+- 2000 B.C.: From this time the megalithic dolmen grave originates in Ca Na Costa in the North of Formentera, the only indication of inhabitants of that time on the Pitiuses. On Ibiza findings of early history were only made sporadically, and one does not know if they are left from visitors or settlers of the island. Antic scripts prove that the Pitiuses were well known in antiquity.
+- 700 B.C.: The Phoenicians, a seafaring merchant people from Tyros in the Lebanon of today, who had storehouses all over the Mediterranean, establish a base in Sa Caleta in the South West of Ibiza.
654 B.C.: The Carthaginians, a people descended from the Phoenicians, who founded an own state in today’s Tunisia, build the town Ibosim. The settlement of the island’s inland begins.
Under the Carthaginians the natural saltpans on the South coast grow into a regular industry. Numerous ceramic workshops develop. With the construction of temples for the gods Tanit and Bes arts and crafts are cultivated. The trade flourishes and with it the town. On the Puig de Molins the necropolis expands with its subterranean graves over an area of 50 000 square meters. With the Carthaginians the Sabina and the pomegranate tree arrive on the island.
The Carthaginian General Hannibal (246-182 BACK,), who marched with his elephants from the Iberian mainland over the Alps to fight against Rome, is born according to the legend on the small Ibicenco island of La Conejera in front of San Antoni. The same honour is claimed by Minorca.
123 B.C.: After Rome’s victory in the Third Punic war and the destruction of Carthage the Romans conquer Ibosim and name her Ebusus.
During the reign of the Caesar Vespasian the island receives as Municipium Flavium Ebusitanium the right of coinage. The salt works and the mining of lead near Sant Carles increase in importance. The island finds additional riches with the extraction of the famous purple colour from the abundantly found sea snails. The Romans introduce a caste of bureaucrats, start construction of roads and bridges and intensify the cultivation of wine. Ebusus too was Christianized, when Caesar Constantine (280 – 337 A.D.), after moving the capital of the Roman Empire to Byzantium, declared Christianity as state religion,
426: During the migration of the Germanic tribes the East Germanic Vandals under their leader Geiserich invade the Western Mediterranean and found a new state in North Africa taking also Ebusus under their control for a century.
533: The East Roman Caesar Justinian destroys the Vandal Empire, Ebusus returns to the control of Byzantium.
711: The Moors defeat the West Goths who had settled on the Spanish mainland, and conquer the Balearic Islands. The remaining West Goths found the Kingdom of Asturia. In the North East the Spanish region with the capital Barcelona develops inside the Empire of the Franks. The internal chaos has consequences for the islands, which suffer from the permanent conquests and the changing authorities.
902: The Caliph of Córdoba captures Ebusus and changes her name to Medina Iabissa. Order returns and with it the island flourishes again. Islam exists as a religion beside Christianity. The Moors introduce their rich agricultural knowledge; build terraced fields and irrigation systems. They plant orchards, and vegetable gardens. Art and science revive. The island is divided into five administrative districts: Alhaueth, Algarb, Portumany, Benizamid, and Xarch. From 1014 Medina Iabissa belongs to the Caliphate of Dénia.
1235: Reconquista, the re-conquest of the Islamic Spain by the Christians, reaches Medina Iabissa. Lead by the Catalan General Guillerm de Montgri in the name of the Aragon Crown the Christian army beats the Moors and chases them from the Island. The Catalonians baptize Medina Iabissa to the name of Eivissa and name the five districts Pla de Vila, Ses Salines, Portmany, Balanzat, and Quartó des Rei. Later they become the municipalities Eivissa, Sant Josep de sa Talaia, Sant Antoni de Portmany, Sant Miguel de Balanzat, and Santa Eularia des Riu. With the creation of the Balearic Kingdom in 1276 the Pitiuses come under Majorcan administration.
1469: The marriage of Isabella I. of Castile and Ferdinand II. of Aragon becomes the foundation stone for a unified Spanish State, which includes the Balearics. Yet the Spanish Crown is far away and the pirates near. The incessant attacks demand many victims. The last inhabitants of Formentera flee to Eivissa and leave their island without a soul. On Ibiza watchtowers are built. In 1555 King Charles I. (who reigns as Charles V. in Germany) has the town wall renovated and bastioned by the Italian master builder Giovanni Battista Calvi. The construction works last thirty years. As elsewhere the population of Ibiza increasingly impoverishes. In 1652 half the town population dies of the pest.
1715: During the Spanish War of Succession Phillip V of Castile defeats the Hapsburg Charles II. The Balearics fought on the side of the Hapsburgs and are now occupied by the Castilians. The Crown confiscates the salt works, the only industrial source of revenue on the island and abolishes the since 1299 existing autonomous organ of administration, the Universitat, which permitted a relative independence. Castilian becomes the official language and Eivissa receives the name Ibiza. Poverty increases and with it freebooting. To protect themselves from continuous attacks by foreign pirates, Ibicencos choose to be corsair, which means they asked the Crown for a licence for attacking hostile ships. Only in 1908 did Spain sign the Convention of Paris of 1856 in which other sea powers abolished the privateering of corsairs.
1867: The Hapsburg Archduke Ludwig Salvador visits Ibiza. The first “tourist of the Balearic Islands” composes a work of several volumes about the Archipelago.
1934: The first hotel is built. Ibiza has already the reputation of a paradisaical island among artists and intellectuals on the Spanish mainland. Slowly she becomes internationally known. Among others the Dadaist Raoul Hausmann, the philosopher Walter Benjamin and the writer Paul Elliott spend longer periods on the island. The outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936 sets and end to this. On Ibiza the Republicans can only hold out against the fascist Phalange from the 8th of August to the 20th of September 1936. Franco’s victory in 1939 is the beginning of the dictatorship in Spain.
1958: With the opening of the airport tourism begins on Ibiza, leaving every other industry behind. At first the artists come, then the hippies, then the package tourist and the masses. They bring unexpected prosperity, population increase and a change in the landscape of the Pitiuses.
1975: Franco dies. Juan Carlos becomes king of Spain and starts the transition to democracy. In 1978 the Constitution is passed. In 1986 Spain becomes a member of the EU. Since 1982 the Balearic Islands are autonomous with an own parliament, where the different Island Councils of Majorca, Minorca and the Pitiuses fight heavily over competencies. In 2007 Ibiza and Formentera receive each their own Island Council. The Catalan language becomes again the official language beside the Castilian, and is more and more used in school education. At the airport both names Ibiza / Eivissa are used.
1999: The Unesco declares the walled old town of Ibiza, the Necropolis on the Puig des Molins, the rests of the first Phoenician settlement of Sa Caleta, and the Neptune sea grass fields between the Salinas of Ibiza and Formentera as a world heritage sites.
