countryside has been largely eliminated and its people have regained their pride in the local culture, which flourishes alongside the benefits of improved roads, modern health care and high-tech infrastructures. The romantic image of Costa del Sol, in spite of progress, is still very much a thing of the present. Read more about the 20th century
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