2017 • Gibraltar
April 2, 2017 to April 3, 2017
Gibraltar is an interesting place. It is undoubtably British but many people speak Spanish, they drive on the right, and it isn’t constantly raining! The territory was captured by the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1704 and ceded by Spain to the UK in 1713, but the fact that Gibraltar is still held by the British to this day is a great point of contention between the two, otherwise, allies. There has been talk of joint sovereignty or Spain taking control with some autonomy, but each time the people of Gibraltar have rejected anything but complete British control. And while the territory is not as strategically important as it once was being that the two countries on both sides of the Strait of Gibraltar are allies with the UK and NATO, the British are loath to give it up without the consent of the people of Gibraltar. Again, while not as strategically important today as it once was, Gibraltar was critical to the war effort during the Second World War. The territory gave the British control over the mouth of the Mediterranean Sea and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill wanted to hold onto Gibraltar at all costs. They made sure that Spain would stay out of the war (Spanish leader Francisco Franco was seen as a natural Axis ally) and even sent monkeys to the rock. Now, why in the world would monkeys matter? Well, according to legend, once there are no longer monkeys (barbary macaques) in Gibraltar, then British control over the territory would lapse. As such, Churchill imported some macaques from Northern Africa to boost the native population and protect British control over Gibraltar.
