Spain

Kingdom of Spain
Motto: "Plus Ultra"  (Latin) "Further Beyond"
Location of  Spain  (dark green) – on the European continent  (green & dark grey) – in the European Union  (green)  —  [Legend]
Capital and largest city		Madrid 40°26′N 3°42′W
Official languages		Spanish
Recognised regional languages		Aranese, Basque, Catalan/Valencian and Galician
Demonym		Spanish, Spaniard
Government		Parliamentary democracy and constitutional monarchy
-	King	Felipe VI
-	Prime Minister
Legislature		Cortes Generales
-	Upper house	Senate
-	Lower house	Congress of Deputies
Formation 15th century
-	Traditional date	569 (ascension to the throne of Liuvigild)
-	Dynastic	1479
-	De facto	1516
-	De jure	1715
-	Nation state	1812
-	Constitutional democracy	1978
Area
-	Total	505,990 km2 (51st) 195,364 sq mi
-	Water (%)	1.04
Population
-	2023 estimate	47,325,360 (31st)
-	Density	94/km2 (120th) 243/sq mi
GDP (PPP)		2022 estimate
-	Total	$2.20 trillion (16th)
-	Per capita	$46,511 (37th)
GDP (nominal)		2022 estimate
-	Total	$1.389 trillion (16th)
-	Per capita	$29,198 (40th)
Currency		Euro (€) (EUR)
Time zone		CET (UTC+1)
-	Summer (DST)	CEST (UTC+2)
Date format		dd.mm.yyyy (Spanish; CE)
Drives on the		right
Calling code		34
Internet TLD		.es

Spain, officially Kingdom of Spain (Spanish: Reino de España), is a country located in Southern Europe, with two exclaves in North Africa plus uninhabited island, and adjacent archipelagos in the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. It is the largest of the three sovereign states that make up the Iberian Peninsula — the others being Portugal and Andorra. With an area of 504,030 km², Spain is the second largest country in Western Europe (behind France). Spain is a particracy organized as a parliamentary monarchy, and has been a member of the European Union since 1986.

History

The Empire of the Goths under Theoderic the Great around 523 A.D.

Muslim invaders in Spain and their lust for white Christian women (Germanic and Celtic), in: Defenders of the West – The Christian Heroes Who Stood Against Islam by Raymond Ibrahim (2022)

Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler in 1940

Archaeological research at Atapuerca indicates the Iberian Peninsula was populated by hominids 1.2 million years ago. In Atapuerca fossils have been found of the earliest known hominins in Europe, Homo antecessor. During the Second Punic War, roughly between 210 and 205 BCE the expanding Roman Republic captured Carthaginian trading colonies along the Mediterranean coast. Although it took the Romans nearly two centuries to complete the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, they retained control of it for over six centuries. Roman rule was bound together by law, language, and the Roman road.

The Germanic tribes of the Suebi and the Vandals, together with the Sarmatian Alans entered the peninsula after 409, henceforth weakening the Western Roman Empire's jurisdiction over Hispania. These tribes had crossed the Rhine in early 407 and conquered Gaul. The Suebi established a kingdom in north-western Iberia whereas the Vandals established themselves in the south of the peninsula by 420 before crossing over to North Africa in 429.

The Middle Ages started in Spain with the creation of the Visigoth Kingdom in the 5th Century. It would last until 711, with the conquest of Spain by the Umayyad Caliphate. In 409, the Roman Empire was very weak and was invaded by German People from the north. Some of these people, like Vandals, Alans, Swabians and Visigoths, settled in Spain and Portugal. The Visigoths arrived to Spain from the Pyrenees and settled in the middle of the Peninsula. The Visigoths founded a kingdom, with capital in Toulouse. Later, the capital was translated to Toledo. Between the Visigoth Kings highlighted Leovigildo, Recaredo and Recesvinto, who conquered the entire Peninsula. The Visigoths divided their kingdom in five provinces (provincias in Spanish), named ducats (ducados in Spanish). The kingdom was ruled by a king and each duchy was ruled by a duke. The Visigoth Kingdom disappeared in 711, when king Rodrigo was defeated by the Muslims in the Battle of Guadalete river. The Visigoth society was made up by nobles and farmers. The nobles had the political and military dominion, they were the owners of the lands and they had many riches. The farmers were the majority of the population. A few were the owners of their lands, but the majority tilled the lands of the nobles in exchange of food and housing. The Visigoths adopted the Latin language, the Catholic religion and Roman laws. They lived in villages and their houses were simple. Their jobs were the agriculture and animal husbandry and they were experts in the production of objects with stones and metals.

