In 1502 Christopher Columbus made a last voyage in the Antilles - or Caribbean - Sea in search of terra firma which was not just an island. Sailing South from the coast of what is today Honduras, he rounded a cape which gave him protection and which he named "Cabo Gracias a Dios", and went on to the mouth of a river - the Rio San Juan - of which he took possession. He had discovered the Atlantic coast of what is today Nicaragua.

In 1522, on the other side of the Isthimus of Panamá where the fleet built by Nuñez de Balboa lay, an expedition organized and led by Gil González de Avila was pushing up towards the North of the Continent along the Pacific coast of what is today Costa Rica. It soon landed and started penetrating the territories which were later to become the West coast of Nicaragua. He met the Indian chiefs - Nicoya and Diriangén, and then discovered a vast stretch of water - the great lake known to the natives as Cocobolca.

The story goes that the Andalusians of Gil Gonzalez de Avila who founded the town of Granada on the South bank of this great lake, called it "Agua de Nicarao" - the Lake of Nicarao, which was the name of the Indian chief they met in 1523. This subsequently became the name Nicaragua.

It was Francisco Hernández de Córdoba, lieutenant of the Governor Pedro Arias de Avila, known as Pedrarias, who founded the towns of Granada and León in 1524 and 1525 respectively. In 1534 Pope Clement VI set up the first episcopal church of Nicaragua. There followed a period of quarrels - often bloodthirsty ones - between the Spaniards of the two cities; these went on almost without interruption in these recently colonized territories. In 1570 the town of León and its inhabitants, both Spanish and native, came under the authority of the Gobernacion de Guatemala. But the conflicts between León and Granada continued throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

In 1610 a most violent eruption of the Momotombo Volcano, situated near the smaller Nicaragua lake known as Xolotlán, destroyed the town of León, and the religious and lay authorities decided to transfer it some distance to the place where it is today. Whereas the only sign of life now given by the Momotombo is smoke, the volcanoes surrounding the town periodically showered the new site with ashes, sometimes causing serious damage both to the town and the surrounding crops. Granada, on the other hand, Was now exposed to another sort of disaster - being sacked by raiders from the Atlantic coast.

lt was in 1605 that the first raid occurred. lt was carried out by the Dutch pirate - John Davis.

Towards the end of the seventeenth century, the English, installed nearby in Jamaica, established a kind of protectorate over the eastern seaboard of the central American continent from the Gulf of Mexico to Panamá, in order to enable their pirates to operate more easily in this area. With the English came negroes from Jamaica who established themselves all along the coastal area and still today constitute, together with the native Indians, the population of these eastern regions.
In 1740, these negroes founded two towns in Nicaragua - Bluefields and Greytown; during the eighteenth century the English, accompanied by Misskito Indians, carried out periodical raids into the interior by sailing up the rivers and crossing the Great Lake. They frequently did serious damage to towns which were already prospering, such as Jinotega, Boaco and Camoapa.

It was at this time that occurred the heroical gesture of a young Nicaragua, Rafaela de Herrera Sotomayor during an operation which was carried out with the aim of throwing the pirates out of Jamaica. And from then on the Misskito chiefs ceased one after another to act as the auxiliaries of the foreign pirates and submitted to the established government.

Echoes of the French Revolution soon began to reach America, and the inhabitants of the Spanish Province of Nicaragua, like those of the neighbouring provinces of the Governorate-General of Guatemala, began to nourish hopes of liberation from the yoke of distant Spain.
The first independence manifestations in Nicaragua took place at Masaya; these were followed by others in León, Granada and the Provinces of Nicoya and Guanacaste.

On 15 September 1821, Central America proclaimed its independence from Spain at Guatemala. Throughout this part of the American continent, one municipality after another swore oaths of allegiance to the principles of the Guatemala declaration. In Nicaragua, the town of Matagalpa was the first to take the oath.

Shortly after the proclamation, a Mexican general, Iturbide, annexed the United Provinces of Central America to the Mexican Empire, causing a rift between those in favour of submitting to this new master and the determined, convinced partisans of unconditional independence, particularly in Nicaragua. Leon, which had submitted to Mexico, sent an expedition to reduce Granada, which was resisting.

There followed a real civil war to which Guatemala put an end by mediation. But the fighting frequently broke out again, and the towns, together with their populations, suffered for many more years. Mexican domination did not last long and came to an end in 1823. The Treaty setting up the Federal Republic of Central America was signed on 23 November 1824. This Republic consisted of five states, each of which had a legislative assembly and an executive.

However, Nicaragua's authority within the Federation was weakened as a result of internecine strife between the two large towns, and she lost successively a considerable part of the Province of Nueva Segovia to Honduras and part of the Province of Nicoya to Costa Rica. In addition, Colombia, after characteristic acts of hostility, imposed its rule on the San Andres Archipelago and Providencia in the Caribbean Sea.

Quarrels between the Conquistadores, of which Nicaragua had been the scene until the end of Spanish rule, had deeply marked the history of the country. The notables of Granada and León were to go an fighting throughout the period when the country formed part of the Central-American Federation, and even the proclamation of indeperidence in 1838 did not see the end of this internal strife.

