

Till: >1AM>A1U> DICTIONARY OF FACTS 



Barcelona. The Romans had driven the Car- 

 thaginian* from the peninsula in 206 B. C., and 

 the country was erected into a Roman Province. 

 From the time of the conij :uacv of the 



Romans till the death of Con-tantine t 



i \\a* eminently pro-|crou-. 



Alien- throughout the country towns >! 



purely Human cluiracter sprang up. and minier- 



rts. bridge's, am pi lit! . urn- 



hiiilt. Spain was fur three centuries the richest 



.-e of the Roman Fmpire. In l>.i A. l>. 

 hordes of barbarians, Alans, Vandals, and Suevi. 

 crossed the Pyrenees and t and des- 



olated the jxiunsula. About ill* t 



i their king. Athaulf. 



r-t.ibh -h-d the QoUttfl monarchy in Catalonia. 

 In 711 the Moors obtained mastery of nearly 

 the whole of Spain. The Moor- held Spain for 

 the first few years as a dependency of the 

 province of North Africa; but after the down- 

 fall of Musa the country was governed (717) 

 by rmin appointed by the Caliph of Damascus. 

 During the period of Moorish domination the 

 small independent kingdom of Asturias. or Leon, 

 had been gnnving in j>ower and extent. In 758 

 a second mdependenl Christian Kingdom was 

 founded in Sobrarve. which was in 801 swallowed 

 up by the caliphate of Cordova. Thirty-six 

 years afterward was founded the third Christian 

 Kingdom, that of Navarre, and in 933 another 



ident monarchy was founded in Castile, 

 which, from it- central portion and consequent 

 greater i'or expansion, soon became the 



most powerful of the Spanish states. The 

 Kingdom of Aragpn was the last Christian 

 kingdom formed in Spain. The rest of the 

 history of the Spanish kingdoms before their 

 union* is undeserving of a detailed account. 

 Ferdinand II , the last sovereign of Aragon, by 

 marriage with Isabella. Queen of Castile, in 1469, 

 by the conquest of Granada in 1492, and that of 

 Navarre in \:>\'2, united the whole of Spain 

 (and French Navarre) under one rule. Charles 

 I. (Charles V. of Germany) succeeded Ferdinand, 

 and in his reign Mexico and Peru were added to 

 the possessions of Spain. Philip II., by his 

 enormous war expenditure and maladminis- 

 tration, laid a sure foundation for the decline 

 of the country; and the reigns of Philip III. and 

 IV. witnessed a fearful acceleration in the 

 decline. That of Charles II. was still more 

 unfortunate, and the death of the latter was the 

 occasion of the War of the Spanish Succeion. 

 Philip V. was the first of the Bourbon Dynasty 

 who occupied the throne of Spain. Under 

 Charles III 1 7.">9-88) the second great revival 

 of the country commenced, and tnwle! and com- 

 merce began to show signs of returning activity. 

 Dunn- .loriou- reign of Charl.- I \ 



(1788-1808) a war broke out with Britain, which 

 was productive of nothing but disaster to the 

 Spaniards and by the pressure of the French 

 another arose in 1804, and was attended with 

 similar ill success. Charles's eldest son ascended 

 the throne as Ferdinand VII. Forced by Napo- 

 i daimi to the Spanish Crown. 



Ferdinand became a primmer of the French, and 

 Joseph, the brother of the French Frnperor. was 

 declared King of Spain and the Indie-. Bui 

 before this time an armed resistance had been 



organized throughout the whole country. The 

 various provinces elected juntas, or councils, 

 con -i -ting of the most influential inhabitants 

 of the respective neighborhoods, and it was 

 their business to administer local rule. The 

 Supreme Council of Seville declared war against 

 Napoleon and France in 1808. England, on 

 solicitation, made peace with Spain, recognized 

 Ferdinand VII. as king, and sent an army to 

 aid the Spanish insurrection. After many 

 bloody campaigns the French were driven from 

 the country. The reign of Ferdinand's daughter, 

 Isabella II., was disturbed by the Carlist rebel- 

 lion, 183439. Frequent changes of ministry, 

 occa-ional revolts, the banishment of Queen 

 Christina, the war with the Moors, the annexa- 

 tion of St. Domingo in 1861, and the quarrels 

 between Spain and her former colonies, Peru 

 and Chile, were the most marked events in the 

 more recent history of Spain. In 1868, Isabella 

 was driven from the throne by a general revolt; 

 and the Cortes, in 1871, elected Prince Amadeo 

 of Italy to be king. Finding the task of ruling 

 constitutionally hopeless, Amadeo abdicated in 

 1873, upon which the form of government was 

 changed into a republic. During the remainder 

 of 1873, and the whole of 1874, Spain was the 

 scene of general anarchy and much bloodshed. 

 In December, 1874, Alfonso, son of ex-Queen 

 Isabella, was declared King of Spain at Santan- 

 der, under the title of Alfonso XII. He died 

 in 1886, and his widow, Queen Maria Christina, 

 was chosen regent during the minority of the 

 infant Prince Alfonso XIII. The Prince reached 

 his majority, May 17, 1902, and assumed charge 

 of the kingdom as Alfonso XIII. On May 31, 

 1904, he married Princess Ena of Battenberg, 

 and as the. king and queen were returning to 

 the palace, they narrowly escaped death from 

 a bomb thrown by an anarchist. 



Spanish -American War. In 1898, 

 a crisis in Cuban affairs brought on war with the 

 United States, known as the Spanish-American 

 War, which from its opening to its close lasted 

 114 days. In that time the United States 

 land and sea forces destroyed two Spanish 

 fleets, received the surrender of more than 

 35,000 Spanish soldiers, took by conquest the 

 fortified cities of Santiago de Cuba, in Cuba, 

 Ponce, in Porto Rico, and Manila, on the island 

 of Luzon, in the Philippines, and secured con- 

 trol, pending negotiations of peace, of the entire 

 Spanish possessions in the West Indies, the 

 Philippines, and Guam of the Ladrone Islands. 

 The Americans suffered no loss of ships or territory 

 and but 279 killed and 1,465 wounded in battle, 

 while the cost to Spain, aside from prisoners, 

 ships, and lost territory, was 2,199 killed, and 

 2,948 wounded. The cost to the United States 

 in money was $141,000,000. 



The principal events preceding and during the 

 war and the dates on which they occurred are 

 as follows: 



February 15th The United States battleship 

 Maine" was blown up in the harbor of 

 Havana. According to the report of the 

 Court of Inquiry appointed by the United 

 States the explosion was due to an external 

 mine. 