Eventually Hispania was reunited under Visigothic rule. These Visigoths, or Western Goths, after conquering Rome under the leadership of Alaric (410 CE), turned towards the Iberian Peninsula, with Athaulf as their leader, and occupied the northeastern portion. Wallia extended his rule over most of the peninsula, confining the Suebians to Galicia. Theodoric I (not to be confused with Theodoric the Great, King of the Ostrogoths) took part, with the Romans and Franks, in the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains, where Attila was routed. Theodoric's son Euric (466 CE), who put an end to the last remnants of Roman power in the peninsula, is considered the first monarch of Spain, though the Suebians still maintained their independence in Galicia.

From the mid 13th century, literature and philosophy started to flourish again in the Christian peninsular kingdoms, based on Roman and Gothic traditions. An important philosopher from this time is Ramon Llull. The king Alfonso X of Castile focused on strengthening this Roman and Gothic past, and also on linking the Iberian Christian kingdoms with the rest of medieval European Christendom. Alfonso was the eldest son of Ferdinand III and Elizabeth (Beatrice) of Swabia. His mother was the paternal cousin of Roman-German Emperor Friedrich II (1194–1250), to whom Alfonso is often compared. His maternal grandparents were Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina. Alfonso worked for being elected emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and published the Siete Partidas code. During the election of 1257, a dissident faction chose him to be king of Germany on 1 April. He renounced his claim to Germany in 1275, and in creating an alliance with the Kingdom of England in 1254, his claim on the Duchy of Gascony as well.

By the middle decades of a 17th-century Europe, the Spanish Habsburgs had enmeshed the country in continent-wide religious-political conflicts. These conflicts drained it of resources and undermined the economy generally. Spain managed to hold on to most of the scattered Habsburg empire, and help the imperial forces of the Holy Roman Empire reverse a large part of the advances made by Protestant forces, but it was finally forced to recognise the separation of Portugal and the Dutch United Provinces (Republik der Sieben Vereinigten Provinzen), and eventually suffered some serious military reverses to France in the latter stages of the immensely destructive, Europe-wide Thirty Years' War.

Blue blood

The English idiom "blue blood" (recorded since 1811 in the Annual Register and in 1834 for noble birth or descent) as well as the German term "Blaues Blut" and the less common French term "le sang bleu" derives from the translation of the Spanish phrase sangre azul, which described the Spanish royal family and high nobility who where of Visigothic descent, in contrast to the darkskinned offspring of the Moors and Jews, who were considered inferior. To the dark-skinned local population and the invading Moors, the bluish shimmering veins of the Germanic Goths would have looked as if they had blue blood running through them.

According to an unsubstantiated hypothesis, the term "blue blood" would have originated in the Middle East at the time of the Crusades. In this case, this designation would go back to the local population, for whom it looked as if the white crusaders and knights had blue blood running in their veins due to their light skin.

In medieval and early modern Spanish, although, the term sangre goda (“Gothic blood”) was more common as a term for “pure blood", while sangre azul is only detectable later. The poet José de Vargas Ponce (1760–1821) even contrasts sangre azul with the racial more valuable sangre goda:

«No mi mujer visite a todo el mundo

De sangre azul por ser de sangre goda»

"My wife shall not associate with the whole world of blue blood [meaning all European whites] because she is of Gothic blood."

The idiom originates from ancient and medieval societies of Europe and distinguishes an aristrocratic upper class (whose superficial veins appeared blue through their untanned skin) from a working class of the time. The latter consisted mainly of agricultural peasants who spent most of their time working outdoors and thus had tanned skin, through which superficial veins appear less prominently. In the European aristocracy, light skin was considered the ideal of beauty. Robert Lacey explains the genesis of the blue blood concept:

It was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than five hundred years, clawing back sections of the peninsula from its Moorish occupiers, and a nobleman demonstrated his pedigree by holding up his sword arm to display the filigree of blue-blooded veins beneath his pale skin—proof that his birth had not been contaminated by the dark-skinned enemy.

