Timeline Spain 1900-2008
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1900 Jan 1,
Xavier Cugat, bandleader (married Abbe Lane, Charo), was born in
Barcelona, Spain.
(MC, 1/1/02)
1901 Nov 22, Joaquin Rodrigo,
Spanish composer (Juglares), was born in Sagunto, Valencia.
(MC, 11/22/01)
1904 May 11, Salvador Dali
(d.1989), surrealist painter, was born in Figueres.
(HN, 5/11/98)(WSJ, 1/25/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 7/16/00,
p.T4)
1906 Apr 7, A general act was
issued by the international conference of Algeciras, Spain. Thirteen
powers participated in the deliberations on the Moroccan question, and
despite strong German objections, agreed to entrust to France and Spain
the management of the Moroccan police. The powers also made
arrangements regarding Morocco's state bank, system of taxation,
customs administration, and public works.
(www.bartleby.com/67/1378.html)
1906 May 31, In Madrid, Spain, an
anarchist bomb exploded under the wedding carriage King Alfonso and
Queen Ena. 20 people were killed.
(http://tinyurl.com/b45gm)
1907 Jun, Pablo Picasso stumbled
on the African and Oceanic collection at the Ethnographic Museum of the
Trocadero in Paris, as he was working on "Les Desmoiselles d’Avignon."
The experience from that point on put an African influence on much of
his work.
(WSJ, 11/13/96, p.A20)(Econ, 2/11/06, p.81)
1907 Dec 2, Spain and France
agreed to enforce Moroccan measures adopted in 1906.
(HN, 12/2/98)
1907 Ricardo Anckermann (b.1842),
ethnic German artist who painted in Mallorca, Spain, died.
(WSJ, 12/27/07, p.D7)
1909 May 18, Isaac M F
Albéniz (48), Spanish pianist, composer, died.
(SC, 5/18/02)
1912 Mar 5, Spanish steamer
"Principe de Asturias" sank NE of Spain and 500 died.
(MC, 3/5/02)
1912 Nov 12, Jose Canalejas Y
Mendez (b.1854), premier of Spain, was assassinated by anarchist Manuel
Pardinas.
(www.historia-es.com/usa/c_07_b02.htm)
1915 Apr 15, Manuel de Falla's
ballet "El Amor Brujo," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 4/15/02)
1917 Feb 16, The 1st Madrid
synagogue in 425 years opened.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1917 Apr 7, De Falla's ballet "El
Sombrero de tres Picos," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 4/7/02)
1918 Oct 17, Anton Dilger
(B.1884), an American saboteur educated as a surgeon in Germany, died
of Spanish flu in Spain. [see 1916] In 2007 Robert Koenig authored “The
Fourth Horseman: One Man’s Mission to Wage the Great War in America.”
(SSFC, 1/14/07, p.M2)
1919 Oct 18, Madrid opened a
subway system.
(HN, 10/18/98)
1921 Mar 8, Spanish Premier
Eduardo Dato was assassinated while leaving Parliament in Madrid.
(HN, 3/8/98)
1921 Jul, Juan Miro (1893-1983),
Spanish artist, began working on his painting titled “The Farm.” He
completed it 9 months later. Ernest Hemingway, one of his sparring
partners in Paris, purchased the painting in 1925. In 1987 the
Hemingway family donated the painting to the National Gallery of Art.
(WSJ, 12/13/08, p.W8)
1923 Aug 10, Joaquin Sorolla y
Bastida (b.1863), Spanish impressionist painter, died in Cercedilla.
His work included “A View of Malaga.”
(WSJ, 10/29/04, p.A15)(www.britannica.com)
1923 Manuel de Falla composed
"Master Peter’s Puppet Show," (El Retablo de Maese Pedro). It was
intended as a puppet theater forged with the poet, Federico Garcia
Lorca.
(SFC, 8/25/97, p.E1)
1924 Nov 1, Victoria de los
Angeles, soprano (Mimi-La Boheme), was born in Spain.
(MC, 11/1/01)
1925 Jun 22, France and Spain
agreed to join forces against Abd el Krim in Morocco.
(HN, 6/22/98)
1925 Jose Ortega y Gasset authored
"The Dehumanization of Art," in which he pointed to the "grave
dissociation of past and present."
(WSJ, 1/28/02, p.A13)
1926 Jun 17, Spain threatened to
quit the League of Nations if Germany was allowed to join.
