Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
c 1200 BC
Warrior tribes invade Mallorca, Menorca, Corsica and Sardinia. Those in Mallorca and Menorca
are known today as the Talayotic people because of the stone towers they built.
c 500 BC
Phoenician traders install themselves around the coast, extending their influence across Mal-
lorca. Balearic warriors serve as mercenaries in Carthaginian armies.
123 BC
On the pretext of ending Balearic piracy, the Roman general Quintus Cecilius Metelus, later
dubbed Balearicus, storms ashore and in a short time takes control of Mallorca and Menorca.
AD 426
Raids on Mallorca by the Vandals, central European barbarian tribes that had pillaged their way
across Europe to North Africa, lead to the destruction of the Roman city of Pol·lentia.
534
Belisarius takes control of the Balearic Islands in the name of Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who
until his death in 565 attempted to reestablish the Roman Empire across the Mediterranean.
707
Muslim Arabs in North Africa raid Mallorca for the first time. Four years later they would begin
the conquest of the Spanish mainland.
869
Norman raiders sack Mallorca's population centres, just 21 years after an Arab raid from Muslim
Spain, which Mallorca's leaders had agreed to in return for being left in peace.
903
Muslim forces take control of Mallorca in the name of the Caliph of Córdoba in Spain. Local
Christian warriors resist for another eight years in redoubts across the island.
1075
Mallorca becomes an independent taifa(small kingdom) in the wake of the civil conflicts that
shattered the Caliphate of Córdoba into a series of taifasacross Spain.
1114-15
