CHRONOLOGY OF IMPORTANT EVENTS

4000 BC    Neolithic man (pre-Talayot period) 

1400 BC     Bronze Age man (Talayot period) 

600 BC       Phoenician traders visit Minorca 

400 BC       Greek colonists arrive 

210 BC       Carthaginians invade Minorca

135 BC - AD 425       Roman occupation

AD 427       Vandal invasion 

AD 533       Byzantine rule

AD 800-1286   Period of Moorish influence and occupation

AD 1345     Minorca incorporated in Crown of Aragon 

AD 1535     Barbarossa sacks Port Mahon

AD 1664     Britain obtains treaty rights for limited use of Port 
                   Mahon

      1706     Philip, Bourbon King of Spain, invades and sacks 
                   Minorca  (War of Spanish  Succession)

      1708     Britain occupies island in name of Charles III of Spain

      1713     Minorca ceded to Britain under Treaty of Utrecht, 
                   legalising her occupation

      1756     Minorca lost to the French. 
                   Admiral Byng shot January 1757

      1763     Minorca restored to Britain at end of Seven Years 
                   War

      1782     Siege of Minorca: island lost to France and Spain

      1782-98    Short period of French sovereignty

      1798-1802   Minorca reoccupied by Britain during 
                           Napoleonic Wars

      1802    Britain relinquishes Minorca to Spain under Treaty of 
                  Amiens

       1815-30  Port Mahon used by American Navy as naval base

       1936-9  Minorca last part of Spain to hold out against General  Franco and capitulates to him in 1939 with help of British Navy