History History

Farmers and fishermen from Sicily populate the island. It is also the beginning of a very important prehistoric civilization marked by numerous megalithic temples still visible today, such as the temples distributed between Malta (Tarxian, Skorba, Hagar Qim) and Gozo Ggantija) or the hypogeum of Hal Salieni, considered to be one of the greatest works of art of anthropomorphic representation of Prehistory. A period reflecting a great religious thirst, "capable of moving stones".

With the arrival of warring peoples from Sicily and southern Italy, the Bronze Age was accompanied by a decline and then a halt in religious thirst and marked the beginning of a more warlike era that saw the appearance of protected camps on the top of the hills and the first fortified towns.

Due to its strategic position in the centre of the Mediterranean, Malta was highly coveted by the great navigators during antiquity. It passed successively into the hands of the Phoenicians, the Greeks and then the Carthaginians (600 BC) and became an essential cog in this axis of circulation, thanks to its ports.

At that time, thanks to the Punic Wars, it was finally the Romans who colonised this strategic point of the Mediterranean, which remained under their control until the collapse of the Roman Empire in 395. In Rabat, the Domus Romana Museum houses numerous mosaics attesting to their presence. This period also marks the beginning of the Christianization of the island. On his way to Rome, Saint Paul was shipwrecked there (60 AD) and converted the inhabitants, including Governor Publius, who became the first bishop of Malta, at the site of what would be the Cathedral of Saint Paul of Mdina.

The Arabs, Aghlabids of present-day Tunisia, invade Malta and destroy the fortress town of Mdina. The Maltese are converted to Islam but Christian practice is tolerated. A domination that also makes it a high place of slavery and leaves many marks in the language and naming of place names such as Marsa, meaning the port.

It was the beginning of the Norman domination led by Roger I, Count of Sicily, and in 1127 the island came under Sicilian domination. Sicilian control was exercised with relative harmony between the Christian and Muslim communities.

After the brutal seizure of power in Sicily by Emperor Henry IV, Malta came under the bosom of the Hohenstaufen family, Germanic princes. It was Frederick II, the Germanic Emperor, who expelled the Muslims. The island becomes re-Christianized and many Muslims convert. From 1492, the archipelago will also welcome Jewish families expelled from Spain.

On the death of Frederick II, the power of the Hohensaufen diminished and was replaced by the domination of the Angevins, led by Charles of Anjou, who introduced a very extensive administrative control in Malta. However, dissatisfied with the increasing fiscal pressure, the Maltese turned to the Aragonese and then to the Castilians.

Born in Parisot in what is now Tarn-et-Garonne, he was the 49th Grand Master of the Hospitaller Order of Saint John of Jerusalem and it was he who supported the Grand Siege of Malta in 1565 against the Ottomans. In 1566, he had Fort St. Elmo rebuilt and founded a new town next door that would bear his name, the present capital of Malta. He died at the age of 74 and is buried in the crypt of the co-cathedral of St. John of Valletta. Since 2012, his statue has been enthroned in a square that bears his name, shortly before the Plaza de Castilla.

Ottoman power posed a new threat to the Maltese islands, which resulted in the first attack on the Grand Port, at Birgu, in 1488, and the sacking of Mosta in 1526. It was in this context that Charles V offered the use and defence of the Maltese islands to the Hospitaller Order of St John of Jerusalem in 1530, in return for the symbolic salary of one falcon a year.

Glormu Cassar, also known as Gerolamo Cassar, is a Maltese architect, born into a family of Sicilian origin. He left his mark on the capital Valletta, where he was the main architect. He designed the seven inns of the Knights of St. John, the co-cathedral of St. John and the Palace of the Grand Masters. Very much influenced by the Italian Renaissance, he was able to marry the canons of this genre with the early fantasies of the Baroque, all with a certain homogeneity.

The latter began on 19 May when Mustapha Pasha landed in the bay of Marsaxlokk with an army of 40,000 men against 9,000 Maltese. On 23 June, the Turks took Fort Saint-Elme and anchored in the port of Marsamxett, then attacked Birgu and Senglea. Both sides suffered heavy losses, but the arrival of the "great help" of 9,000 Sicilians on 7 September forced the Turks to re-embark after a 31-day siege of Birgu. This was one of the greatest victories of Christianity over the Ottoman Empire, which also began the decline of Turkish maritime power.

The plague epidemic claimed more than 11,000 victims among a population of 60,000.

Within the order of the Knights of Malta, Spain's influence is diminishing and it is now France that sends the largest number of Knights.

Leaving for the Egyptian campaign, Napoleon Bonaparte seized Malta after the Grand Master's refusal to welcome the French army, but above all to ensure a secure position in the Mediterranean against the English. For 6 days, Napoleon stayed in Palazzo Parisio (now the Ministry of Foreign Affairs). He puts an end to the domination of the Order of Malta and launches numerous reforms (constitution, rights granted to peasants, foundation of primary and higher education schools, reorganisation of finances, abolition of slavery and the Inquisition...). Its passage is also marked by the looting of churches and palaces to pay the soldiers.

Faced with the looting of the island by Napoleonic troops, the Maltese appealed to the British and after a two-year embargo led by the Royal Navy, the French surrendered to the British on 5 September 1800. Malta then became an English protectorate.

With the signing of the Treaty of Paris following Napoleon's first abdication, the United Kingdom retained Malta, which was officially annexed to the British Empire in 1816, and also became a British naval base. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 strengthened its position as a compulsory passage and the island played the role of a goods warehouse for ships connecting the West to the East.

