Prehistory

Malta was populated as of approximately 5200 av. J. - C. and an important prehistoric civilization existed on the island.

Antiquity

Phenicians and Greeks

The Phénicie NS controlled the archipelago during 9th front century J-C and gave him the name of Malat , i.e. sure place . The Greeks were also installed on the site of current the Mdina at 8th front century J-C and bring a democratic regime to Malta. The island passed then under the control of Carthage (-400).

Romans

Malta became later one of the stakes of the war between the Romans and the Carthaginians. The Romans took finally the island in 218 av J-C. The Malteses were christianized towards 50-60 then Latinized. After the fall of the Roman Empire of Occident, Malta was delivered to the Vandals and to Ostrogoths.

Byzantines

The Byzantines took the control of the island into 533. Malta will remain Byzantine until the Arab invasion.

Arab time

The Arab conquered the island in 870. Arab colonization gave to Malta most of its culture, and in particular its national language, the Maltais.

Feudal time

Norman

In 1090, the Norman , Masters of Sicily, carried out by the count Roger de Hauteville, seize Malta.

Sicilians

In 1127, the island passed under sicilian domination . As from this moment, the inhabitants of the islands then shared the fate of the Sicilians and the Italians lasting at least four centuries; in the field of the religious administration, the archipelago of Malta belonged to the diocese of Palermo in Sicily until 1831. For this period, the Malteses rechristianisèrent, but preserved their Arab language, while massively borrowing part of their vocabulary from the sicilian and Italian.

1530-1798: Order of Malta

The emperor Charles Quint, including/understanding the utility which a military order in the Mediterranean vis-a-vis the Othoman projections can have (Algiers is conquered by famous the Barberousse in 1529), entrusts to the Order the archipelago Malta, dependence of the Royaume of Sicily, by an act of the March 24th 1530. The knights find themselves with the outposts of Christendom, but the large Master of Villiers of Isle-Adam always maintains the hope to reestablish in Rhodos. It is only with its death, in 1534, that the Hospital ones give up the East definitively. Vis-a-vis Othoman progress (Tunis is taken in 1534), the borgho , main city of the archipelago, are strengthened. Whereas this threat weighs on the new seat of the Order, the Reform carries to Northern Europe a great blow to the possessions of the Hospital ones. Many commanderies are secularized and certain great priories cease purely and simply to exist, like those of Sweden and Denmark. In 1540, the king of England Henri VIII removes de facto the Language of England. It is in this difficult context that the Order must face the greatest test of its history: the “large seat” of 1565.

In order to make sedentary their new general headquarter, the knights of Malta organized the defense of the island by building several fortifications (strong Saint-Angel, strong Saint-Elme, strong Saint-Michel, etc). Under the reign of the large Master of the order, Jean Parisot of Valette, the Malteses resisted the Large Seat of the Turks of 1565. The Turkish fleet which presents the May 18th 1565 in front of Malta counts more than 160 galères and 30.000 men, vis-a-vis the 800 knights and 1450 soldiers that the large Master Jean Parisot of Valette convened. Three forts defend bay and the borgo . That of Saint-Elme falls the June 23rd, two hundred knights find death there. To demoralize the knights, the Othoman commander, Mustapha pasha, lance in the roads of the rafts carrying the crucifiés bodies defenders of the fort. Valetta retorts while making bombard the Turkish camp with the heads of prisoners Turkish. The two other forts, Saint-Angel and Saint-Michel, hold good, as well as the enclosure of the borgo , whose the Turks, managed to make an entry there the June 7th are pushed back. The situation of besieged is critical when arrives the September 7th the “Great help”, the Spanish army coming from Sicily. The Turks are constrained with raising the seat.

In 1566, that Valetta, the capital of the archipelago, was founded.

After the failure of the seat, the Order is found in the center of the attentions of the European catholic powers. The October 7th 1571, the Hospital ones are illustrated with the Bataille of Lépante, where the fleet of holy Ligue, ordered by gift Juan of Austria, destroyed the Othoman fleet. Another celebrates maritime battle is delivered, the August 16th 1732, in with broad of Damiette in Egypt.

After Lépante, the danger in the Mediterranean does not come any more fleet of Othoman war but of the “barbaresque” corsairs of North Africa. The Order launches out again in the corso , the war of race, which of counter-attack which it was in the beginning, quickly becomes a means for the knights of growing rich by the boarding by the cargoes but especially by the trade by slaves, whose Valetta becomes the first Christian center.

