Maltese Independence
Malta became independent on 21 September 1964 after 164 years as a British possession and several thousand years as somebody's. The islands had been Phoenician, Carthaginian, Roman, Arab, Norman, and then from 1530 the property of the Knights of St John, who withstood the Ottoman siege of 1565 and were removed by Napoleon in 1798. The Maltese revolted against the French within months and asked Britain for help, and Britain stayed. The value was the harbour. Grand Harbour made Malta the base of the Mediterranean Fleet and a coaling station on the route to Suez, and the economy was built almost entirely on the dockyard and the garrison. That is also why it was bombed more heavily than almost anywhere in the Second World War: some 3,000 raids in two years, more tonnage on the harbour area in one month of 1942 than fell on London in a year, and the whole island awarded the George Cross in April 1942. Self-government was granted, suspended and restored repeatedly between the wars. The path to 1964 was unusual. The Labour leader Dom Mintoff proposed in the 1950s that Malta should integrate with the United Kingdom and send members to Westminster, and a referendum approved it; the plan collapsed over church opposition and British reluctance, and independence became the alternative. It remained a monarchy until 1974 and hosted British forces until 1979, which Malta commemorates as Freedom Day. It joined the European Union in 2004 and the euro in 2008. The island's strategic value ended with the base, and the economy was rebuilt on shipping registration, tourism, manufacturing and financial services. Maltese is the only Semitic language written in the Latin alphabet and the only one that is an official language of the European Union.
- Year: 1964 CE
- Category: Political
