History and Timeline of Tenerife Pt 2

After his victory over the Guanches Alonzo Fernandez de Lugo built the town of 'San Cristobal de la Laguna' in 1496 as the capitol of Tenerife and the next century saw massacres, warfare and Guanche slave trade rocket. The Guanche language all but died off and the survivors intermarried with the invaders, converting to Christianity and taking on Spanish names, usually the family names of their conquerors.

This accounting for the disappearance almost overnight of Guanche names among the population and centuries later only a small handful are present. Conversely the names of most towns, places, valleys, rocks and mountains are still mostly of Guanche origin.

Some Guanche refused to live in the towns with the Spaniards and preferred to live free as shepherds in the mountains following their old traditions. These were called Guanches alzados (rebellious) by the colonists although this was far from the truth, they just wanted to be left alone.

The conquistadors distributed the land among themselves and gave some to the Guanche tribe leaders who had been friendly to them and some to the natives of Gran Canaria who had helped them.

The population of Tenerife became mixed after only a few years with a huge influx of European immigrants. The 16^th Century was the time of the great Spanish world empire. Flemish, German, Italians and Portuguese established themselves here.

In the early 1500's the most important economic activity on Tenerife was based around fishing and the sea.

The first crops to be grown on a large scale was sugar cane. In 1526 the large cleared areas and the huge amount of fuel needed for this crop had already destroyed vast areas of pine forests and by the 1560's Tenerife had 12 sugar mills in operation.

Spain's control of the Canary Islands did not go unchallenged. In 1569 and 1586 Moroccan troops occupied Lanzarote. In 1595 Sir Francis Drake had a go at Las Palmas, a Dutch fleet finishing what he started and reducing Las Palmas to rubble in 1599.

In 1657 Admiral Robert Blake attacked a Spanish treasure fleet in the harbour of Santa Cruz. The Spanish fleet was totally destroyed but not one of the English fleet was lost.

On October 5^th 1796 Spain declared war on England. The British Navy attacked Santa Cruz on May 25^th 1797 and on September 5^th they attempted a landing in the region of Puerto Santiago. They were repelled by stones launched at them from the cliffs of Los Gigantes.

On July 25^th 1797 Admiral Sir Horace Nelson attacked Santa Cruz and a battle took place in both the harbour and the towns streets. Nelson was hit during an attempt to disembark and he lost his right arm as well as the battle. The declaration of Santa Cruz as an incorporated town was in direct consequence of their victory of the British fleet.

During the 2^nd half of the 18^th century Dutch maps used the peak of Teide as their prime meridian.

In 1764 George Glas visited Orotava and noted the large areas of pine and laurel forests that had been lost to the sugar cane industry, he noted that only a few mature pines remained.

In 1799 the famous German naturalist Alexander Von Humboldt (who later founded the University at La Laguna) stayed in Tenerife and spoke enthusiastically of the beauty of the area especially La Orotava valley, becoming one the fathers of Tourism.

During World War 1 the British Navy controlled the seas all around Tenerife, which led to the Scientist and Researcher Wolfgang Köhler being confined to this Island. In 1914 Wolfgang accepted the directorship of the Anthropoid Station of the Prussian Academy of Science in Tenerife. This is where he conducted his ground breaking work on the intelligence of apes and wrote his most famous book "the Mentality of Apes".

The WW1 British blockade also destroyed the Canary Islands banana trade and when the war was over the Canarian people fled the poverty stricken islands in droves and headed for the trade and work force needed in Cuban plantations.

The Islands slowly recovered and in 1928 Antonio Modesto de Los Silos was visiting Tenerife on a hunting trip and with him the first ever automobile arrived in Santiago del Teide.

In the winter of 1929, many years before the present airport was built, the field at Los Rodeos was hastily prepared to accommodate the first (though unofficial) flight into Tenerife operated by an Arado VI (D-1594) aircraft operating from Berlin on behalf of Deutsche Lufthansa.

In May 1930, the Compañía de Líneas Aéreas Subvencionadas S.A. (C.L.A.S.S.A.) established the first air link between the Spanish mainland and the Canary Islands using a Ford 4-AT Trimotor (M-CKKA), which took off from Getafe, Madrid to the Los Rodeos field via Casablanca, Cape Juby and Gando in Gran Canaria

After the final location of the airport had been decided, funds were gathered between 1935 and 1939 to build a small hangar and begin expanding the airstrip which would become Los Rodeos airport.

The 1930´s saw the beginnings of an economic rise with the arrival of proper roads on Tenerife. Unfortunately, the short period of hope and growth following the end of WW1 was broken when Spain fell into the chaos of Civil war and the rise in power of General Francisco Franco in 1936.

Franco had been a very high ranking soldier in the Spanish Army but the Republican Government, wary of Franco's right wing political leanings posted him (some say almost exiled him) to Tenerife in the March of 1936. It was from Tenerife that he secretly planned his political coup and consequently after managing to avoid three assassination attempts the Canary Islands were the first to fall to Franco's force in July of the same year. There was some initial resistance in Tenerife but this was met with considerable aggression and the Canary Islands were the first to suffer Franco's mass executions of writers, socialists, trade unionists and anyone else that Franco and his militia considered to be a threat to his power before he moved on to Spanish Morocco. A monument commemorates this in Plaza de España in Santa Cruz.

After the interruption of civil flights caused by the Spanish civil war, flights into Los Rodeos recommenced on 23rd of January 1941 with the De Havilland DH89A Dragon Rapide operating an Iberia flight from Gando in Gran Canaria

In the 1950's electric lighting and piped water systems were introduced to enable irrigation and try to expand the tomato export trade which was then centred around Tamaimo near Santiago del Teide. This time was also marked by a massive wave of emigration from the Canary Islands towards Latin America and the then economic prosperity of Venezuela.

