what is some basic information about the history of The Philippines?

The islands were first populated by Australoid peoples around 40,000 years ago it is believed that the Aeta are the modern day ancestors of these early inhabitants.The Taiwanese aboriginals (Ami) the Malays from the south (Indonesia/Malaysia) and the Chinese added to the population later as well as people from South asia and Arabs.Then there was the colonization of the Philippines by the Spanish,this lasted 333 years though most of that time it was governed from New Spain (Mexico) not Spain itself.Spanish surnames were introduced in the 1800s for tax purposes,as a result many Filipinos have Spanish surnames but do not have any genuine Spanish ancestry,this was called the alphabetic catalogo.There are Filipinos with true Spanish ancestry but those are said to be a minority.The Spaniards gave the Philippines to the USA for approx $20,000,000 dollars after a fake war which lasted 3 months,this was to save the honour of the Spanish but many people were killed in the unnecessary war.The Japanese invaded the Philippines but were defeated by the American/Filipino military.Later the Philippines and the Usa had a war too,the Usa won but soon after gave independence to the Philippine islands,American rule lasted just 48 years but had a big influence on Filipino culture and English started taking precedence over Spanish as a second language.The Philippines has been independent since 1946.There has been further intermarriage between East Asians (Japanese Korean Chinese etc and Filipinos as well as with many Europeans or people of European origin like white Americans/Australians etc.Todays Filipinos are however mostly Malay,the Official languages being Tagalog and English despite many Filipinos being fluent in neither of these languages,instead speaking other native languages in other parts of the country beyond the National capital region.

The history of the Philippines is believed to have begun with the arrival of the first humans using rafts or primitive boats, at least 67,000 years ago as the 2007 discovery of Callao Man showed. The first recorded visit from the West is the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan, who sighted the island of Samar Island on March 16, 1521 and landed on Homonhon Island (now part of Guiuan, Eastern Samar province) the next day. Homonhon Island is southeast of Samar Island.

more info:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Philip...