Whilst Malta used to be connected to Italy by land, rising sea levels at the end of the last ice age effectively isolated the area as an island. It wasn’t until much later that its first people came here.

Malta’s first inhabitants are thought to have arrived in 5900BC from Sicily and North Africa using rafts, forming the first agricultural settlements and an advanced society which peaked in the Neolithic Age, at which point they lived in caves and huts. Using tools made out of stone and wood, they built some of the oldest and most impressive megalithic temples dedicated to fertility figures like the Mother Goddess amongst others. At around 2500BC, this civilisation vanished from Malta, probably due to disease and starvation – leaving the island uninhabited once again. During the Bronze Age, however, new settlers arrived, bringing with them the knowledge to build smaller temples and the new culture of cremating their dead.

Malta’s long history of colonisation started around 800BC when the Phoenicians – the people of present-day Lebanon – first arrived. These skilled sailors and traders introduced their Semitic language and culture to the island, using it as an outpost to further advance their exploration of the Mediterranean. They were then superseded by the Carthaginians – Western Phoenicians who built the city of Carthage on the North Coast of Africa.

They ruled over the island until they were ousted by the Romans during the Second Punic War in 218BC, becoming a municipium under their Empire. Thriving under Roman rule, Malta enjoyed their protection and prosperity, becoming renowned for its honey and sailcloth. It was around 60AD that St Paul is thought to have shipwrecked here, and, after being sheltered by the Maltese, he went on to convert Publius, the Roman ruler on the island, to Christianity. For this reason, it is thought by many that Publius’ conversion led to Malta being one of the first Christian nations in the West.

When the Roman Empire was split into the Eastern and Western counterparts in order to stabilise it, Constantine the Great – the emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire who was the first to convert to Christianity – built a new imperial residence at the city of Byzantium, renaming it as New Rome. This is how the Byzantine Empire came to be, marking a pivotal point in the transition between the Classic Period and the Middle Ages. Thereon, Malta remained under the Byzantine’s rule, until the invasion of the Aghlabid Arabs in 870AD. The Muslims then ruled Malta for more than two hundred years, converting its people to Islam. It is also at this point that the Maltese language came to be, with the Siculo-Arabic influence heavily guiding its development.

In 1091, the Normans – a population arising from Norse Vikings, West Franks and Gallo-Romans – conquered Malta under the hands of Count Roger. Under their reign, Malta was re-Christianised and incorporated in the Kingdom of Sicily. This was then followed by further periods of rule under different countries, with the Maltese being largely unaffected and running their own affairs throughout the whole ordeal. And that’s how Malta ended up in the hands of the French and then the Spanish Empire, who, by 1530, granted the land to the Knights of St John – an order that was established to care for sick, poor or injured pilgrims on their way to Jerusalem and then joined the Crusades against Muslims. With their bases in Jerusalem and Rhodes captured by Kurds and Turks respectively, Malta became the new home of the Order.

During the Great Siege of 1565 by the Ottomans, fortified citadels and forts in Malta built by the Knights played a key role in the country’s defence, with a force of some 9000 men overpowering that of the 30,000-strong Turk army. After the Ottomans conceded defeat, the capital was renamed after Jean Parisot de la Valette, the Grand Master who had seen the Order through its victory. The Knights took Malta through a new golden age – with its cities being further fortified and strengthened, and its culture embellished by the commissioning of works of art by notorious artists like Caravaggio and Mattia Preti. That said, in the 18th century, the Order turned decadent, with its Knights quickly losing favour with the Maltese.

With their raison d’être now gone, the island was easily handed to French rule when Napoleon Bonaparte landed here in search of fresh water while on his way to Egypt. While they looted much of the country’s treasures, they were responsible for a number of positive legal reforms, including the abolishment of the Inquisition that had been going since 1562 – a system of tribunals responsible for punishing heretics accused of a wide array of crimes. That said, this was not enough to appease the repressed Maltese, who rose in rebellion against them in 1798. With the help of the British who imposed a naval blockade, Malta had finally rid itself of her latest invader.

In 1800, the Maltese Islands voluntarily became a protectorate of the British Empire, a status formalized by the Treaty of Paris in 1814, as the British mostly saw it as a military and naval fortress. Throughout most of the 19th century, the political situation in Malta was stable and uneventful, with its economy improving when the Suez Canal opened, and its people being allowed to elect representatives in government. Still dissatisfied by their limited role, a revolt took place in 1919 whereby four civilians were shot dead by the Brits.

The quest for independence had to take a back seat during WWII, during which Malta was often bombed by Italy, playing an important role as a naval base, and being referred to as the Nurse of the Mediterranean. Its people’s valour and courage was thus awarded the George Cross, paving the way to the country’s independence in 1964, becoming a republic in 1974.

Subsequently, ties with the Brits were weakened with the election of the socialists and the country was free from foreign rule for the first time in millennia. Since then, Malta’s politics has been dominated by the socialist Labour Party and the conservative Nationalist Party, joining the EU in 2004.