etreat and to leave the island completely by September 12. Those events became known as the Battle of Majorca.
For the rest of the civil war the island was used as a base for the Nationalist navy and airforce, who mounted raids on the Spanish mainland.
Since the 1950s, the advent of mass tourism has transformed the island into a centre of attraction for foreign visitors and attracting workers from mainland Spain. The boom in tourism caused Palma to grow significantly. In 1960, Majorca received 500,000 visitors, while in 1997, it received 6,739,700. In 2008, 22,832,865 passengers passed through the Palma de Mallorca Airport with an additional 1.5 million arriving by sea.
In the 21st century, urban redevelopment, under the so called Pla Mirall (English "Mirror Plan"), attracted groups of immigrant workers from outside the European Union, especially from Africa and South America.
Palma
The capital of Majorca, Palma, was founded as a Roman camp called Palmaria upon the remains of aTalaiotic settlement. The turbulent history of the city saw it subject to several Vandal sackings during thefall of the Roman Empire. It was later reconquered by the Byzantines, colonised by the Moors (who called it Medina Mayurqa), and finally established by James I of Aragon. In 1983, Palma became the capital of the autonomous region of the Balearic Islands.
Majorcan cartographic school
Majorca has a long history of seafaring. The Majorcan cartographic school or the "Catalan school" refers to a collection of cartographers, cosmographers, and navigational instrument-makers that flourished in Majorca and partly in mainland Catalonia in the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries. Majorcan cosmographers and cartographers developed breakthroughs in cartographic techniques, namely the "normal portolan chart", which was fine-tuned for navigational use and the plotting by compass
