Who occupied Spain?

Outline. In 711 Muslim forces invaded and in seven years conquered the Iberian peninsula. It became one of the great Muslim civilisations; reaching its summit with the Umayyad caliphate of Cordovain the tenth century. Muslim rule declined after that and ended in 1492 when Granada was conquered.

Who first lived in Spain?

The First Settlers Arrive. Human settlers arrived in Spain’s territory 35 thousand years ago. Hispania, as Spain was initially named, was inhabited mostly by Iberian, Basques and Celts.

Who lived in Spain before the Romans?

Spanish prehistory extends to the pre-Roman Iron Age cultures that controlled most of Iberia: those of the Iberians, Celtiberians, Tartessians, Lusitanians, and Vascones and trading settlements of Phoenicians, Carthaginians, and Greeks on the Mediterranean coast.

Where did Spanish evolve from?

Spanish is a part of the Ibero-Romance group of languages, which evolved from several dialects of Vulgar Latin in Iberia after the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century.

How many ethnic groups are there in Spain?

Spain, the third-largest country in Europe, has a majority of its 43,484,000 citizens belonging to four major ethnic groups: Basque, Galician, Castilian, and Catalan.

Who first discovered Spain?

Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians By 1100 b.C. Phoenicians arrived to the peninsula and founded colonies, the most important of which was Gadir (today’s Cadiz), Malaca (today’s Malaga) and Abdera (today’s Adra, in Almeria). Also Greeks founded colonies in southern Spain and along the Mediterranean coast.

What historical event happened in 1492?

These three major events of 1492, the fall of Granada, the expulsion of the Jews, and Columbus’s expedition, were not unrelated. The war against the Muslims was very costly, and there wasn’t enough money in the treasury to finance both the war and the voyage across the Atlantic.