The Order enters then during a time of singular changes: the knights beginners him must carry out four “caravans”, four forwardings of race at the time four consecutive years in Malta, but receive the permission often thereafter to be used their sovereign as origin. The central institutions of great magistère grow rich by the race and transform the European commanderies into a system of benefit which makes it possible the aristocracy to place its sons juniors, that it often makes admit in the order as of childhood so that they are placed better in the “race with the commanderies”. Thus, one finds few knights achieving all their career in the order, but on the contrary an important rotation beginners come to often achieve their “caravans”, which, once provided with a commandery, from there will serve their king, in the navy. The French Lord High Admirals of the S, such Coëtlogon, of Estrées, Tourville or Suffren, are all of the knights of Malta.

In 1793, the island of Malta escapes from little from a revolt fomented by spies from the Convention.

Following the triumphs of Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy in 1796-97, the large Master Ferdinand de Hompesch request with the tsar of Russia Paul I {{er}} to become the guard of the order. The October 10th 1798, the 249 knights of the Order exiled in Russia proclaim it “Large Master about Malta”, but that is not enough to protect the island and the order from the French invasion by Napoleon in 1798 (which drives out them island), then English in 1800. The knights of Malta succeeded in maintaining their order military until 1798 not without to have equipped Malta with sumptuous buildings which make the pride of the capital today.

British colonization

Napoleonean invasion

During the XVIIIe century, the archipelago of Malta became, under the French influence, the large relay French commercial in the Mediterranean. In 1798, the 71e and the main large last of the knights about Malta on the island, the German Ferdinand von Hompesch, went to the Bonaparte general after a resistance symbolic system. In 1800, the Malteses called the British with the assistance because of several unpopular laws promulgated by Bonaparte.

British occupation

Thanks to the assistance of the British troops, the French had to withdraw themselves from Malta after two years of seat. However, the British refused to return the archipelago to the order of Malta, and officially annexed it to the British Empire in 1814, by the Traité of Paris. However the British were not accepted better than the French: they impose their language unilaterally and monopolize all the political power and economic. This situation of colonial exploitation caused in return the rise of strong nationalist claims.

Almost all the XIXe century saw the rise of these strong nationalist claims. In 1849, then in 1887, the British had to make in Malta new concessions increasing the number of Maltese elected officials at the Legislative council. The first attempts to standardize the Maltese writing started only at the any end of the XIXe century thanks to Mikiel Anton Vassalli, considered since as “the father of the Maltese language”. It nevertheless was necessary to wait in 1924 so that the alphabet is recognized and accepted by the Malteses.

In 1921, following violent riots, a constitution founding a true Parliament was promulgated, then suspended in 1930 because of the increasing agitation of the population.

The British had to make new concessions, increasing the number of Maltese elected officials at the Legislative council, then to recognize (in 1934) the Maltese Langue. At the same time within the framework of a process total of of-Italianization of the entirety Maltese archipelago, on occasion of the economic sanctions decided by the Company of the Nations against the fascistic Italy , the British will abolish the use of the Italian Langue, hitherto official language.

Second world war

During the Second world war, Malta played a big role because of its strategic position for the forces of the Axe; resistance was worth with the country the Cross of the king George for her courage; this cross is reproduced today on the national flag.

It was attacked and bombarded intensively by Italy as from 1940 and until the end of the war.

The Second world war put an end temporarily the adverse conflict Britanniques and to Maltese, but the fight for independence began again as of the end of the war. It will be understood that, under the British mode, English belonged to the linguistic practices of the Malteses, and this, more especially as the Maltese remained completely been unaware of political life and economic of the country.

Independent republic

The independence of the island

After having reached finally a local autonomy in 1947, Malta obtained the statute of Dominion in 1955, then in 1962 the Maltese Parliament unilaterally voted the independence of the State of Malta. This one was officially granted only in May 1964, which immediately supported the use of the language and the writing Maltese women.

Lastly, the independence of the country was recognized the September 21st 1964, but Malta preserved the Queen Elisabeth II at her head, like many countries of the the Commonwealth . They are only ten years later, the December 13rd 1974, that Malta proclaimed the République and elects a President at his head.

In the years which followed, the political life of the country was marked by its neutralism and its non-alignment in the international businesses, then, at the end of the years 1970, by a close co-operation with Libya. In 1990, the republic of Malta and Libya even renewed their treaty of bilateral cooperation until 1995. The same year, Malta required its adhesion of the European Union, which was refused because of its small size (although the EU accepted the accession of Luxembourg), but on the other hand Malta became member of the Council of Europe as of on April 29th, 1965.

Malta joined the European Union on May 1st 2004, eleven years after the first negotiations.

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