(HN, 6/17/98)
1926 Aug 7, The United States
declared non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War.
(HN, 8/7/98)
1926 The Marques de la Vega
Inclan, the Royal Commissioner for Tourism under Alfonso III, began to
promote hotels in remote places to boost local economies. The
"Paradores" were to be built by the government. The first one opened in
1928 in the mountains of Gredos.
(SFEM, 12/12/98, p.10)
1926 Antoni Gaudi, eccentric
architect, died. His work included the Sagrada Familia Church with its
Torre del Nacimento (Tower of Birth) in Barcelona.
(WSJ, 7/21/00, p.W12)
1927 Mar 22, Federico Garcia
Lorca's "El Maleficio," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 3/22/02)
1929 Jul, Gala, wife of poet Paul
Eluard, met Salvadore Dali (25) in Cadaques, Spain. She believed he was
a genius on the verge of madness and decided to help him get a grip on
reality while he unleashed his visions on canvas.
(SFEM, 1/25/98, p.30)
1930 Nov 15, Madrid was paralyzed
by general strikes and riots.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1930 Dec 12, Revolution began in
Spain as rebels took a border town.
(HN, 12/12/98)
1930 Dec 16, A general strike was
called in support of the revolution.
(HN, 12/16/98)
1930 Dec 20, Thousands of
Spaniards signed a revolutionary manifesto.
(HN, 12/20/98)
1931 Apr 12, Spanish voters
rejected the monarchy.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1931 Apr 14, In Spain a Republic
was declared. King Alfonso XIII of Spain was overthrown and went into
exile, and the Second Spanish Republic was proclaimed.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)(HN, 4/14/98)(AP, 4/14/08)
1931 Jun 13, Santiago Rusinol
(b.1861), Spanish Catalan post-impressionist painter, author, and
playwright., died.
(http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0750803/)
1931 Aug 2, Spanish Catalonia
agreed by over 99% for autonomous status.
(MC, 8/2/02)
1931 Oct 1, Spain established
general female suffrage.
(MC, 10/1/01)
1931 Nov 29, The Spanish
government seized large estates for land redistribution.
(HN, 11/29/98)
1931 Dec 9, Spain became a
republic.
(MC, 12/9/01)
1932 Jan 22, Government troops
crushed a Communist uprising in Northern Spain.
(HN, 1/22/99)
1932 The town of Bunol banned
bullfighting. An annual Tomatina festival later took its place where
participants pelt each other with tomatoes. [see 1944-45]
(SFC, 8/29/96, p.A12)
1933 Jan 12, An uprising of
Guardia Civil in Spain left 25 dead.
(MC, 1/12/02)
1933 Apr 12, Montserrat Caballe,
soprano (Mimi-La Boheme), was born in Barcelona, Spain.
(MC, 4/12/02)
1933 May 9, Spanish anarchists
called for a general strike.
(MC, 5/9/02)
1933 Jun 3, Pope Pius XI
encyclical "On oppression of the Church in Spain."
(MC, 6/3/02)
1933 Sep 15, Rafael Fruhbeck de
Burgos, conductor, was born in Burgos, Spain.
(http://wkar.org/90.5/page.php?content=history)
1933 Nov 5, Spanish Basques voted
for autonomy.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1933 A revolutionary uprising was
staged by anarchists at Casas Viejas and was drowned in blood by
Spanish authorities. In 1968 Jerome Mintz (d.1997 at 67), US
anthropologist, published "The Anarchists of Casa Viejas," an account
and oral history of the 1933 Spanish uprising.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A21)
1934 Dec 29, Federico Garcia
Lorca's "Yerma," premiered in Madrid.
(MC, 12/29/01)
1934 Spain annexed the interior
area of Western Sahara.
(SFC, 11/27/00, p.A12)
1935 Oct 20, 400,000 demonstrated
against fascism in Madrid.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1936 Feb 16, Spanish Frente
Popular (People's Front) won elections.
(MC, 2/16/02)
1936 May 4, El Cordobes (Manuel
Benitez), Spanish matador, was born.