The Canary Islands suffered from the same post war misery that afflicted mainland Spain with over 16,000 people fleeing the area. A third of all those who attempted the journey perished in leaky boats during the long voyage.

Despite all this, the first taxi in the south began business in 1952 and was driven by Teodosio Gonzáalez Navarro of Tamaimo.

In the 1960's Franco decided to throw open Spain's doors to tourism and this was the beginning of mass tourism on the island, firstly in the north of Tenerife specifically Puerto de la Cruz.

In 1972 the doors opened on Loro Parque. Open all year round, more than 19 million visitors have passed through its doors since then and from an original 35.000m2, the park now occupies an impressive 135.000m2 and is soon to be opening its sister park in the south, Siam Park.

The founder and owner of Loro Parque, Mr. Wolfgang Kiessling is now an international figure with his unique collection of over 3.000 parrots which include 300 species and sub-species making the park one of the most famous in Europe.

1977 saw the worst air disaster in history, until the September 11, 2001 attacks, happen at Los Rodeos airport in the North. Extreme foggy conditions led to a collision between two full jumbo jets and over 500 people died. The Tenerife disaster took place at 5.06pm local time on March 27. Two Boeing 747 airliners collided, killing 583 people. It is noteworthy that one of the aircraft was on the ground when the collision occurred

But with the opening of the Reina Sofia airport in 1978, the south quickly became the typical tourist zone and was soon commercialized with hundreds of hotels, bars and restaurants emerging from the hot, dry desert.

In 1978 the Canary Island council, a pre-autonomous governing body, was established in Las Cañadas del Teide. Draft statutes had been drawn up before, once in 1873 and again in 1936 but both of these had been abandoned, the first because of the Republican Government and the second by General Franco's coup.

Even before the Canary Islands were declared a single province of Spain in 1821, competition for primacy between the two main islands (Tenerife and Gran Canaria) had long been intense.

In the new Constitution of 1978 Spain created the status of Autonomous Region for the Canary Islands, which means in practice that the archipelago is not completely separated from Spain, but that island government has a great deal of freedom with regard to dealings with internal island affairs.

In 1982 the Canary Islands finally saw their autonomy come true. Santa Cruz de Tenerife (for the western islands) and Las Palmas on Gran Canaria (for the Eastern islands) jointly conduct the government. Las Palmas has half of the regional government departments and the Parliament and its governor is appointed by Madrid. The Parliament with 60 delegates always meets in Santa Cruz de Tenerife.

In 1985 the King and Queen of Spain held an official opening ceremony attended by three other European monarchs and two heads of state for the Canary Island Institute of Astrophysics (IAC) in the campus of the University of La Laguna and the Tiede Observatory at a height of 2400 m, where the municipalities of La Orotava, Fasnia and Güímar meet, even though the first telescope, which was dedicated to the study of zodiacal light (light scattered by interplanetary dust), came into operation in 1964. This observatory has since played an important role in understanding our universe with many results being obtained by the researchers such as a dwarf spiral galaxy "disguised" as an irregular and some of the most massive stars in the Milky Way being analysed in detail, the iron abundance of the interstellar medium of our Galaxy measured with precision, and new discoveries such as a "super-jupiter" discovered around the star G196-3 and eleven new asteroids.

In 1990 the Canary Island Parliament applied for full membership of the European Community and two years later the EC approved POSEICAN (Programme of Specific Conditions due to the Distance and Island Factors for the Canary Islands) which takes into consideration the differential factors of the islands and establishes measures aimed at achieving their full potential. So as a part of Spain, the Canaries are part of the European Union, however, the islands also enjoy some exceptions in fiscal and economic areas.

1991 saw the famous Norwegian anthropologist Dr. Thor Heyerdahl discovering step pyramids in the town of Güímar. Heyerdahl considered them to be extremely similar to the ones in Peru, Mexico and ancient Mesopotamia and used them as further proof of his theories on the travels of the ancient Peruvians. The area is now a thought provoking museum.

In 1992 the archaeological museum of Tenerife reported finding a stone with tifinagh zanata inscriptions, which according to experts, represents confirmation of the theories of the settlement of the Canary Islands by peoples from the north of Africa. The symbols 'Z(a)N(a)T(a)' which are engraved on the stone supposedly have has some sort of a connection to the same name with a Berber origin.

In 1994 Santa Cruz de Tenerife held a spectacular program of events to commemorate the centennial V of the foundation of the town with live music, street carnivals, shows and fireworks.

The Tenerife Auditorium was inaugurated in 2003. The work of Santiago Calatrava it is a shockingly picturesque opera house, located on 6 acres of land right next to the ocean in Santa Cruz.

The signature component of the building is a giant wave that sweeps upward in a curve to a height of 197 feet. As it rises, pointing toward the auditorium's plaza and the ocean beyond, the wave narrows and thins to a spear-shaped tip, 320 feet from the base of its arc. The wing was prefabricated and shipped to the island in more than a dozen pieces the largest of which weighed some 60 tons. A special crane had to be shipped in to lift the pieces into place.

Comprising two main halls the smaller of which has seating for around 400; the larger symphonic hall seats just over 1600. Acoustically, the two halls were designed with different performances and situations in mind. Surface materials include solid pressed wood covered with fibreglass. The fenestration is composed of operable openings, exposing either the fibreglass material or the wood, depending on the acoustical requirements of the specific event.

The Canary Islands are Spain's tropical paradise. For many Europeans these Islands are now synonymous with holidays and thousands of tourists pack the islands' resorts all year round, but history lies thick behind stone on these beautiful isles and as the year 2009 approaches we can only wonder what new things are in store.