To talk about about the history of Honduras is to talk about the history of Central America and other counties such as Panamá, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Guatemala all united by a similar background and path until the 20th century, when each of these nations gained their independence and broke away from the controlling powers of countries like Spain, France, Great Britain and the USA.

But a long time before the unfolding of those events, was another eventful period, i.e. the Pre-Columbine age, when the territory was populated by the Mayans, in particular in the region of Copan in the west of the country. Copan was one of the main cities in Honduras before the arrival of the Spanish conquistadors.
Christopher Columbus arrived in Honduras at the beginning of the 16th century, but it was some years later the Conquest of these lands was executed by Hernan Cortes, who defeated the Mayan tribes.

Centuries later, Honduras formed part of the province of Guatemala, specifically from 1812 to 1821, when Honduras gained its independence from Spain. Until 1838 the country came under the Federal Central American Republic, but in that year it became a free independent country.

This new status however, far from bringing peace to Honduras, provoked several civil wars, which in turn brought about the collapse of the country's economy. The crisis improved slightly under the liberal government of Marco Aurelio Soto from 1876.

The 20th century saw the growing influence in the county of the USA under the guise of the United Fruit Company, who brought capital investment to Honduras, but at the price of massive political influence. Honduras' woes continues with crises and tense situations, with military regimes, coup de etats, curfews and all kind of problems up until what could be called the first free elections in Honduras in 1982, elections which were won by Roberto Suazo. At that moment a new political age was born in Honduras.

The Honduras Constitution was approved in 1982, and the USA, in exchange for a space to launch its attacks on Nicaragua, made significant economic donations to the country. Sadly these funds were mostly invested in the military, and did not bring any benefit to the impoverished people of the country, who witnessed their economy go from bad to worse.

In 1990 President Rafael Leonardo Callejas came to power and attempted to put an economic plan in place to bring the country out of the crisis. His efforts failed and in 1994 the people replaced him with Carlos Roberto Reina. Things did not improve much, and the country then took a heavy blow with the arrival of Hurricane which killed more than 10,000 people and caused millions of dollars worth of damage.

In 2006 the new President Manuel “Mel” Zelaya came to power under the National Honduras Party, and initiated a series of reforms, which so far have reaped some slight improvements to the countries situation.