| Cover | Antarctica | Australia | Brazil | India | Liberia | Mexico | Spain | Credits | |||
| Spain |  |
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| INTRODUCTION & HISTORY People have lived on the Iberian Peninsula for thousands of years. Some of Europe's most remarkable prehistoric sites are found here, such as the 20,000-year-old cave paintings of horses, deer, and bison at Altamira. Starting in the ninth century B.C., the peninsula was occupied successively by the Phoenicians, Greeks, Carthaginians, Celts, Romans, Visigoths, and Moors. Spain's language, laws, and religion come from the Roman period. Sixteenth-century Spain was the richest country in Europe, thanks to its colonies in the Americas. These colonies gained independence in a series of wars, including the Spanish-American War of 1898 in which Spain lost Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the Philippines to the United States. Half a million people died in the Spanish civil war, which divided the country from 1936 to 1939. Authoritarian Nationalist General Francisco Franco ruled Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. Since then Spain has endured unstable governments and revolts.
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