Comprised of a collection of smaller states located within the Iberian Peninsula that began with the union of Castile and Aragon, Spain has a history that goes back to days preceding the Roman Empire.
A brief timeline of Spanish history:
- Prehistory of the Iberian Peninsula
- Roman Empire
- Visigothic Hispania (5th–8th centuries)
- Al-Andalus- Moorish Iberia (8th–15th centuries)
- Reconquista - Expulsion of the Moors(8th–15th centuries)
- Spain under the Habsburgs (16th–17th centuries)
- The Enlightenment: Spain under the Bourbons (18th century)
- Napoleonic Wars: War of Spanish Independence (1808–1814)
- Spain in the nineteenth century (1814–1873)
- First Spanish Republic (1873–1874)
- The Restoration (1874–1931)
- Second Spanish Republic (1931–1939)
- Spanish Civil War (1936–1939)
- The dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1936–1975)
- The transition to democracy (1975–1978)
- Spain since 1978