VV(15) Chapter 11, pp.304-346 (1) Some Background Material

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The Maltese Islands – Malta, Gozo and Comino – were uninhabited during the 
Palaeolithic period. They were settled for the first time before 5000 BCE by 
farmers who probably came from Sicily or south-east Italy. Like most people 
at the time they seem to have been an agriculturalmatriarchal society.  Their 
most impressive communal activity was the construction of the large and 
elaborate stone temples for which the islands are famous.
 
Among the most important temples are Mnajdra, Hagar Qim, Mgarr, Skorba, and 
Tarxien on Malta and Ggantija on Gozo.  There is a town called Paola near 
Valletta in which one can find the Hypogeum, an impressive underground temple 
called Hal Saflieni in Maltese.
 
The Islands were a Phoenician colony from 800 to 218 BCEwhen the Romans 
defeated Carthage, and Malta was ruled by Rome, eventually becoming 
thoroughly Christian. From 870 CE, when the Aglabiti Arabs of Tunisia invaded 
the islands until 1048, when the Normans took over, the Maltese were under 
Moslem rule.  The only vestige of this period is the Maltese language, which 
is Arabic at its linguistic roots with some Latin and English vocabulary.  By 
1090,the Normans, Christian crusaders from northern France, were in firm 
control.  Feudal customs were introduced, and the islands passed from one 
warlord to another until the Spanish under Pedro I of Aragon took them from 
Charles of Anjou, brother of King Louis IX of France.  
By 1530, the Knights of St. John, having been driven from Rhodes by the 
Turks, were given the Maltese Islands by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor and 
king of Spain.  They were to hold the islands against the Turks, and in 
return paid an annual rent to the king of one falcon.  This is the origin of 
the Maltese Falcon of Dashiel Hammett’s novel.  
 
The knights ruled the islands until 1798, defeating theTurkish Great Siege of 
1565, under the Grand Master Jean Parisot de la Valette, for whom the city of 
Valletta is named.
Napoleon, fresh from his conquest of Italy arrived with his fleet off 
Valletta on the 10th of May 1798.  He sent an ultimatum to the Grand Master 
Ferdinand von Hompesch, who evacuated the city without a fight.  Napoleon 
went on to Egypt after a pleasant vacation, leaving a garrison too small to 
resist the rebellion of Maltese nobles opposed to the ideals of the French 
Revolution.  They forced the French into the citadel and called on the king 
of Naples for help. He enlisted the aid of Admiral Horatio Nelson of the 
English Royal Navy, and the domination of the islands by the British Empire 
lasted until 21September 1964.
On the 7th of June 1919, British troops fired into a crowd of students 
protesting continued colonial rule, killing three people outright and a 
fourth who died the next day.
 
The Maltese are now proudly independent.
 
Between June 1940 and December 1942 Malta was one of the most bombed place on 
earth. Malta became the besieged and battered arena for one of the most 
decisive struggles of World War II.  The inhabitants of the islands were 
awarded the George Cross by the British government in recognition of their 
courage and tenacity.  

<A HREF="http://www.geocities.com/louishenwood/page3/page4.html">http://www.geocities.com/louishenwood/page3/page4.html</A>

<A HREF="http://www.accessweb.com/users/mconstab/beurling.htm">http://www.accessweb.com/users/mconstab/beurling.htm</A>  (This website has a 
German aerial photographof Takali Airfield, where Fausto Maijstral worked 
during the siege.
 

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