Gibraltar: History

Pre-20th-Century History

In 711AD Tariq ibn Ziyad, the Muslim governor of Tangier, landed at Gibraltar to launch the Islamic invasion of the Iberian Peninsula. The Rock has carried his name ever since: Jebel Tariq (Tariq's Mountain).

Castilla wrested the Rock from the Muslims in 1462. Then in 1704 an Anglo-Dutch fleet captured Gibraltar during the War of the Spanish Succession. Spain ceded the Rock to Britain in 1713, but didn't end military attempts to regain it until the failure of the Great Siege of 1779-83. Britain developed it into an important naval base.

Modern History

During the Franco period, Gibraltar was an extremely sore point between Britain and Spain and the object of much diplomatic angst: the border was closed from 1969 to 1985 as Franco was infuriated that Gibraltarians had voted by 12,138 to 44 in favour of British rather than Spanish sovereignty. In 1969 Britain gave Gibraltar a new constitution, domestic self-government and its own parliament.

Recent History

Today Spain's offer to Gibraltar of autonomous-region status within Spain is still on the table, but both the British and the Gibraltarians continue to reject any compromise over sovereignty. The British garrison was withdrawn in the early 1990s, but the British navy continues to use Gibraltar as an important base in its Mediterranean operations. However, tripartite talks, begun in 2005 between Spain, Britain and Gibraltar, are resulting in some real progress. Though the issue of sovereignty remains on the backburner, agreements have been reached, as of September 2006, regarding telecommunications, the pensions of Spaniards who worked in Gibraltar prior to the closing of the frontier during the Franco period, and astoundingly, plans for joint usage of and expansion of Gibraltar airport. Flights between Spanish cities and Gibraltar are scheduled to begin in 2007.

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