History of Gibraltar
Gibraltar is a small peninsula on the southern Iberian coast near the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea. It was first inhabited over 50,000 years ago by Neanderthals and may have been one of their last places of habitation before they died out. Gibraltar was besieged and heavily bombarded during three wars between Britain and Spain.
About History of Gibraltar in brief
Gibraltar is a small peninsula on the southern Iberian coast near the entrance of the Mediterranean Sea. It was first inhabited over 50,000 years ago by Neanderthals and may have been one of their last places of habitation before they died out. Gibraltar’s recorded history began around 950 BC with the Phoenicians, who lived nearby. The Carthaginians and Romans later worshipped Hercules in shrines said to have been built on the Rock of Gibraltar. Gibraltar became part of the Visigothic Kingdom of Hispania following the collapse of the Roman Empire and came under Muslim Moorish rule in 711 AD. The Christian Crown of Castile annexed it in 1309, lost it again to the Moors in 1333 and finally regained it in 1462. Gibraltar was besieged and heavily bombarded during three wars between Britain and Spain but the attacks were repulsed on each occasion. By the end of the last siege, in the late 18th century, Gibraltar had faced fourteen sieges in 500 years. The colony grew rapidly during the 19th and early 20th centuries, becoming a key British possession in the Mediterranean. Its economic success had made it one of the wealthiest areas of the European Union. Since 1985, Gibraltar has undergone major changes as a result of reductions in Britain’s overseas defence commitments. Most British forces have left the territory, which is no longer seen as a place of major military importance. Its economy is now based on tourism, financial services, shipping and Internet gambling. Gibraltar is largely self-governed, with its own parliament and government, though the UK maintains responsibility for defence and foreign policy.
Spain closed its border with Gibraltar between 1969 and 1985 and communications links were severed. Spain’s position was supported by Latin American countries but was rejected by Britain and the Gibraltarians themselves, who vigorously asserted their right to self-determination. In terms of military and naval power, few places have a more strategic location than Gibraltar. As one writer has put it, Gibraltar also controls the freedom of movement of ships into and out of the Med. The territory measures only 7 square kilometres. Most of the land is occupied by the steeply sloping rock of Gibraltar, which reaches a height of 426 metres. A base on the west side of the peninsula is on the south coast of Spain at 24 kilometres from the coast of North Africa in North Africa. Its position on the bay makes it an advantageous natural anchorage for ships into the Mediterranean, only one point away from Morocco in North West Africa. It is a narrow peninsula at the eastern side of Bay Gibraltar, 6km from the city of Algeciras. It is one of only a handful of places in the world that can be easily reached by boat from the east coast of Europe, and it is only one of 24 narrowest points in Spain at far far away from Spain at the west coast of Morocco in north West Africa in the North Africa region. It has a population of just over 2,000.
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This page is based on the article History of Gibraltar published in Wikipedia (as of Nov. 16, 2020) and was automatically summarized using artificial intelligence.
