Why did the Spanish Empire collapse?

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"I am firmly convinced that Spain is the strongest country of the world. Century after century trying to destroy herself and still no success." Otto Bismark

Spanish Empire: We are the Empire on which the sun never sets British Empire: Nice nickname you've got there. Would be a shame if someone stole it...

What you lightly touched on here but needed to discuss more was the fact that Spanish aristocrats intentionally refused to reform Spain from an agrarian to an industrial society; they were deeply invested in the status quo as landed gentry. The entire economy atrophied as its colonial peers entered a new industrial age. When Spain's colonial subjects in South America pushed back against its strict control over economic production, and advocated for industrial reform, Spain's crack down and the subsequent revolutions reached a scale and brutality unseen in North America. Spain again and again floundered because those in power became a cancer preventing the empire from evolving over time.

After learning how much Isabella and Ferdinand labored to keep the throne from going to Joanna and thus her Habsburg husband, it’s kind of tragic to know their Habsburg grandson (he did not grow up in Castile like they wanted and had no real love for it) ruined everything they built.

Never mentioned Western Sahara and Equatorial Guinea, in which Spain held until the mid 1900’s

Ah yes the good old times when texas was still called New Philippines

Nearly 600 million native Spanish-speakers, This block should be a much more relevant global power!

Spain was the FIRST global empire. The quote: "the empire where the sun never sets" was first USED for SPAIN

I'm 40 but still love to learn history.Please keep it free,I'm poor guy.

If you ask why Spain was always fighting random wars against protestants, remember that nationalism didn't exist at this time, so religious unity was a quite good way to keep Italians, Spanish, Dutch and all other peoples united under the same empire, or at least they thought so. Edit for those that says nationalism always existed: Sources. This statement seems an incorrect interpretation of ancient societies based upon contemporary concept of nation. Nationalism was developed in late 1700's , when capitalist order and post-Westphalian politics couldn't use monarchic loyalty or religious unity to keep a social cohesion. The idea of accepting same language and traditions as well as a supposed common past as a more important factor than religion or client relations is a 19th century worldview. This does not exclude than ancient societies had language as a more or less unifying factor, but it can't be called nationalism as we understood it today. Nations are not objetive beings, but they only exist as a shared idea by a community. That require a common imposed dialect, history and identity established by state-driven education system, and does not appear spontaneously by any other means.

As a Honduran, we’ve always been told that the Napoleonic invasion was one of the causes for the independence fights in the Americas. Now we know that Spain itself was paving the way centuries before.

Spanish empire collapsed because Spain was conquered by Napoleon. Its kind of hard for colonies to see you as its “master” when you have been whooped and occupied by another country. All the revolutions in Spanish colonies happened after they saw Spain defeated in the battlefield and exposed as a weak country

The Empire had Wars with England, Holland,France, The Ottoman’s ,Denmark , Sweden, Bohemia and Portugal . Many working in concert with each other . What could possible go wrong .

-"You see, the Roman Republic had a troubled relationship with Carthage and tensions began when Hannibal besieged Saguntum..." - "But I only want to know about the fall of the Spanish Empire" -"WE'LL GET THERE WHEN WE GET THERE"

The fall of the Spanish Empire apart from factors such as the Napolionic wars, the Empire collapsed because it reached the maximum limit of control, taking into account that in its maximum extension (between 1770 and 1800) the population of the metropolis had only between 10 and 11 million. population.

you forgot Sicily, Sicily was also a part of the spanish empire, for almost 400 years. The spanish brought tomatos and prickly pears to siciy.

Even though Emperor Charles in 1500 owned one third of the world's gold, his son bankrupted Spain 6 times by 1600.

The other impressive thing is how soon after the Reconquesta the Spanish empire started.

This video shows very little knowledge of the Spanish Empire and the independence of the American territories. The independence was carried out by the conservative elites in America that refused the liberal changes that were being adopted in Spain. These elites wanted above all to maintain their own status and the power of catholic church (Many revolutionaries like the "father of Mexico" the priest Hidalgo were conservative Catholics). That's why many historians claim that it was Spain who became independent of the old Empire.