Timeline
The history of the Maltese Islands reads like ‘who’s who’ of military and economic powers holding sway over the Mediterranean through the ages. Going back thousands of years, beyond recorded history, one finds the arrival of early civilizations who came to these islands and settled here in prehistoric times. Successive waves of conquerers took possession of these small but strategically important territories over the centuries, only to pass them on to the next set of ‘owners’.
This timeline starts at around 5200 B.C., when the first waves of stoneage farmers came to these shores, and tracks the main milestones and transitions in Malta’s eventful history, right down to the present.
Prehistory | ||||
5200 B.C. | Arrival of man on Malta | |||
3200 B.C. | Building of megalithic temples | |||
2000 B.C. | Invasion of Bronze Age peoples | |||
800 B.C. | Phoenician colonisation | |||
Early Inhabitants | ||||
900 B.C. | The start of the Iron Age | |||
480 B.C. | Carthaginian domination | |||
Roman Times | ||||
218 B.C. | Roman domination after the Punic Wars | |||
60 | St. Paul shipwrecked on Malta | |||
395 | Byzantine domination of Malta | |||
Under The Arabs | ||||
870 | Arabs occupy Malta | |||
Normans Rule & The Middle Ages | ||||
1090 | Normans occupation | |||
1194 | Swabian occupation | |||
1266 | Angevins occupation | |||
1283 | Aragonese occupation | |||
1350 | Establishment of a Maltese nobility | |||
1397 | Establishment of the Universita | |||
1485 | Death of Peter Caxaro | |||
Knights of St. John | ||||
1530 | Order of the Knights of St John arrive in Malta | |||
1561 | Inquisition established | |||
1565 | The Great Siege of Malta by the Ottoman Turks | |||
1566 | The Founding of Valletta | |||
French Occupation | ||||
1798 | Napoleon Bonaparte takes Malta from the Knights | |||
1799 | Britain takes Malta | |||
1800 | The French surrender | |||
1802 | Peace of Amiens | |||
British Period | ||||
1814 | Malta becomes a British Crown Colony | |||
1914-1918 | First World War | |||
1919 | Sette Giugno riots against British rule | |||
1921 | Amery-Milner constitution grants self-government | |||
1930-1939 | Turbulent period of intermittent self-government | |||
1939-1945 | Second World War | |||
1947 | Restoration of self-government | |||
Modern Malta | ||||
1964 | Independence within the British Commonwealth | |||
1974 | Malta becomes a Republic | |||
1979 | Last British services leave Malta | |||
2004 | Malta membership of the European Union | |||
2008 | Malta joins the Eurozone |