October 24

January 3, 2024 - Reading time: 11 minutes

Saint’s Day for Antonio María Claret, Fortunato, Martín and Félix.

1596 - The second Spanish armada sets sail against England, but is smashed by storms off Cape Finisterre forcing a retreat to port

1981 - Pablo Picasso's 1937 painting Guernica goes on display in Madrid to celebrate the centenary of the artist's birth

2014 - Philip VI and Queen of Spain Letizia preside the ceremony of the last Prince of Asturias Awards and are summoned for the first time the Princess of Asturias Awards 2015.

2019 - Former dictator Francisco Franco is exhumed from Valle de los Caídos.

2022 - A man who received orders from the jihadist Islamic State group to carry out a drone attack against a Barcelona-Real Madrid football match was sentenced by a Spanish court to three years in jail.

Mohammed Yassi Amrani, a former bar worker, became “a member of Daesh during a fast process” of radicalisation in 2020, according to his indictment, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State group.

2022 - National Police officers have arrested one of the fugitives included in the UK’S Most Wanted list. "He is Dean Garforth, aged, 30, who was the subject of an International Arrest Warrant issued by the British authorities for crimes of drug and weapons trafficking." "Garforth was living on a residential estate in Marbella where he tried to go unnoticed among a large British expat community.

2022 - Spain said it would deploy 14 fighter jets to Bulgaria and Romania as NATO continues to bolster its eastern flank in the face of Russia’s aggressive actions in the region. The move announced by the Spanish Defence Ministry on October 22 follows remarks by Bulgarian defence Minister Dimitar Stoyanov two days earlier that Madrid was set to deploy up to eight jets to his nation in the coming days.

Births

1491 - Ignatius of Loyola, military, writer and religious, founder of the Jesuits (d. 1556).
1503 - Isabella of Portugal, Queen consort of Spain, Queen of the Romans, and Lady of the Netherlands (1526-39) and Holy Roman Empress and Queen of Italy (1530-39), born in Lisbon, Portugal (d. 1539)
1688 - Rafael de Eslava, soldier (d. 1737).
1750 - Ignacio María de Álava, sailor and soldier (d. 1817).
1781 - José Somoza, writer.
1785 - Rafael del Riego, soldier and politician (d. 1823).
1817 - Ramon de Campoamor and Campoosorio, poet.
1846 - Manuel de la Revilla, writer, thinker and literary critic.
1852 - Mercedes de Velilla, poet.
1874 - Josep Irla i Bosch, the ERC politician and President of the Catalan parliament during the latter years of the Spanish Civil War, was born in Sant Feliu de Guíxols. He was President of the Generalitat de Cataluña in exile between 1940 and 1954 after his predecessor, Lluís Companys, was shot by the Franco government. Josep Irla resigned in 1954 and died in exile in France in four years later.

Queen Victoria Eugenia and Alfonso XIII - Photo www.pinterest.com

1887 - Victoria von Battenberg, Queen of Spain as the wife of King Alfonso XIII, born in Balmoral Castle (d. 1969)
1887 - Rafael Campalans, engineer (d. 1933)
1905 - Severo Ochoa, biochemist, Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1959.
1898 - Rafael García Valiño, soldier (d. 1972).
1907 - Martin Marculeta, footballer. (d. 1984)

1914 - Gonzalo de Borbón y Battenberg, the youngest child of Queen Victoria Eugenia and Alfonso XIII (d. 1934)
1919 - Eduardo Barreiros, mechanic and businessman (d. 1992).
1919 - Rafael Iriondo, football player and trainer.
1920 - Manuel Albaladejo, judge (d. 2012).
1926 - Rafael Azcona, author and screenwriter (d. 2008)
1937 - Miguel Ángel Coria, composer and educator (d. 2016)
1941 - Rafael Del Valle Curieses, investigator and academic.
1951 - Pedro Almodóvar, director of cinema.
1954 - Fernando Vázquez, football trainer.
1959 - Ana Mato, politician.
1963 - Antonio Rueda, footballer and politician.
1964 - Rosana Arbelo, singer-songwriter and guitarist in Lanzarote (Talisman)
1964 - Ainhoa Arteta, soprano.
1964 - Alberto Albístegui, footballer.
1968 - Francisco Clavet, tennis player.
1969 - Goya Toledo, model and actress.
1973 - Iñaki de Miguel, basketball player.
1975 - Sergio Muniz, actor.
1977 - Iván Ania, footballer.

Deaths
1870 - Antonio María Claret, cleric (b. 1817)
1901 - Dióscoro Puebla, painter of the era of eclecticism. (b. 1831)
1975 - Cipriano Mera,soldier (b. 1897 Madrid)
1977 - José María de Cossio, writer and polygraph. (b. 1892 Valladolid)
1986 - Enric Margall, basketball player (b. 1944)
1987 - Antonio Añoveros Ataún, priest (b. 1909)
1987 - Salvador Gil Vernet, medical researcher (b. 1892)
1989 - José García Santesmases, physicist (b. 1907)
1992 - Luis Rosales, poet. (b 1910 Granada)
1998 - Rafael Alonso, actor. (b. 1920)
2013 - Manolo Escobar, singer and actor (b. 1931)