History
Archaeological investigations have shown that the area was inhabited in prehistoric times (Homo heidelbergensis and Homo antecessor). Bronze Age weapons have been found and also a Visigoth necropolis from the post-Roman period.
Later the region formed part of the depopulated nomansland between Christian (Northern) Spain and the Moorish Caliphate to the south.
With the Spanish victory at the Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa (1212) the region was reconquered. The authorities encouraged people from northern Spain to settle in the newly-conquered empty lands. Puertollano (then Puertoplano) was founded as a hamlet shortly after. In 1348 however, the Black Death devastated the village, killing all but 13 inhabitants.
Puertollano was granted the status of town (Villa) in the sixteenth century. It continued to grow slowly as a small town specializing in textiles and ceramics until, in 1873, the opening of the coal mines led to a sudden growth in the population. By 1920 the population had reached 20,000 and city (Ciudad) status was granted in 1925 by Alfonso XIII.
Read more about this topic: Puertollano
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“There is one great fact, characteristic of this our nineteenth century, a fact which no party dares deny. On the one hand, there have started into life industrial and scientific forces which no epoch of former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter times of the Roman empire. In our days everything seems pregnant with its contrary.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)
“History takes time.... History makes memory.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)