enerife, now the capital of the island. After a ferocious fight which led to many casualties, a defence was organised by General Antonio Gutiérrez de Otero y Santayana to repel the invaders. Nelson lost his right arm from cannon fire, widely believed in legend to have been the cannon Tiger (Spanish: Tigre) as he was trying to disembark on the Paso Alto coast.
On 5 September 1797, another attempt was made in the Puerto Santiago region and was repelled by the inhabitants of Santiago del Teide, who threw rocks at the British from the heights of the Cliffs of the Giants (Spanish: Acantilados de Los Gigantes).
The island was also attacked by Robert Blake, Walter Raleigh, John Hawkins, Woodes Rogers.
Modern history
Between 1833 and 1927 Santa Cruz de Tenerife was the sole capital of the Canary Islands, until in 1927 a decree ordered that the capital of the Canary Islands is shared with the Las Palmas, as it remains at present.
Tourists began visiting Tenerife in large numbers in the 1890s, especially the northern towns of Puerto de la Cruz and Santa Cruz de Tenerife. The naturalist Alexander von Humboldt ascended the peak of Mount Teide and remarked on the beauty of the island.
Before his rise to power, Francisco Franco was posted to Tenerife in March 1936 by a Republican government wary of his influence and political leanings. However, Franco received information and in Gran Canaria agreed to collaborate in the military coup that would result in the Spanish Civil War; the Canaries fell to the Nationalists in July 1936. In the 1950s, the misery of the post-war years caused thousands of the island's inhabitants to emigrate to Cuba and other parts of Latin America.
Tenerife was the site of the worst accident ever in commercial aviation. Known as the "Tenerife airport disaster", the airliner collision took place on March 27, 1977, at Los Rodeos airport in the north of the island and
