Spain On This Day

August 7

August 7, 2026 - Reading time: 16 minutes

Saints Days : Cayetano, Sixto II and Fausto

1919 - Congress approves the application of Spain in the Society of Nations

1819 - Simón Bolivar triumphs over Spain in the Battle of Boyacá

The Battle of Boyacá was the decisive battle that ensured the success of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada. The battle of Boyaca is considered the beginning of the independence of the north of South America, and is considered important because it led to the victories of the battle of Carabobo in Venezuela, Pichincha in Ecuador and Junín and Ayacucho in Peru.

New Granada acquired its definitive independence from the Spanish Monarchy, although fighting with royalist forces would continue for years

Francisco de Paula Santander - https://encolombia.com/

Brigadier Generals Francisco de Paula Santander and José Antonio Anzoátegui led a combined republican army of Newgranadians to defeat in two hours a Royalist Newgranadian forces led by Spanish Colonels José María Barreiro and Francisco Jiménez

The battle occured 150 km from Bogotá in the Andes Mountains, in a place known as Casa de Teja. close to a bridge over the Teatinos River and 3 roads heading to Samaca, Motavita and Tunja, an area which is now part of the Boyacá Department

1992 - Taking advantage of 6 months training on home town Terrassa pitch, Spain wins their first hockey gold medal beating Germany 2-1 in the women's final at the Barcelona Olympics

Photo www.antena3.es

1996 - 87 people die and 183 are injured as a consequence of the flash flood caused by a storm at the ‘Las Nieves’ camping site, close to Biescas in Huesca

Births

1533 - Alonso de Ercilla, soldier and poet (d. 1595)
1923 - Licinio de la Fuente, politician and soldier.

1925 - Julian Orbon De Soto, Cuban composer, born in Aviles (d, 1991)
1938 - Xosé Luis Méndez Ferrín, writer, President of the Royal Galician Academy.
1947 - Luis Mariñas, journalist and newsreader (d. 2010)
1948 - Pau Riba, musician and artist.
1954 - Antonio Resines, actor.
1960 - Rosana Pastor, actress.

1968 - Tomas Carbonell tennis player, born in Barcelona
1972 - Eva Hache, comic and TV presenter.
1977 - Paula Echevarría, actress.
1979 - Miguel Llera, footballer
1980 - Fabio Di Angelo, guitarist.
1985 - Daniel Gimeno Traver, tenista español.
1991 - Luis Salom, motorcycle racer (d. 2016)

Deaths
1924 - Joan Salvat-Papasseit, science fiction poet (b. 1894)
1925 - Ricardo Mella, intellectual anarchist.

Ramon Vila Capdevila - www.libcom.org

1963 - Ramon Vila Capdevila, When he was very young, Vila was nearly struck by lightning, which gave him the facial scars which earned him the nickname Caraquemada (burnt face). The lightning strike killed his mother, who was hiding with him from a storm. In 1932, after participating in a workers' insurrection, Vila was imprisoned in Manresa and held for a few years. In the period between his release and the start of the Spanish Civil War in 1936, Vila moved around constantly for fear of harassment by the "Special Branch". In April 1936, while Vila was in Castelló de la Plana, he was approached by two officers. Vila and his cousin Ramon Rives fired at the officers, but Rives was shot in the ensuing gun battle, as well as the two officers. One of the officers died as a result of his wounds. Vila fled the scene, and later turned himself in to the Guardia Civil, hoping for better treatment than he would receive from the "Special Branch".

On 18 July 1936, after the Nationalist uprising, the prisons were opened in an effort to gain fighters to put down the uprising. Vila was released, joined the fighting, and was later made a commandant in the Carabinero Corps. Vila also held the post of Supplies Delegate at the factory he worked at in Fígols.

Following the Nationalist victory over the Second Spanish Republic in 1939, Vila crossed the French border, to be interned at the concentration camp in Argelès-sur-Mer. However, the following year, Vila escaped, and returned to Spain. At this point, Vila formed a clandestine resistance group. Not long after, Vila returned to Vichy France to acquire supplies, and was arrested by Germans, who were by this point occupying France. Vila was imprisoned in Perpignan, but was only there a short time before the Germans sent him to work a bauxite mine. He was soon able to join the French Resistance, and put his experience with explosives to use in sabotage operations. The battalion that Vila was a member of was incorporated into the Free French 2nd Armoured Division, led by General Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque.

Following the end of World War II, Vila primarily operated in the Catalan counties of Alt Llobregat and Baix Llobregat. As his last act of resistance before his death, Vila destroyed transmission towers on 2 August 1963 near Manresa.

On 7 August 1963, Vila was confronted by three Guardia Civil officers near a castle in Balsareny. When hailed by the officers Vila opened fire at them; they returned fire, shooting him in the heart. No policeman was injured. The official press release announcing his death referred to Vila as a "bandit".

Vila was buried in Fígols. On 15 July 2000, a plaque was placed at the burial site of Vila which reads

Here lie the remains of Ramon Vila Capdevila. Militant of the CNT and the last of the Catalan anarchist maquis, he was involved in the proclamation of libertarian communism (1932), the civil war (1936-39), and the French Resistance (1939-45) and, for a further 18 years, the fight against Francoism. In memory of him and of all who gave their lives for freedom and the anarchist ideal

— Castellnou, The Libertarian Movement, 15 July 2000

1992 - Francisco Fernández Ordóñez, polítician.
1994 - Rosa Chacel, writer.