Malta, an archipelago of three inhabited islands, Malta, Gozo and Comino, in the centre of the Mediterranean between Sicily and North Africa, was first settled by farmers from Sicily about 5900 BCE. Their descendants raised the megalithic temples of Ġgantija, Ħaġar Qim, Mnajdra and Tarxien, among the oldest free-standing stone buildings in the world, and carved the underground Hypogeum of Ħal Saflieni, before the temple culture came to an end about 2500 BCE and Bronze Age newcomers took its place.

Phoenician seafarers settled the islands in the 8th century BCE, and Carthage held them until Rome took Malta in 218 BCE. The apostle Paul was shipwrecked here about 60, and after the Vandals and Goths the islands were a Byzantine outpost until the Aghlabid conquest of 870. Settlers from Muslim Sicily repopulated Malta from about 1048 and brought the Arabic speech from which Maltese descends; from 1091 Norman, Hohenstaufen, Angevin and Aragonese kings ruled the islands as part of the Kingdom of Sicily.

In 1530 Charles V granted Malta to the Knights of St John. They withstood the Ottoman Great Siege of 1565, built Valletta, ringed the harbours with fortifications and ruled under elected Grand Masters until Napoleon took the islands in 1798. The Maltese rose against the French, and the British, invited as protectors, made Malta a Crown colony in 1813 and the main base of the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean.

Self-government came in 1921 after the Sette Giugno riots, but was repeatedly suspended. Bombed for more than two years in the Second World War, Malta was awarded the George Cross in 1942. It became independent on 21 September 1964 and a republic in 1974, saw the last British forces leave in 1979, and joined the European Union in 2004 and the euro in 2008, growing rapidly while debating the rule of law after the murder of the journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia. Explore the ten ages below through selected events from the timeline.