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January 5

- Reading time: 17 minutes

Saint’s Day for Telesforo, Eduardo, Apolinaria and Emiliana.
The day the Three Kings’ processions take place throughout Spain.

0951 - Ramiro II of León abdicates.
1543 - In the port of San Francisco de Campeche (Mexico) lands the Spanish friar Bartolomé de las Casas, who will be distinguished as a tireless historian and defender of the aborigines of New Spain.
1813 - The Courts of Cadiz suppress the Tribunal of the Inquisition both in Spain and in America.
1977 - The Public Order Court is abolished, the National Court is created and the decree law on terrorism is repealed.
1978 - Euskadi pre-autonomy approved.
2009 - The last ride on the old roller coaster built in 1961, which after its dismantling, will be replaced by the new Muntanya Russa, will be held at Tibidabo Amusement Park in Barcelona.
2018 - ‘Cristóbal Montoro has retained more than 4 billion € from the autonomous regions’ – Treasury has denied to hand over the money to distinct communities until their Budgets are approved. Wages in Spain are increasing at a quarter of the EU average.
2021 - The rhythm of vaccinations reveals a large disparity among the autonomous regions
First is Asturias which has administered 80% of the vaccines available and at the end of the scale Cantabria with only 5% and Madrid only 6% Main factors are the holidays fiestas and the lack of personnel destined to the job
2024 - A number of holiday hotspots in Spain have started to re-introduce obligatory mask-wearing rules in hospitals due to the country's Covid and flu epidemic.
Births
1425 -  King of Castile, nicknamed "the Impotent", was the last of the weak late medieval kings of Castile.
During Henry's reign, the nobles became more powerful and the nation became less centralised. (d. 11-Dec-1474)
1530 - Gaspar de Bono, friar of the Order of Minims and Catholic priest. He is venerated as blessed by the Catholic Church. (d. 01-Jan-1571)
1548 - Francisco Suárez, SJ was a Jesuit priest philosopher and theologian, one of the leading figures of the School of Salamanca movement, and generally regarded among the  greatest scholastics after Thomas Aquinas (d. 1617)
1589 - Esteban Manuel de Villegas, poet and writer.
1636 - Fernando de Valenzuela, 1st Marquis of Villasierra, Grandee of Spain, who served as a trusted advisor and valido to Mariana of Austria, Queen Regent of Spain,  Valenzuela came from the lower ranks of Spanish nobility or hidalgos and his appointment was resented by the grandees, the upper nobility who dominated government appointments. In 1677, he was removed from office and imprisoned in the Philippines; released in 1688, he settled in Mexico City, where he died in 1692.
1713 - Jorge Juan and Santacilia, mathematical, humanistic, spy, naval engineer and scientist. (d. 1773)
1744 - Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, politician and writer and a major figure of the Age of Enlightenment in Spain.  (d. 1811).
1747 - Vicente Emparán,  Basque Captain General. Emparán was born in Azpeitia, Guipúzcoa, Basque Country, in 1747 as the son of José Joaquín de Emparan. He was governor of Cumaná Province in the Captaincy General of Venezuela between 1792 and 1804, where he had gained a favorable reputation among Venezuelans.By 1808, Emparán had returned to Spain during the Peninsular War. (d.03-Oct-1820) 
1754 - Melchior Aymerich  (1754 in Ceuta – 1836 in Cuba) was a Spanish general and provincial administrator, serving as the last president of the Royal Audience of Quito from April until May 1822. One of the last Spanish colonial provinces to be overthrown during the final years of the Spanish American wars of independence, he was defeated by rebel General Antonio José de Sucre at the Battle of Pichincha on May 24, 1822, formally surrendering two days later.
1818 - Telesforo Montejo Robledo, politician (d. 1896)
1866 - Ramón Casas, painter.
1881 - Pablo Gargallo, sculptor and painter (d. 1934)
1902 - Maruja Mallo, surrealist painter. (d. 1995)
1903 - Eduardo Sainz de la Maza, Born in Burgos, he was brother of Regino Sáinz de la Maza. Composing for the Classical Guitar, some of his notable works include the suite Platero y yo for guitar, and Campanas del alba He died in Barcelona. 05-Dec-1982
1911 - Alfonso García-Gallo, legal historian and jurist (d. 1992).
1914 - Germán Gómez Gómez, footballer (d. 2004).
1914 - Antonio Matilla Tascón, historian.
1931 - Juan Goytisolo Gay was born into a Basque-Cuban family. Brother of two other writers, Luis narrator and academic, and José Agustín poet who died in 1999. He studied Law in Barcelona University. The death of his mother Julia during a Franco bombing in 1938 marked his infancy. born in Barcelona (d. 2017)
1934 - Antoni Pitxot was a Spanish Catalan painter and a longtime friend and collaborator of Salvador Dalí.Pitxot was born into a family with many artists in its ranks, among them, his uncle Ramon Pichot. He began studying drawing at the age of thirteen, and he exhibited regularly in Lisbon, Bilbao, Barcelona, and Madrid in his twenties and thirties, winning many prizes, including the Gold Medal painting prize in Barcelona's La Punyalada competition in 1965.At the beginning of the 1960s, he was a close friend of the French painter Maurice Boitel, who painted many pictures on the Pitxot family's property in Cadaqués, a small port town on the Mediterranean Sea near the French border, that was also painted by Pablo Picasso and André Derain.In 1966, Pitxot took up permanent residence in Cadaqués, where his family had owned a summer house since the end of the 19th century. Dalí became an early supporter of Antonio Pitxot's work, and eventually asked him to co-design the Dalí Theatre and Museum (Teatre-Museu Dalí) in Figueres. Pitxot was a protector of Dalí's legacy after his death: He was a member of the board of the Gala Salvador Dalí Foundation, and he has led, and sat on the board, of several other Dalí foundations. He became the museum's director after Dalí's death. Pitxot was a respected international Catalan artist in his own right. (d. 12-Jun-2015)
1938 - Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias was born in Rome. He was proclaimed King of Spain, on 22nd November 1975, two days after the death of General Francisco Franco.
1938 - Jose Antonio del Hurdle, writer of gardening books and infant literature. PhD in Agronomy from the University of Madrid and member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Malaga.
1942 - Terenci Moix, author (d. 2003)
1943 - Ramón Sampedro, Sampedro became a quadriplegic at the age of 25 (on 23 August 1968), following a diving accident, and fought for his right to an assisted suicide for the following 29 years. He was played by Javier Bardem in the film 'The Sea Inside' in 2004 (d. 12-Jan-1998)
1843 - Ernest Maragall, economist, politician, member of the Parliament of Catalonia and former Minister of Foreign Action, Institutional Relations and Transparency of Catalonia.
1944 - José Hernández, painter
1945 - Alfredo Luis Conde Cid, writer.
1948 - Teófila Martínez, politician.
1958 - Jordi Botella Miró Valencian writer
1961 - Isabel Gemio, journalist.
1971 - Fernando Fernández Urosa, handball player.
1976 - Diego Tristán, footballer
1978 - Asís G. Ayerbe, photographer.
1979 - Daniel Sánchez Pardos, writer.
1980 - Santiago Ventura, tennis player.
1980 - Chema Rodríguez Vaquero, handball player.
1983 - Ferran Corominas, footballer.
1985 - Jorge Alonso Martín, footballer.
1991 - Daniel Pacheco, footballer


