History of Gibraltar

Gibraltar carries a long history that can be traced from the earliest human settlement dating back to the Phoenicians around 950 BC.  Semi-permanent settlements were later established by the Carthaginians and Romans.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Gibraltar came briefly under the control of the Vandals, followed by the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania until its collapse due to the Muslim conquest in 711 AD. At that time, Gibraltar was named as one of the Pillars of Hercules, after the legend of the creation of the Straits of Gibraltar. On April 30, 711, the Umayyad general Tariq ibn Ziyad led a Berber-dominated army across the Strait from Ceuta. He first attempted to land at Algeciras but failed. Subsequently, he landed undetected at the southern point of the Rock from present-day Morocco in his quest for Spain.

The first permanent settlement was built by the Almohad Sultan Abd al-Mu'min, who ordered the construction of a fortification on the Rock, the remains of which are still present. Gibraltar would later become part of the Taifa Kingdom of Granada until 1309. In 1333 it was conquered by the Marinids who had invaded Muslim Spain. The Marinids ceded Gibraltar to the Kingdom of Granada in 1374. Finally, it was re-conquered definitively by the Duke of Medina Sidonia in 1462, ending 750 years of Moorish control.

5th April, 1607 marks the famous Battle of Gibraltar. The naval Battle of Gibraltar took place on 1607-04-25 during the Eighty Years' War when a Dutch fleet surprised and engaged a Spanish fleet anchored at the Bay of Gibraltar. During the 4-hour action, the entire Spanish fleet was destroyed.

During the War of the Spanish Succession, British and Dutch troops, allies of Archduke Charles, the Austrian pretender to the Spanish Crown, formed a Confederate fleet and attacked various towns on the southern coast of Spain.

On 4 August 1704, after six hours of bombardment starting at 5 a.m., the confederate fleet, commanded by Admiral Sir George Rooke, captured the town of Gibraltar in the name of the Archduke Charles. Terms of surrender were agreed upon, after the majority of the population (some four thousand) chose to leave Gibraltar. Franco-Spanish troops failed to retake the town, and British sovereignty over Gibraltar was subsequently recognised by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, which ended the war. Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca to the United Kingdom, which has retained sovereignty over the former ever since, despite all attempts by Spain to recapture it.

Gibraltar subsequently became an important naval base for the Royal Navy and played an important part in the Battle of Trafalgar. Its strategic value increased with the opening of the Suez Canal, as it controlled the important sea route between the UK and its colonies in India and Australia. During World War II, the civilian residents of Gibraltar were evacuated, and the Rock was turned into a fortress. An airfield was built over the civilian racecourse. Guns on Gibraltar controlled the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea, but plans by Nazi Germany to capture the Rock, codenamed Operation Felix, were frustrated by Spain's reluctance to allow the German Army onto Spanish soil.

In the 1950s, Spain, then under the dictatorship of Francisco Franco, renewed its claim to sovereignty over Gibraltar, sparked in part by the visit of Queen Elizabeth II in 1954 to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the Rock's capture. For the next thirty years, Spain restricted movement between Gibraltar and Spain. A referendum was held on September 10, 1967, in which Gibraltar's voters were asked whether they wished to either pass under Spanish sovereignty, or remain under British sovereignty, with institutions of self-government. The vote was overwhelmingly in favor of continuance of British sovereignty, with 12,138 to 44 voting to reject Spanish sovereignty.

In September 2006 representatives of the United Kingdom, Gibraltar and Spain concluded in Cordoba, Spain, a landmark agreement on a range of cross-cutting issues affecting the Rock and the campo Gibraltar removing many of the restrictions imposed by Spain.

Source: www.wikipedia.com