The history of Colombia refers to the events that have marked the historical development of the present Republic of Colombia. Colombia became a state in 1810 from the Viceroyalty of New Granada, a colony of the Spanish Empire that had been founded in 1572. In 1886 it definitively takes its current name from the Republic of Colombia. Its history is divided generally in pre-Columbian times, Spanish discovery and conquest, colony, independence, republican consolidation and twentieth and twenty-first century. Part of the history of Colombia has a close relationship with the history of Spain until the independence and histories of Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama and Latin America in general.
The first Republican century was turbulent with the tension between a federalist conception of the state (in a manner similar to that adopted by the United States) and a centralist conception (similar to that of France), which led the country to several wars and gave beginning To the conservative and liberal parties. The Constitution of 1886 led by President Rafael Nunez ended liberal hegemony and created a centralist, conservative and strictly Catholic state.
The twentieth century was inaugurated in Colombia with the War of a Thousand Days, which would greatly weaken the state, slow economic development and cause the country to lose Panama in 1903. A first Colombian industrial revolution would be with the return of liberal governments , But the Bananera Massacre would show a huge disadvantage of the Colombian worker who would characterize the rest of the twentieth century and what goes of the present.