Spain has had a turbulent history: the Arabian Moors took over the territory now known as Spain from the Visigoths in the 8th century. For centuries, Spanish culture was shaped by the Moors. The native Spanish only regained control over the entire territory in 1492, the same year when Christopher Columbus “discovered” America and Spain rose to become a global power. On the one hand, the colonisation of large parts of America made Spain very rich but on the other massacres and introduced diseases led to the near annihilation of the natives in the colonised countries.
Photo: imago images/H. Tschanz-Hofmann