Imposition of the English language and prohibition of Italian, occupation of political and economic power: the English presence is not better accepted than the French presence. And the period saw the rise of nationalist demands. The British proposed constitutions that only lasted a few years, but at the end of the First World War, the uprising of the population led to the first constitution of an autonomous state, with proportional representation, although the British kept control of defence and foreign policy. It was suspended twice, in 1930 and 1933.

Occupying a strategic position, Malta was bombed for three weeks by the Germans and Italians from 11 June 1940. An aircraft, the Faith, escaped and is now on display at the Valletta War Museum. From January 1941 to April 1942, the island was again subjected to massive German bombardments to protect the supply of German troops in Africa. Despite the destruction and lack of food, the Maltese resisted and Malta was awarded the George Cross on 15 April 1942 by King George VI, a cross which still appears on the Maltese flag. In all, Malta endured nearly 3,000 air raids in what has been called the "Second Great Siege", which ended in the victory of El Alamein. The island then became the starting air base for the invasion of Sicily in 1943.

After the restoration of self-government in 1947, Malta finally gained independence on 21 September 1964 after a overwhelming yes vote in a referendum. The island remains within the Commonwealth and British forces are still stationed there.

The island proclaims the Republic and elects its first president, Anthony Mamo. An action carried out under the impulse of Prime Minister Dominic Mintoff, Labour, who also negotiated the progressive withdrawal of English troops who will leave the island definitively on March 31, 1979.

Malta has been a member of the United Nations since 1964 and of the Council of Europe since 1965, but it was in 1977 that the country's first phase of economic adjustment and modernization was launched, with the aim of joining the European Union. The application for membership was not submitted until 1990, but was then frozen until 1998, when the pro-European nationalists returned to power. The country joined the EU on March 8, 2003, following a successful referendum (54% in favor) and a fierce confrontation between the nationalist "yes" camp and the Labour "no" camp.

Malta officially enters the European Union with a special section taking into account the specific needs of the island of Gozo (ubiquitous agriculture, low population density and standard of living). It will join the Schengen area in 2007 and then the euro zone in 2008. Since its accession, the island has distinguished itself on two occasions: by choosing Maltese as a diplomatic language alongside English and by forcing Europe not to refer to the right to abortion in the European Constitution.

It is Labour's George Abela who becomes the eighth President of the Republic of Malta. A year later he met Pope Benedict XVI, who came to Malta 1,950 years after the shipwreck of Saint Paul on the archipelago. A mass was held in the Granary Square in Floriana, in front of the church of Saint Publius.

After 15 years in opposition, the left, the Labour Party, won a historic victory that brought Joseph Muscat, the new Prime Minister, who was only 39 years old, to the head of the government. But despite a positive economic balance sheet, this government finds itself entangled in the Panama Papers uncovered in April 2016, which revealed, among other things, that two of the Prime Minister's relatives had an offshore account in Panama, which led Joseph Muscat to call early parliamentary elections on 3 June 2017, which will again be won by the Labour Party

Malta holds the Presidency of the Council of the European Union for the first time in its history. The next presidency is expected in 2030.

Daphne Caruana Galizia, blogger and journalist, dies in a car explosion. Written in English, her blog was one of the most widely read on the island, where she posted numerous articles implicating people close to Joseph Muscat in the Panama Papers. Muscat described the act as "barbaric", and thousands of Maltese marched through Valletta on October 22, 2017, to demand light and justice for the corruption scandals that dominate the country's news. Following her death, a collective of 18 international media, including Le Monde, The Guardian, El Pais and Times of Malta, is working to resume the investigations she led. On October 14, 202, the two brothers Georges and Alfred Degiorgio were sentenced to 40 years in prison for the murder. This followed Vincent Muscat's 15-year sentence on February 24, 2021.

For a year Valletta became European Cultural Capital, which was the occasion for numerous events and also allowed the creation of the Muza (National Museum of Fine Arts) which, after a renovation of the Auberge d'Italie, aims to spread the culture of fine arts to a much wider public (20,000 works on display, three times more than in the old museum).

The leaders of the seven Mediterranean countries of the European Union (France, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Malta, Cyprus, Greece) are meeting in Valletta. While they agree on ecological and social issues, there is still disagreement among them on the reception of migrants. Since the closure of Italian ports, Malta has often opened its doors to provide an initial solution to the crisis (as in August 2018 with the reception of 114 migrants towed by the second Aquarius) but subject to a fair and automatic distribution of these migrants throughout the Union.

It is Robert Abela, 45 years old, who is elected by the militants of the Labour Party to replace Joseph Muscat at the head of the government. Despite a still positive balance sheet, record growth and a low unemployment rate, Joseph Muscat chose to resign because the investigation into the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia revealed the involvement of several personalities from his political entourage, including his chief of staff.

The European Commission has announced the opening of an infringement procedure against the so-called "golden passport" schemes, which grant Maltese, and therefore European, nationality in return for an investment or payment. This procedure is "not in line with European "loyal cooperation". The Maltese Government has two months to reply to this letter of formal notice.

Pope Francis visited the Maltese archipelago: Valletta, Floriana and Gozo. This is the third visit of a pope in 30 years.

Malta is hosting a meeting of nine Mediterranean countries aimed at harmonizing their positions on the issue of immigration, particularly via the Mediterranean.