Philippines history and timeline

Early times
Archeological evidence suggests that the Negritos, a broad term for indigenous people of
dark complexions, reached the Philippines around 25,000 years ago by a land bridge from
the Asian mainland. Waves of Indonesians followed by sea from 3,000 BC, and Malays got a
firm foothold around 200 BC, followed in later centuries by waves of Chinese settlers. Most
of today’s Filipinos have grown out of intermarriages between indigenous and Malay
people. Modern Filipino culture, including language and cuisine, was heavily influenced by
the Malays, who also introduced arts, literature, and a system of government.
A few centuries before the Spanish reached the Philippines in the 16th century, Filipinos
involved in trade had also met Arabs and Hindus from India, while the expanding Chinese
population wielded considerable commerical power. Islam entered the Philippines via
Borneo in the late 14th century.
The colonial era
The Spanish first arrived in 1521, but did not gain control for several decades. Bands of
conquistadors, newly arrived from Mexico, fanned out from Intramuros to conquer Luzon
and the Visayas in the 1570s. They met ineffectual opposition, and soon entrenched
themselves as lords of great estates worked by the Filipinos. The friars who accompanied
them rapidly converted the population, building churches, schools, roads, and bridges, while
accumulating vast land holdings for the Catholic Church.
Independence
Centuries later, the Philippines were moving towards independence, with charismatic
nationalist leaders including Jose Rizal, executed in 1896. Yet after the defeat of Spain in the
war over Cuba, the Philippines were ceded to the USA. The Americans, defining their role as
one of trusteeship and tutelage, promoted rapid political, economic, and social
development. Then World War II saw the Japanese invade, and a brutal conflict ensued.
Independence was finally achieved in 1946.

The Arrival of the Spanish

The Philippines' recorded history began half a world away in a small, dusty town in
southwestern Spain. The Treaty of Tordesillas was inked in 1494, dividing between Spain
and Portugal the yet-unexplored world. Everything to the east of a line 370 leagues west of
the Cape Verde Islands in the Atlantic belonged to Portugal and everything west was
Spain’s.
The Portuguese set off to navigate Africa’s Cape of Good Hope in search of the riches of the
Spice Islands, while the Spanish headed across the vast Pacific. The captain of Spain’s search
was a Portuguese who had taken up the flag of Castile and the Spanish name Hernando de
Magallanes; to the English-speaking world, he is Ferdinand Magellan.
First contact
Magellan took 109 days to cross the Pacific Ocean but missed every island in the vast body
of water, save the tiny atoll of Poka Puka and Guam. In 1521, he made landfall on the island
of Homonhon, off the southern tip of Samar in the Philippines. Calling the new lands
Lazarus, after the saint’s day on which he first sighted them, Magellan sailed on through the
Gulf of Leyte to Limasawa island. There he celebrated the first mass in Philippines’ history.
Six weeks later, Magellan was dead. He had sailed to the island of Cebu, where he
Christianized the local rajah (king) and his followers. However, a chieftain of Mactan – the
island where Cebu’s international airport now sits – rebelled against the Rajah of Cebu and
his foreign guests. Chieftain Lapu Lapu and his 2,000 men defended their island against 48
armor-clad Spaniards in April 1521. A white obelisk today marks the spot where Magellan
was slain.
Gaining control
It was not until 1565 that Spain, under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, gained a foothold in Cebu.
Over the next few years, the Spanish pushed northward, defeating Muslim chieftain
Sulayman and taking over his fortress of Maynilad, facing what is now Manila Bay. Here, in
1571, Legazpi built the Spanish walled city of Intramuros.
Bands of conquistadors, newly arrived from Mexico, fanned out from Intramuros to conquer
Luzon and the Visayas. They met ineffectual opposition, and soon entrenched themselves as
lords of great estates worked by the natives, called indios, in the manner as applied to
Mexican “Indians.” The friars who accompanied them rapidly converted the population,
building churches, schools, roads, and bridges, while accumulating vast land holdings for the
Catholic Church.

