In past tense: estar/haber

Question

I'm confused in the past tense when to use haber as opposed to estar. I am writing my lesson for my next weeks spanish class, and I want to say "there was an attack." I thought I should use estar, but when I double check my resources, they are telling me to use haber. What is haber denoting that estar is not?

• Wow...thanks...that really clears it up for me! - FayRay1 Nov 3, 2009

Answer 1

when you use haber, you are saying 'there is/are/was/were'. The word 'there' is already in haber, so when you want to say that 'there was something' or 'there is something' you use haber

Answer 2

Hubo ataque.