Discover Spain’s turbulent history with our Viking Resident Historian, Paul Dawson, and learn how it emerged from isolation to become a modern European state. After centuries of rule by the Romans, Visigoths, and Moors, Spain emerged in the late 15th century united and free from outside rule, ushering in a golden age of discovery, exploration and artistic achievement. By the late 17th century, however, Spain’s empire started to unravel, and by the time of the Spanish-American War in 1898, the process was complete. In the wake of the Spanish Civil War of the 1930’s, decades of rule by Franco would later give way to democracy and, finally, membership in the European Union.