History of Pamplona
History of Pamplona, city in Spain / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The History of Pamplona as a city goes back to the 1st millennium B.C. when a settlement of Vascones named Iruña existed. However, the traces of human occupation of the area date back 75,000 years. In the Roman era, the Vascones settlement was converted into a Roman city by General Pompey, who began by setting up a military camp there in 74 B.C. which he named Pompelo.[note 2]
The Romans were followed by the Visigoths, the Muslims of Al-Andalus, and briefly, between 778 and 816 intermittently, the Carolingians. In the early 9th century the Kingdom of Navarre was founded, an autonomous Christian principality vassal of the Caliphate of Cordoba. The Kingdom of Navarre became a fully independent kingdom in 905 and, under the reign of Sancho III of Pamplona, became the most powerful Christian state on the Iberian Peninsula in the 11th century. In 1164 the name "Kingdom of Navarre" was definitively abandoned and renamed the Kingdom of Navarre, a name that had been used before.
The wars with neighboring states, frequent especially in the 10th and 11th centuries, were added to the internal conflicts in Pamplona, more serious in the 13th century, but which would only end in 1423 (Privilege of the Union). Until this year, Pamplona was not exactly a single city, but a set of autonomous boroughs that were separated by walls to protect themselves from the wars that broke out between them. In 1276 one of the boroughs was destroyed and its population massacred.
In the second half of the 15th century, Pamplona found itself involved in the Navarrese Civil War, a long-running dispute between successive claimants to the throne of Navarre. The civil war would eventually herald the annexation of Navarre by the newly united kingdoms of Castile and Aragon, which formally occurred on 7 July 1515, three years after Pamplona's surrender to the invading Castilian troops.
After the French Revolution, during the War of the Pyrenees, Pamplona was besieged by French forces in 1794, who were unable to enter the city. Between 1808 and 1813 the city was occupied by Napoleon Bonaparte's troops. The city was involved in the Carlist Wars that marked the 19th century and was the stage for a popular movement in defense of the fueros (forals) that became known as the "Gamazada".
Despite the victory of the Republicans and leftists in the municipal elections that led to the Second Spanish Republic, Pamplona was controlled by the Francoist forces from the first day of the civil war, which did not save it from facing hundreds of shootings of Republicans, which continued beyond the end of the war. During Francoism, the city was transformed from a rural town with only craft industries to an industrial city, and its population more than tripled. Due to the region's loyalty to the Francoist cause during the war, Navarre was the only historic Spanish region to retain its autonomy during Francoism, but at the same time, it was one of the areas with the most trade union conflict in all of Spain, having been the site of several strikes, the first of which was in 1951.
The transition from Francoism to democracy was felt intensely in Pamplona. In this period riots in the streets of Pamplona were frequent, some of them quite violent. Although during the first phase of the transition there were no attacks by the Basque terrorist and separatist movement ETA, the same did not happen in the following phases, and Pamplona witnessed several terrorist attacks.