The 20th century initially brought little peace; colonisation of Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea was attempted as a substitute for the loss of the Americas. A period of dictatorial rule (1923-1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country and Catalonia and gave voting rights to women. However, with increasing political polarisation and pressure from all sides, coupled with growing and unchecked political violence, the Republic ended with the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Following the victory of the nationalist forces in 1939, General Francisco Franco ruled a nation exhausted politically and economically until his death in 1975.
In order to understand the political forces and debates in Spain we have to consider two dimensions: the Right vs. Left dimension and the Nation State vs. Plurinational State dimension. The political parties agendas and the individual citizens opinions can only understood when situated on both dimensions. The Constitution of the Kingdom of Spain states that 1) it is a Nation and 2) that it is formed by Nationalities and Regions. This statement is a contradiction (since Nationality and Nation essentially mean the same thing in political theory), but it was an agreement that struck a balance between the political parties advocating the nation state and those advocating the plurinational state. The territorial organization of Spain into Autonomous Communities of Spain is the administrative realization of this constitutional balancing act.
Contemporary Madrid came into its own after the death of the Fascist dictator Franco. Years of the Franco regime left Madrid and much the country in economic shambles due to isolation. With his death, Madrid and Spain as a whole began to re-assert itself on the international stage. Within Spain, reaction against the dictatorial bureaucracy centered in Madrid and a history of centralism that pre-dated Franco by centuries has resulted in the successful modern movement towards increased autonomy for the regions of Spain, considered as European regions, under the umbrella of Spain.
The dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera collapsed in 1930. Disgusted with the king's involvement in it, urban population voted for republican parties in the municipal elections of April 1931. The king was forced to resign and a republic was established.
The Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic war in the 2nd century B.C., and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies becoming the province of Hispania. Some of Spain's present languages, religion, and laws originate from this Roman period.
On February 20th 2005, Spain became the first country to allow its people to vote on the European Union constitution that was signed in October 2004. The rules states that if any country rejects the constitution then the constitution will be declared void. The final result was very strongly in affirmation of the constitution, making Spain the first and so far only country to approve the constitution via referendum.
In 1898 Spain lost the Spanish-American War. Cuba gained its independence, and Spain lost its remaining New World colonies—Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico—to the United States. Spain's colonial possessions were reduced to Spanish Morocco, Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea.
The Napoleonic invasion gave the opportunity to the American colonies, led by Libertadores, to claim their independence. Between 1810 and 1824, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Venezuela, and the other colonies declared and won their independence. The only New World colonies Spain was left with were the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico. The Allies fought Napoleon's forces in the Peninsular War, with Joseph Bonaparte ruling as king at Madrid. In 1812 the Cortes took refuge at Cádiz and created the first modern Spanish constitution, the Constitution of 1812 (informally named La Pepa).
The crown jewel of Spain's next decade of infrastructure construction is the Spanish high speed rail network, Alta Velocidad Española AVE. Currently, an ambitious plan includes the construction of a 7000 km network, centered naturally on Madrid. The overall goal is to have all important provincial cities be no more than 4 hours away from Madrid, and no more than 6 hours away from Barcelona. Currently, AVE high-speed trains link Atocha station to Seville in the south and Lleida in the east (to be extended to Barcelona).
Through a policy of alliances with other European nobility and the conquest of most of South America and the West Indies, Spain began to establish itself as an empire. The Treaty of Tordesillas, negotiated by Pope Alexander VI between Portugal and Spain, effectively divided up the non-European world between these two budding empires. Massive amounts of gold and silver were imported from the New World into Spain's coffers. However, in the long run this hurt the Spanish economy much more than it helped it. The bullion caused high inflation rates, which undermined the value of Spain's currency. Additionally, Spain became dependent on her colonies for income, and when Queen Elizabeth I of England began to capture Spanish vessels on the way to and from the New World, Spain suffered massive economic losses. These effects, combined with the expulsion of Spain's most economically vital classes in the late 15th century (the Jews and the Moors), caused Spain's economy to collapse several times in the 16th century, bringing the Golden Age of Spain to a close.
Modern Spain began to take form during the Reconquista, the struggle between the Christian kingdoms arising in the northern regions left unconquered by the Moors and the Muslim kingdoms into which Al-Andalus eventually split.
The Castilian-derived Spanish (called both Español and Castellano in the language itself) is the official language throughout Spain, but other regional languages are also spoken. Without mentioning them by name, the Spanish Constitution recognizes the possibility of regional languages being coofficial in their respective autonomous communities.
In 711, Arabs and Berbers had converted to Islam, a religion founded in the 7th century by prophet Muhammad and which by the 8th dominated all the north of Africa. A raiding party led by Tariq ibn-Ziyad was sent to intervene in a civil war in the Visigothic kingdoms in Iberia. Crossing the Strait of Gibraltar, it won a decisive victory in the summer of 711 when the Visigoth king Roderic was defeated and killed on July 19th at the Battle of Guadalete. Tariq's commander, Musa bin Nusair quickly crossed with substantial reinforcements, and by 718 the Muslims dominated most of the peninsula. The advance into Europe was stopped by the Franks under Charles Martel at the battle of Poitiers (France) in 732.
The Complutense University is one of the oldest universities in the world, as well as the largest and (after Salamanca) most prestigious in Spain. It has 10000 staff and a student population of 117 000. It is located on two campuses, in the university quarter Ciudad Universitaria at Moncloa in Madrid, and in Somosaguas.
After World War II, being one of few surviving fascist regimes in Europe, Spain was politically and economically isolated and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when it became strategically important for U.S. president Eisenhower to establish a military presence in the Iberian peninsula. This opening to Spain was aided by Franco's rabid anti-communism.