THE HISTORY OF TENERIFE

Tenerife and the rest of the Canary Islands are of volcanic origin. The development of the eastern islands started more than 20 million years ago, but the oldest mountain ranges of Tenerife did not arise from the Atlantic ocean untill about 8 to 12 Million years ago.

The islands were for a long time inhabitated by the guanches, which we know very little about today. It is believed that they might have been of berber origin, a people originally from the Atlas mountains in Morocco.

Allthough the islands have been known since the beginning of historical time, it was not untill 500 years ago that the conquest of the islands started. The spanish arrived in the 1400's and after many though battles from 1494 to 1496 they could finally claim Tenerife under the spanish crown.The guanches were mixed with the spanish population and are today extinct.

Many other nations tried to take the islands away from the spanish, and the last attack on Tenerife was in 1797 by the british army, led by Lord Nelson. You can find the canon that shot his arm in Museo Militar (the army museum) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, together with other weapons and memorabilias.