March 20

March 21, 2024 - Reading time: 13 minutes

Saint’s Day for Eufemia, Claudia, Nicetas and Wulfrano.

1179 - Alfonso VIII and Alfonso II, king of Castile and Aragon, respectively, have signed the treaty of Cazola, by which both kingdoms areas of conquest in al-Andalus spread: Valencia, Denia and Játiva for Aragon and other territories Castilla Muslims.
1254 - The villages of Calatayud succeeded in Community configured for privilege of James I, King of Aragon.
1565 - Philip II, king of Spain, instructs Pedro Menendez de Aviles conquest and conversion to the Catholic faith of the natives of the provinces of Florida.
1801 - a new decree is issued expelling Jesuits from Spain, just three years after a previous decree had allowed those expelled by Carlos III in 1767 to return home.

1823 - The Spanish Cortes without waiting for the advance of the troops decide to transfer French- and King from Madrid to Sevilla and Cádiz, with the hope that the French presence causes widespread resistance movement, similar to 1808.
1865 - Madrid, Emilio Castelar is reprimanded by the authors of the article "The trait," published in the newspaper La Democracia.
1873 - Republican National Assembly of Spain approves the abolition of slavery on the island of Puerto Rico.
1882 - The reconstruction of the Alcazar of Segovia begins.
1888 - In the ancient citadel of Barcelona, which has been turned into a park, the regent Maria Cristina inaugurated the Universal Exhibition.
1915 - in the Barcelona observatory, the astronomer José Comas y Solá, discovers the asteroid 804, baptized with the name of Hispania. It is the first asteroid discovered by Spanish scientists.
1928 - the civil governor of Barcelona prohibits the entry of young people under 18 years in the ballrooms unless accompanied by a family member.
1931 - martial of the leaders of the revolt of Jaca . A woman, Victoria Kent, intervenes for the first time in an event of this kind, as an advocate for one of the defendants.

1937 - Franco offensive at Guadalajara
1964 - Council of Ministers decided, by decree, declared payable April 1 and unrecoverable national holiday.

1969 - British Beatle John Lennon (28) marries Japanese artist Yoko Ono (36) in Gibraltar
1997 - The Spanish Justice condemns Mario Conde, former president of Banesto, to six years in prison for misappropriation and falsification of commercial documents relating to the "case Argentia Trust."

2016 - A Tata Hispano passenger bus carrying Erasmus students from several countries came from the Fallas Festival in Valencia to Barcelona collided with a car on the Autopista AP-7 motorway, near the town of Freginals. Thirteen died – all of them young female students. The bus driver died of a heart attack on 6 April 2023

Births

José María Torrijos by Ángel Saavedra - https://www.museodelprado.es/

1791 - General José María de Torrijos y Uriarte was born in Madrid the son of a noble family who became a hero of the Spanish War of Independence, and was a great defender of the 1812 Constitution. Count of Torrijos, a title granted posthumously by the Queen Governor, also known as General Torrijos, was a Liberal soldier.

He fought in the Spanish War of Independence and after the restoration of absolutism by Ferdinand VII in 1814 he participated in the pronouncement of John Van Halen of 1817 that sought to restore the Constitution of 1812, for which he spent two years in prison until he was released after the triumph of the Riego uprising in 1820

He returned to fight the French when the Hundred Thousand Sons of Saint Louis invaded Spain to restore the absolute power of Ferdinand VII and when those triumphed ending the liberal triennium exiled to England

There he prepared a statement which he himself led, landing on the coast of Malaga from Gibraltar on December 2, 1831, with sixty men accompanying him, but they fell into the trap that had been laid before him by the absolutist authorities and were arrested.

Nine days later, on December 11, Torrijos and 48 of his fellow survivors were shot without trial on the beach of San Andres de Málaga, a fact that was immortalized by a sonnet of José de Espronceda entitled To the death of Torrijos and his Companions, Enrique Gil y Carrasco's A la memoria del General Torrijos, and by a famous painting that painted in 1888 Antonio Gisbert.

"The tragic outcome of his life explains what has happened to history, in all fairness, as a great symbol of the struggle against despotism and tyranny, with the traits of epic nobility and serenity typical of the romantic hero, eternalized in The famous painting Antonio Gisbert." The city of Malaga erected a monument to Torrijos and his companions in the Plaza de la Merced, next to the birthplace of the painter Pablo Picasso

Under the monument to Torrijos in the middle of the square are the tombs of 48 of the 49 men shot; One of them, British, was buried in the English cemetery (Malaga). (d, 1831)

1927 - Francisco Rodriguez Pascual, anthropologist and humanist.
1927 - Josep Guinovart, painter.
1929 - Germán Robles, Spanish-Mexican film, theatre, television, and voice actor (El Vampiro) born in Gijón, Asturias (d. 2015)
1935 - Lolita Sevilla, singer and actress.
1937 - The prolific actress Lina Morgan was born in Madrid
1940 - José Manuel Otero, judge and writer.
1948 - José Ramón García Antón, politician (d. 2009).
1965 - Benito Zambrano, screenwriter and filmmaker.
1979 - Silvia Abascal, actress
1984 - Fernando Torres, footballer
1986 - Beñat Intxausti, ciclist.

Deaths

842 - Alfonso II, King of Asturias (b. 759)
1916 - Miguel Romero, poet.
1968 - Antonio Riquelme, actor (b. 1894).
1975 - Jaime de Borbón y Battenberg, aristocrat (b. 1908).
1984 - Raúl Chávarri, art critic and writer.
1998 - Agustín Gómez Arcos, writer and dramatist.
2005 - Manuel Balsera Rodríguez, mayor.
2005 - Antonio Fernández Molina, poet, narrator and painter
2014 - Iñaki Azkuna, academic and politician (b. 1943)