On this day in 1704, Gibraltar was surrendered to the Anglo-Dutch fleet. 321 years later, Eliot Wilson looks at what that means today

As historical conflicts go, the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) was self-explanatory in its naming. It began with a dispute over who should follow the last Habsburg King of Spain, the perennially ill and inbred Charles II. But it was a complicated war, with France, the Bourbon claimant Philip V, Bavaria, Cologne, Liège and others facing the Austrian-dominated Holy Roman Empire, Great Britain, the Dutch Republic, Prussia and assorted allies.

The war ended in a series of complex treaties, of Utrecht (ten separate settlements 1713-15), Rastatt (1714) and Baden (1714) and we remember little about it today – or so we think. We know of the Duke of Marlborough, for whom Blenheim Palace was built, and we may recall the names of battles like Ramillies, Malplaquet and Blenheim itself. Britain emerged from the conflict strengthened. But there was one event which still has resonance more than three centuries later.

Gibraltar is captured

Today in 1704, Don Diego de Salinas y Rodríguez, the Spanish governor, surrendered Gibraltar to an Anglo-Dutch fleet. Having celebrated his 55th birthday the day before, the Spanish commander saw his position was hopeless. 1,800 English and Dutch marines had landed on the isthmus north of the Rock on 1 August, under the command of........

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