Who ruled Manila?

Manila lies on the eastern shore of Manila Bay, one of the finest natural harbours in Asia, where the Pasig River flows out from the great lake of Laguna de Bay. The river mouth was a trading settlement long before Europeans arrived, but the city's lasting importance began in 1571, when the Spanish made it the capital of their Asian colony. For two and a half centuries it was the pivot of a trade that linked China with the Americas. Its modern history is marked by colonial rule under two empires, a national revolution and near-total destruction in 1945.

The Laguna Copperplate Inscription, dated to 900 CE and the oldest known written document from the Philippines, refers to a place called Tundun, usually identified with Tondo on the north bank of the Pasig. By the sixteenth century two polities faced each other across the river: Tondo to the north and Maynila to the south. Their rulers traded with China, Borneo and the islands of Southeast Asia, and Maynila's ruling family was Muslim and had close ties with the sultanate of Brunei.

Spanish forces under Martín de Goiti fought Maynila's ruler, Rajah Sulayman, in 1570, and the following year Miguel López de Legazpi occupied the site and founded a Spanish city there in June 1571. Manila became the capital of the Philippines, governed as part of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and its walled core, Intramuros, held the governor's palace, the cathedral, monasteries and later the University of Santo Tomás, founded in 1611. Each year the Manila galleons sailed to Acapulco carrying Chinese silk and porcelain, and returned with Mexican and Peruvian silver, a trade that ran until 1815 and drew thousands of Chinese merchants and artisans to the city. Their relations with the Spanish were tense, and many thousands of Chinese residents were killed after an uprising in 1603.

Manila was a Spanish city for over three centuries, with a brief break when British forces captured and held it from 1762 to 1764 during the Seven Years' War. It opened to foreign trade in the nineteenth century, and a new educated class grew up. The revolutionary society Katipunan was founded in the city in 1892, and the execution of the writer José Rizal in Manila in December 1896 became a rallying point for the revolution against the Spanish Empire.

In 1898, during the Spanish–American War, the United States took Manila, and fighting between American and Filipino forces broke out on the city's edge in February 1899. American rule brought new government buildings, schools and a city plan by Daniel Burnham. From 1935 the Philippines was a self-governing commonwealth with Manila as its capital. Japanese forces of the Empire of Japan occupied the city in January 1942. In February and March 1945 American and Filipino forces retook it in a month of street fighting during which Japanese troops committed widespread atrocities; around 100,000 civilians died and most of the city, including Intramuros, was destroyed.

The Philippines became independent on 4 July 1946. Neighbouring Quezon City served as the official capital from 1948 until 1976, when Manila regained the title, and in 1975 the surrounding cities were grouped into Metro Manila. In February 1986 huge crowds on the capital's main highway, EDSA, brought down the regime of Ferdinand Marcos in the People Power Revolution. The city proper, with about 1.8 million people, is one of the most densely populated places on earth, and Metro Manila, with over 13 million, is the political and economic centre of the country.