Jose Rizal
No self-respecting town in the country is without a statue of the man, or does not have a
major street named after him. Reverence for thinker Dr Jose Rizal, who died a martyr at age
35 in the last years of Spanish rule, has spanned a century and spread to foreign lands.
Born on June 19, 1861, in the town of Calamba in Laguna Province, Rizal was to live a short
but eventful life till 1896. He had initially studied ophthalmology to cure his mother’s eye
condition; he was also a physician, naturalist, botanist, engineer, linguist, sculptor, musician,
composer, poet, dramatist, novelist, reformist, thinker, and writer.
Rizal’s two novels – Noli Me Tangere (Touch Me Not) and El Filibusterismo (The Filibusterer)
– were written and published in Europe at the time he led a movement for political reforms.
The novels were deemed incendiary by powerful friars.
He was exiled to Dapitan, Mindanao, for four years after returning from Europe. There he
set up a school, fixed up the waterworks, and wrote music. He also won the heart of
Josephine Bracken, an Irish woman who had accompanied her foster father to his eye
operation. Their brief seaside romance was marred only by a stillborn son.
Exile and imprisonment
Emissaries from Andres Bonifacio’s Katipunan, which favored armed struggle, offered to
help Rizal escape so he could return to Manila to lead the revolution. Instead, the writer
who advocated non-violence volunteered to serve as a doctor for the war in Cuba. But when
his ship docked at the first port on the way to the Americas, a telegram came, ordering his
return to Manila.
He was placed under arrest on the grounds of complicity in the revolution, and a quick trial
sentenced him to death by musketry. In his cell in Fort Santiago, Rizal composed a long
poem in Spanish, Mi Ultimo Adios (My Last Farewell). He concealed it inside an oil lamp,
which he handed to his sisters on the eve of his execution.
He walked calmly to his death at dawn on December 30, 1896, to a field by Manila Bay
called Bagumbayan, later renamed Luneta for its crescent shape. Rizal protested against
having to be shot in the back, for he was no traitor. As the shots rang out, he attempted to
twist his body to face the rising sun at the moment of death. His last words were
“Consummatum est” (“It is finished”).
His martyrdom set the country aflame. A revolution broke out, and soon Asia had its first
independent republic, cut short by the Americans’ entry into the Pacific. The new colonial
power recognized Rizal as a national hero.
Tributes worldwide
On the centennial of his death, a monument to Rizal was unveiled in Madrid, the capital of
the colonial government that had executed him by firing squad. Rizal busts or markers can
be found on a plaza in Heidelberg, Germany, at a residential building in London, in cities
across the United States where Filipino American communities have strong representation,
and in Latin America.
An international conference on Rizal in 1997 took place in Jakarta to give tribute to a man
described by Malaysian Deputy Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim as “the pride of the Malay
race,” a reference to the historical ethnic origins of many Filipinos. 

Imelda Marcos
Imelda Marcos threw two parties when she turned 70 on June 2, 1999. The first was in Rizal
Park, attended by the usual motley gathering of so-called Marcos loyalists. The second
celebration involved 1,000 bejeweled guests at a sit-down dinner at Manila Hotel. Madame
showed up with a ruby-and-diamond tiara, necklace and bracelets. Together, the parties
show a continuing loyalty to her embattled late husband and a focus on personal wealth
that still wows the world.
The woman born in 1929 and dubbed one half of a "Conjugal Dictatorship" fled with the ex-
president to Hawaii in 1986 amid popular discontent over his iron grip, but returned after
Ferdinand Marcos died in 1989.
A continuing saga of the recovery of the fabled Marcos billions unfolds sporadically,
destroying the reputation of government lawyers. Ten thousand Filipino human rights
victims who filed a class action suit in a Honolulu court were awarded a legal victory, but
must contend with the Philippine government over the division of the token amounts
recovered. Compromise solutions are ever in the works.
An enigma
Imelda confuses all, both enemies and protectors. One day, she laments her family’s
reliance on the kindness of strangers; the next, she boasts that they practically own the
entire country. All are public statements, as she thrives in the media limelight.
Her only consistency is that she stands by her man. Imelda regularly pulls out a handkerchief
and wipes a corner of her eye, while insisting that Ferdinand Marcos was not just a brilliant
hero, but a practical man who built his wealth before he turned dictator.
Born to poor relations of the landed Romualdez clan of Leyte province in the Visayas, she
never forgot or forgave her early station in life. She won a beauty contest and, as Miss
Manila, was swept off her feet by the dashing Marcos in a whirlwind seven-day courtship. As
a partner, she enhanced Marcos’s political campaigns, singing onstage and providing
glamor, or as how she describes herself, “the heart that gave the poor a glimpse of beauty.”
As Ferdinand Marcos consolidated power, Imelda became Metro Manila Governor and
Minister of Human Settlements. Her love of the grand gesture prompted the building of
cultural and film centers to showcase “the good, the true and the beautiful.” In 2004, the
documentary film Imelda swept international film festivals. Imelda, despite having
participated in its making, attempted to have its screening blocked in Philippine cinemas.
The documentary was shown anyway.
Congresswoman at 81
In 2010 the 81-year-old former first lady won a congressional seat representing a part of her
late husband’s native Ilocos Norte province.
In another comeback sign, ex-president Macapagal-Arroyo stopped the auction of jewelry
collections confiscated from Imelda as she protested the sale of treasures worth an
estimated P15 million. But Imelda Marcos is still known the world over for having owned
3,000 pairs of shoes, a testament to her glamorous tastes. 

Philippines historical timeline

c.40,000 BC
Migrants cross land bridge from Asian mainland and settle in the archipelago.
AD 900
Chinese establish coastal trading posts over the next 300 years.
late 14th century
Muslim clergy start to bring Islam to the Philippines from Indonesia and Malaya.
1521
Explorer Ferdinand Magellan lands on Cebu and claims the region for Spain. Lapu Lapu
(Rajah Cilapulapu), in defending his island of Mactan, slays Magellan.
1543
Next Spanish expedition led by Ruy de Villalobos lands in Mindanao. He names the
archipelago “Filipinas,” after Crown Prince Felipe II.
1872
Uprising in Cavite, south of Manila. Spain executes Filipino priests Jose Burgos, Mariano
Gomez, and Jacinto Zamora, martyrs to the cause of nationalism.
1892
Jose Rizal founds La Liga Filipina, is arrested and exiled to Dapitan, Mindanao. Andres
Bonifacio founds the Katipunan with aim to revolt.
1896
Spanish colonists imprison and kill hundreds of Filipinos in Manila. Bonifacio and the
Katipunan launch the Philippine revolution. Rizal is executed.