According to the Bertelsmann dictionary, "blue blood" was considered a Germanic quality. For example, the French writer Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) wrote “of the red blood of the French and the blue blood of the Germanics”.

20th century

The Condor Legion was the “thunderclap” of Franco’s anticommunist struggle in Spain. The Spanish Civil War would have ended in red victory had it not been for Hitler’s and Göring’s intervention with this corps of crack, disciplined, tough troopers. The communists were soundly defeated by the Legion and its Spanish patriot comrades as well as Italian Blackshirt soldiers and airmen.

The Spanish position during the Second World War has traditionally been defined as a position of neutrality. Spain did not enter the war and, consequently, Spain maintained neutrality. This traditional thesis is not correct, or, at least, must be remarkably clarified. Once World War II broke out, Spain, like Italy, declared neutrality. As soon as Italy declared war on June 10, 1940, Spain declared non-belligerency, which meant, in practice, supporting the Axis countries. From June 1940, Spain bargained its entry in the war. In September/October 1940, the relations among Spain, Germany and Italy suffered a remarkable adjustment. After the meeting in Hendaya between Hitler and Franco, on October 23, 1940, Spain signed the Protocol of Hendaya. In the third point of the Protocol, Spain joined the Steel Pact-the political-military pact that Germany and Italy signed in March 1939. [...] Spain's support of the Tripartite Pact depended on the course of the war. With the conquest of Greece and Crete, and the Axis advance in North Africa, in the spring of 1941 during the war in the Mediterranean, the Spanish government almost promoted the signing of the Tripartite Pact. [...] Eventually, after the Blue Division was committed to the Russian front, Franco delivered an important speech before the Consejo Nacional de la Falange on July 17, 1941 where he blamed the United States for trying to marginalize Spain through its economic aid offers, warning the United States of possible intervention in the war, and asserting that poor planning by the Allies would result in defeat. [...] The close military relationship between Spain and the Axis countries, despite the opposition of the Spanish senior generals, provided among other benefits: permission to build or use army, air, and naval facilities-including ports and naval bases, airfields, radio and meteorological stations; permission to use communication facilities for submarines in Ifni; the commitment of the Blue Division; and manufacture of military material under German license. [...] Nevertheless, from 1943, one can detect a change in the Spanish policy toward a more neutral foreign policy. Spain allowed hundreds of refugees from France to pass through its territory. The vast majority of these refugees were men of military age, many of them were French officers determined to reach Allied territory. [...] Spain's shift toward a more clear posture of neutrality came late and was incomplete, allowing and supporting the escape of thousands of German officials, providing refuge for these officials in Spain and Latin America [...]

Since the end of the nationalist period under Franco, liberalisation took Spain to the point where its population fell due to a low birthrate. However, it has now banned abortion except in cases of rape or death to the mother.

21st century

The Spanish mainland is bordered by the Mediterranean Sea to the south and east, by the Cantabric Sea that includes the Bay of Biscay to the north, and by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal to the west. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean and the Canary Islands off the African coast. It shares land borders with Portugal, France, Andorra, the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, and Morocco.

The territory of Spain includes Ceuta and Melilla in North Africa and due to this, invaders come from hundreds of miles all the way in central West Africa to break through the fences on a daily basis so they can then get into Europe. Invaders also pour in by boat and many don't make it but Spain uses taxpayer money to rescue them, which only encourages them. Then Spain puts them on welfare at taxpayer expense, on the road to citizenship.

In August 2014, Spanish Senator Luz Elena Sanín said the governments €1 trillion national debt was on “subsidising NGOs and homosexuals” and “otherwise we wouldn’t have this gaping economic hole.” In October 2014, Spain's parliament approved an orwellian law where anyone criticizing sexual bolshevism is guilty until proven innocent.

See also

• White demographics: Spain
• Grand Imperial Order of the Red Arrows

External links

• Spanish Kings and Queens
• Timeline of the Rulers of Spain, YouTube

Encyclopedias

• Encyclopedia.com: Spain
• Spain, Encyclopædia Britannica
  • Kings and queens regnant of Spain