History of A Coruña

A Coruña or Corunna, Galicia (Spain) is located on a promontory in the entrance of an estuary in a big gulf, the Portus Magnus Artabrorum, name of the area used by classical geographers.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, A Coruña still possessed a commercial port connected with foreign countries, but contacts with the Mediterranean were slowly replaced by the European Atlantic front.

In the year 991, king Bermudo II started the construction of military positions in the coast, with a defensive role.

With the privilege of disembarking and selling salt without paying taxes, the city enjoyed a big fishing and merchant development.

Carlos I met in A Coruña the Courts that will proclaimed him emperor, and the Government of the Kingdom of Galicia was allowed between 1522 and 1529 to distribute in Europe spices.

In the following year Francis Drake besieged it, but he was rejected, and then it was born the legend of María Pita, a woman who took up the weapon of his dead man and continued shooting.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, the wars of the Spanish monarchy caused a high growth of the taxes and the compulsory recruitment of the population.

On August 19, 1815, Juan Díaz Porlier, "O Marquesiño", pronounced against Fernando VII in defense of the Spanish Constitution of 1812.

Resistance during the Spanish independence war was led by Sinforiano López, and A Coruña was the only Galician city that achieved good results against the French troops.

After the Spanish Civil War, supporters of the republic were forced to go to exile, and those that remained in the country suffered repression by the new government.

Supporters of the fascist faction occupied all the charges of the "depurates", obtaining university titulations "by war".

On January 20, 2006 Paco Vázquez was named ambassador in Vatican City, and he was replaced by Javier Losada.