History
The Spanish colonization of America began in 1492, and ultimately was part of a larger historical process of world colonialism, through which various European powers incorporated a considerable amount of territory and peoples in the Americas, Asia, and Africa between the 15th and 20th centuries. Hispanic America became the main part of the vast Spanish Empire.
Napoleon's takeover of Spain in 1808 and the consequent chaos initiated the dismemberment of the Spanish Empire, as the American territories began their struggle for emancipation. By 1830, the only remaining Spanish American colonies were the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, until the 1898 Spanish–American War.
Read more about this topic: Hispanic America
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“For a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.”
—F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)
“Culture, the acquainting ourselves with the best that has been known and said in the world, and thus with the history of the human spirit.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)
“The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”
—Karl Marx (1818–1883)