Deaths
1890 - Rafael Berenguer y Condé, painter (b. 1822).
1903 - Práxedes Mateo Sagasta, statesman.
1916 - Ulpiano Checa, painter, sculptor, poster and illustrator (b. 1860)
1936 - Ramón María del Valle-Inclán, writer. (b. 1866)
1938 - Bartomeu Rosselló-Pòrcel, Spanish poet and translator in Catalan (b. 1913)
1956 - Genoveva Torres Morales, religious saint (b. 1870)
1960 - Francesc Sabaté, anarquista (b. 1915)
1970 - The composer, Roberto Gerhard, born to a French mother and German father in Tarragona in 1896, died in exile in Cambridge, the UK.
1993 - Juan Benet, writer (b. 1927)
1998 - Martz Schmidt, cartoonist (b. 1922)
2004 - José Arsenio Franco Larraz, Magician, better known as Pepe Carrol (b. 1958).
2010 - Santos Pastor, professor, economist and jurist (b. 1951)
2011 - Gabriel Cardona, writer, historian and solider (b. 1938).
2012 - Isaac Díaz Pardo, Galician painter and sculptor (b. 1920)
2015 - Antonio Flores, footballer (b. 1930)
2019 - José Ramón Fernández, Cuban revolution leader (b. 1923)
2022 - Francisco Álvarez Martínez, Roman Catholic cardinal, bishop of Tarazona (1973-1976) and Orihuela-Alicante (1989-1995) archbishop of Toledo (1995-2002) (b. 1926)
2022 - Antoni Dalmau, politician and writer, member of the Catalan parliament (1988-1999) and president of the Provincial Diputación of Barcelona (1982-1987)  (b. 1952)