For on 30 May 1838, the Federal Pact was denounced by Nicaragua; there was not the least regret about this, for the Federation had brought only disadvantages. A constitution was promulgated by Doctor Nuñez, who had the title "Director" of the State.
Directors have succeeded one another since then and have gradually given the country its laws and regulations, while at Granada, a university was set up and national newspapers began to appear. But many of these directors have had to confront serious difficulties provoked by adventurers thirsty for power - improvised chiefs of local or foreign, origin who call themselves "caudillos".

Spain recognized Nicaragua's independence by a treaty signed on 25 June 1850. In 1851, there were attempts, sometimes successful, by the military to take over the reins of power and depose the Director of the State; successive revolutionary movements set up governments; in León and Granada.

General don Fruto Chamorro, as director, adopted a new constitution and became President of the Republic in 1854; the term of office was fixed at four years.
But from 1854 to 1857 Granada and León were again at war with one another; the war ended with the setting up of the joint government of Generals Máximo Jeréz and Tomás Martínez. Later, Martínez ruled the country alone. He carried through reforms and broadened the legislation; a new constitution was adopted in 1858.

The town of Managua had been declared the "Seat of the Executive Power of the State" in l852", but under the joint government of Jeréz and Martínez, it was declared the capital in 1857. This at last put an end to the rivalry between the towns of León and Granada. Meanwhile, William Walker, a North American adventurer, had landed in Nicaragua and had himself proclaimed President in 1855.

His adventure did not last long. On 14 September 1856 he was defeated near Managua, at the farm of San Jacinto. Walker returned to Central America in 1860, was taken prisoner and shot. From 1863 to 1993 the conservative were in power, for the country was already divided between conservatives and liberals - but ­t was they who proclaimed the separation of the state from the- Church, expelled the Jesuits and founded schools with freemasons and protestants as teachers.

In 1867 there was born in a humble village San Pedro de Metapa who was one day to become that prince of Spanish poetry, the great Rubén Darío. In 1893 a revolution put an end to the conservative government of Don Roberto Sacasa. A junta government then installed the liberal José Santos Zelaya as president; he remained in power till 1909.

From this period dates the improvement and extension of the railroad which, running from Granada to the port of Corinto on the Pacific, also serves the major coffee-growing areas of Masaya. In 1906 the King of Spain arbitrated in favour of Honduras in a frontier dispute between that country and Nicaragua. Meantime, this same Zelaya succeeded in making Great Britain give up the Misskito coast and tried, though unsuccessfully, to find the resources for building an inter-ocean canal through Nicaragua.

During the years 1909 and 1910 there were minor revolutionary movements against this government of the Liberal Party; finally, in 1910, Zelaya resigned and left the country. But the revolution continued and spread. A series of domestic events which occurred during 1910 and 1911 brought to the fore names which were to leave their mark on the history of the period - don Adolfo Diaz, don Emiliano Chamorro, don José‚ Dolores Estrada and don Luis Mena.

In view of the incessant fighting between the factions, the United States intervened in force, advancing as a pretext the necessity of protecting the Corinto-Granada railroad. Don Adolfo Díaz remained president until 1 January 1913. Henceforward the railroad and customs were under American control. The country was occupied by the Marines.
In 1914, Emiliano Chamorro, the diplomatic representative of Nicaragua in Washington, signed a treaty granting the United States an option on the building of an inter-ocean canal in Nicaragua.
The Draconian provisions of this treaty, which infringed national sovereignty remained in force until 1970.

When war broke out in 1914, the Nicaraguan economy was in difficulties, General Emiliano Chamorro succeeded President Adolfo Díaz in 1917. But during the post-war period, the country was divided, one army being based on Bluefields and the other on León. The United States infantry intervened in favour of the one supporting Diaz and stopped the advance of the Liberal forces, whose chiefs, the supporters of the Government of President Moncada, laid down their arms with the exception of General Augusto Cesar Sandino, a half-breed Indian who took to the maquis and, together with Indians and the many halfbreeds who had followed him, waged a guerilla warfare lasting six years against foreign invaders.

He was executed in 1934, at the very time when the Marinos were evacuating Nicaragua. Three years carlier an extremely violent earthquake had destroyed the majority of the capital. the country was henceforward in the hands of the National Guard. Anastasio Somoza Garcia,
Finally, the Conservative opposition led by-General Emiliano Chamorro came to terms with him. He was President of the Republic from 1937 to 1939, from 1939 to 1947 and once again from 1951 to 1956, when he fell to the bullets fired by Rigoberto López Pérez on the eve of his election to another term of office.
To him Nicaragua owes, in addition to other considerable reforms and social progress, an extremely progressive labour code promulgated in 1945. Thenceforward, the agriculture and the emergent industry of Nicaragua began to develop while the economic expansion and modem equipment of the country began to take real form. His second son, the present Head of State, who is in his second term of office, is General Anastasio Somoza Debayle. He was elected by universal franchise in 1974.