Why Does Britain Own Gibraltar? (Short Animated Documentary)

the iberian peninsula is home to the lands of five countries andorra and france in the north portugal in the west with spain dominating the rest well most of the rest since country number five which sits in this tiny area in the south is the united kingdom this territory is called gibraltar and despite numerous wars between the united kingdom and spain britain still holds the territory which raises the obvious question why why does britain own gibraltar so the first part of this question is how did britain get a hold of gibraltar in the first place well the answer to that is simple in the year 1700 the king of spain died now normally a king dying wouldn't be a problem but this king charles ii didn't have any kids which of course meant succession crisis charles chose philippe of the house of bourbon and grandson of louis xiv for france to succeed him this upset mostly everyone since it played spain and its gargantuan empire firmly in the french sphere of influence and so of course war everyone united against spain and france and in 1704 english and dutch soldiers landed in gibraltar and seized it to keep the mouth of the mediterranean open in 1713 in return for britain leaving the war immediately spain opted to see gibraltar to them forever gibraltar's original population had largely fled during the war and it was stationed by british troops and from then on acted as an important naval base whose population grew thereafter so britain now owned gibraltar but what stopped spain from regaining it it was a tiny stretch of land attached to the spanish mainland so surely it would have been simple to walk in and take it well turns out no it wasn't long until spain and britain were back at war again and despite laying siege to gibraltar a further two times over the next 75 years it always held out the largest siege came during the american war for independence when britain's attention was focused on those rascals spain with the help of the french laid siege to gibraltar for four years hoping to starve the people out however the british were able to resupply gibraltar due to the size of their navy in spain's issues maintaining its own as you'll know britain lost the war as a whole and so when both sides sat down to negotiate why didn't spain use the opportunity to regain gibraltar one britain hadn't been conquered or crushed and could still fight meaning spain couldn't get everything it wanted and two it had more important land to regain notably florida and also menorca both of which it got when all of that was over in 1783 spain never made another military attempt to retake the rock so that's it all settled then right well no the spanish government always maintained a claim to gibraltar much of which was down to its geographic positioning at the mouth of the mediterranean and also because its continued loss was seen as a blight on spain's national honour for the next century and a half though very little change with respect to gibraltar that was until 1936 when the spanish civil war broke out the border was closed mostly because of there being too many refugees trying to flee spain and britain further built up gibraltar's defenses this caused disputes with spanish leadership since previously there had been an agreed neutral zone between the two areas however spain wasn't looking and so britain quickly built up an airfield there which became useful when world war ii broke out now spain's new leader francisco franco was clear that he wanted gibraltar back however when he was offered the chance to get it back by joining the axis in world war ii with germany he declined franco said no because the positives didn't outweigh the negatives and also his country was in ruins in the post-war world there was a big drive towards decolonization and gibraltar was firmly in the crosshairs of this movement a referendum was held in gibralta to determine whether the people wished to be a part of spain or remain in overseas territory of the united kingdom and the results were extremely close with over 99 of people opting to remain under the control of the united kingdom when franco caught a mild case of death and his regime came to an end relations between britain and spain improved and after a series of negotiations the border reopened and despite the continuing dispute over the status of gibraltar there would be no further changes in its status and to this day it remains a british overseas territory i hope you enjoyed this episode and thank you for watching with a special thanks to my patrons james bisonette kelly money maker marvin cassell moe rob waterhouse james castaneda jerry lamdin gustav swan jordan longley marcus asner charles the first rasheed ali coppertone maggie paxkowski lexi schwinn miss is it matthew shipley robert wetzel spinning three plates spencer lightfoot corso wolfe anthony beckett and winston k wood

Channel: History Matters

Views: 2,946,056

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Id: LMTJW_eEYDs

Length: 4min 3sec (243 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 08 2021