The Spanish Empire

Spanish Empire was a superpower and the center of the first global empire in the 16th century, comprising territories administered by Spain in all the world.

Find out how the Spanish wars helped shape the world throughout 5 centuries, from the conquest of territories in almost every continent, civil wars, independence wars, succession wars and invasions. From the unification of Spain to the Spanish civil war. The truth is, the world we know today wouldn't be the same without Spain.

The marriage in 1469 of royal cousins, Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516) and Isabella of Castile (1451-1504), eventually brought stability to both kingdoms. Isabella's niece, Juana, had bloodily disputed her succession to the throne in a conflict in which the rival claimants were given assistance by outside powers--Isabella by Aragon and Juana by her suitor, the king of Portugal.

The Spanish Inquisition was just one of several inquisitions that occurred between the 12th and 19th centuries. In addition to the term being used for the historical events, the word "inquisition" refers to the tribunal court system used by both the Catholic Church and some Catholic monarchs to root out, suppress and punish heretics.

The Spanish Conquest of America. In the 15th century Christopher Columbus began the conquest of America and was the first coming to the Americas in 1492.

In which John Green explores how Spain went from being a middling European power to one of the most powerful empires on Earth, thanks to their plunder of the New World in the 16th and 17th centuries.

Spain led European global exploration and colonial expansion in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Trade flourished across the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Toppling the Aztec and Inca civilizations, Spain laid claim to vast territories in North and South America. The Spanish Empire became the foremost global power, dominating the oceans as well as European battlefields.

Habsburg Spain was a superpower and the center of the first global empire in the 16th century. It had a cultural golden age in the 17th century. With the Peace of Utrecht (1713), Spain, stripped of its territories in Italy and the Low Countries, lost most of its power, and became a second rate nation in Continental politics. However, Spain maintained its vast overseas empire until, beginning with declarations of independence in Venezuela and Paraguay (1811), successive revolutions split away its territories on the mainland of the Americas. Nevertheless, Spain held onto significant fragments of its empire in Asia, America and Oceania until the Spanish-American War of 1898, and in Africa until 1975.

Since the fall of Rome, there has been no empire based in Europe which extends outside the continent. This situation changes abruptly in the 16th century, when Spain and Portugal become the pioneers in a new era of colonization.

The Spanish Empire was one of the largest empires in world history and one of the first of global extent. It reached the peak of its military, political and economic power under the Spanish Habsburgs through most of the 16th and 17th centuries, and its greatest territorial extent under the Bourbons in the 18th century when it was the largest empire in the world.

Learn more about the spanish empire in the Boundless open textbook.