History of Casablanca

When Sultan Mohammed ben Abdallah rebuilt the city's medina, he gave it the name "ad-Dār al-Bayḍāʾ" (الدار البيضاء) a literal translation of Casablanca into Arabic.

[5] Romans occupied the area in 15 BC and created the important commercial port know later as Anfa,[6] directly connected[clarification needed] to the Mogador island in the Iles Purpuraires of southern Mauritania.

The Roman port, probably called initially Anfus in Latin language, was part of a Berber client state of Rome until Emperor Augustus.

A large Berber tribe, the Barghawata, settled in the area between the rivers Bou Regreg to the north and Oum er-Rbia to the south.

After the death of Rei Sebastian in the decisive Portuguese defeat at the hands of the Saadi Empire in the Battle of Alcácer Quibir and the ensuing crisis of succession, Portugal and with it Casablanca became part of the Iberian Union from 1580 to 1640.

Built with the aid of Spaniards, the town was called Casa Blanca (white house in Spanish) translated Dar el Beida in Arabic.

In the 19th century Casablanca became a major supplier of wool to the booming textile industry in Britain and shipping traffic increased (the British, in return, began importing Morocco's now famous national drink, gunpowder tea).

[14] Casablanca was also one of the main Atlantic ports to receive Jewish migrants from the Moroccan hinterlands following the mission of Moses Montefiore to Morocco in 1864.

Its leafy gardens are topped by willowy palm trees, crenelated walls, flat roofs, and whitewashed minarets dazzling in the African sun; all this offers a striking backdrop against the deep blue of the natural haven that cradles svelte yachts and burly black and red steamboats.

A narrow gauge railway extending from the port to a quarry in Roches Noires for stones to build the breakwater, passed over the Sidi Belyout necropolis, an area held sacred by the Moroccans.

[17] On July 28, a delegation representing the tribes of the Chaouia, led by Hajj Hamou [fr; ar] of the Ouled Hariz [fr; ar] tribe, pressed Abu Bakr Bin Buzaid, qaid of Casablanca and representative of Sultan Abdelaziz and the Makhzen in the city, with three demands: the removal of the French officers from the customs house, an immediate halt on the construction of the port, and the destruction of the railroad.

[2] The pasha equivocated and postponed his decision to mid-day on July 30, by which time regional tribesmen had entered the city and started an insurrection.

The city overflowed outside of its walls; a West African quarter and a mass of sordid adobe constructions[19] were built around Bab Marrakesh.

inside the walls, was the Moroccan city, semi-modern in places: winding streets, point or poorly paved, that the slightest rain changes in mud-holes, narrow squares, tightened between terraced houses, low and without architecture.

[21][22] The city has experienced a population increase since 1907; part of its growth was a result of European immigration and French colonial policies.

Casablanca's street plan is based on that of a French architect named Henri Prost, who placed the center of the city where the main market of Anfa had been.

On the night of 7 November, pro-Allied General Antoine Béthouart attempted a coup d'etat against the French command in Morocco, so that he could surrender to the Allies the next day.

In addition, the coup attempt alerted Noguès to the impending Allied invasion, and he immediately bolstered French coastal defenses.

[31][32][33][34] Young architects of the controversial Team X, such as Shadrach Woods, Alexis Josic, and Georges Candilis were active in Casablanca designing cités, modular public housing units, that took vernacular life into account.

[39][40] The assassination of the Tunisian labor unionist Farhat Hached by La Main Rouge—the clandestine militant wing of French intelligence—sparked protests in cities around the world and riots in Casablanca from December 7–8, 1952.

[37] The Union Générale des Syndicats Confédérés du Maroc (UGSCM) and the Istiqlal Party organized a general strike in the Carrières Centrales in Hay Mohammadi on December 7.

The following day, students returned to Lycée Mohammed V along with workers, the unemployed, and the poor, this time vandalizing stores, burning buses and cars, throwing stones, and chanting slogans against King Hassan II, who since assuming the throne in 1961, had consolidated political power within monarchy and gone to war with the newly independent, newly socialist Algeria.

[54][55] The king blamed the events on teachers and parents, and declared in a speech to the nation on March 30, 1965: "Allow me to tell you that there is no greater danger to the State than a so-called intellectual.

Shlomo Gazit of Israeli intelligence said that Hassan II invited Mossad and Shin Bet agents to bug the Casablanca hotel where the conference would be held to record the conversations of the Arab leaders.

[58] Prior to the war, King Hassan II had developed a reciprocal relationship with the Israeli intelligence, who had assisted him in carrying out an operation in France to abduct and 'disappear' Mehdi Ben Barka, a leftist Moroccan leader who had been based in Paris.

[63][64] At a time when Morocco was strained from six years in the Western Sahara War, a general strike was organized in response to increases in the cost of basic foods.

[63] Thousands of young people from the bidonvilles surrounding Casablanca formed mobs and stoned symbols of wealth in the city, including buses, banks, pharmacies, grocery stores, and expensive cars.

[63] This intifada was the first of two IMF riots in Morocco—dubbed the "Hunger Revolts" by the international press—the second of which took place in 1984 primarily in northern cities such as Nador, Husseima, Tetuan, and al-Qasr al-Kebir.

Although counter-demonstration attracted half a million participants, the movement for change started in 2000 was influential on King Mohammed VI, and he enacted a new Mudawana, or family law, in early 2004, meeting some of the demands of women's rights activists.

On May 16, 2003, 33 civilians were killed and more than 100 people were injured when Casablanca was hit by a multiple suicide bomb attack carried out by Moroccans and claimed by some to have been linked to al-Qaeda.