(MC, 5/4/02)
1936 Jul 17, Gen. Francisco Franco
was flown from the Canary Islands, where he served as military
governor, to Spanish Morocco where he led a rebellion against the
elected Popular Front. This began the Spanish civil war. The first word
of the rebellion was reported by Lester Ziffren (1906-2007) of the
United Press. The rebel Nationalist movement under Francisco Franco
gained support from the fascist regimes in Italy and Germany in
opposition.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)(SFC, 7/13/01, WBb p.3)(WSJ,
11/24/07, p.A8)
1936 Aug 3, The US State
Department urged Americans in Spain to leave because of that country's
civil war.
(AP, 8/3/97)
1936 Aug 16, Spanish poet Garcia
Lorca was arrested in Granada. He disappeared shortly thereafter. The
1997 film "The Disappearance of Garcia Lorca" was an attempt to depict
the circumstances of his disappearance. Lorca was the author of "Gypsy
Ballads," "Blood Wedding" and "The Poet." Spanish poet Fredico Garcia
Lorca was shot by Franco's troops after being forced to dig his own
grave.
(LVRJ, 11/1/97, p.12B)(HN, 8/19/98)(MT, Spg. ‘99,
p.2)
1936 Aug 18, Federico Garcia Lorca
was shot and killed by a Francoist squad on the outskirts of Grenada
and buried in an unmarked grave along with 3 other prisoners. His
dramatic works included "Blood Wedding," "Yerma," Dona Rosita the
Spinster," and "The House of Bernarda Alba." In 1998 the biography
"Lorca: A Dream of Life" by Leslie Stainton was published in London.
(MT, Spg. ‘99, p.3)
1936 Sep 21, The Spanish fascist
junta named Franco generalissimo, supreme commander. [see Oct 1]
(MC, 9/21/01)
1936 Sep 27, Franco troops
conquered Toledo.
(MC, 9/27/01)
1936 Sep, Robert Capa's photograph
of a falling Spanish Civil War militiaman was first published by French
magazine Vu, and later in Life magazine. The caption on the legendary
photojournalist's "Falling Militiaman" said it depicted the moment a
Republican rifleman was mortally wounded. In 2009 Spanish researchers
who studied events surrounding the picture believed it may have been
staged.
(AP, 7/23/09)
1936 Oct 1, General Francisco
Franco was proclaimed the head of an insurgent Spanish state. [see Sep
21]
(AP, 10/1/97)
1936 Nov 7, Battle of Madrid began.
(MC, 11/7/01)
1936 Nov 16, German Luftwaffe
began bombing Madrid.
(MC, 11/16/01)
1936 Nov 23, U.S. abandoned the
American embassy in Madrid, Spain, which was engulfed by civil war.
(HN, 11/23/98)
1936 The Gypsy Jimenez Malla was
killed by Republican forces in Barbastro when he defended a priest and
refused to renounce his faith. In 1997 he was beatified by Pope John
Paul II.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A8)
1936 Some 700 Soviet advisors were
sent to Spain in an attempt to run and control the economy, government
and armed forces. By the end of the civil war most were killed by
Stalin’s purges.
(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1936-1939 The Spanish Civil War has been commonly
referred to as "a rehearsal for World War II" by historians because of
the intervention by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the Soviet Union,
and their use of the war to test new weapons and military techniques.
The Spanish Civil War was fought between the liberal Second Spanish
Republic government and right-wing rebel forces, including the fascist
Falangists, monarchists and Nationalists. The rebels had the support of
the Roman Catholic Church, in addition to Germany and Italy. The
Government supporters, called Loyalists, had the support of communists,
socialists, anarchists, the Soviet Union and volunteers from around the
world who formed the International Brigades. Between 400,000 and 1
million were killed in the war, ultimately won by the rebels. In 2008
Paul Preston authored “We Saw Spain Die: Foreign correspondents in the
Spanish Civil War.”
(HNQ, 9//00)(Econ, 10/18/08, p.97)
1936-1939 The International Brigades of about 40,000
volunteers went to Spain to fight fascism [in the Spanish Civil War]
and restore the legal government overturned by Franco. Of these the
American Abe Lincoln Brigade had about 2,800 volunteers of whom more
than half died. Some 500,000 to 1 million people died in the war.
Veterans of the Brigades later published the "Volunteer."
(SFC, 6/3/96, p.E2)(WSJ, 8/27/96, p.A12)(SFC,
11/12/96, p.A12)(SFC, 12/23/98, p.C5)
1936-1939 The Soviets brought to Spain both Russian
commanders and the NKVD to suppress Trotskyists and anarchists who were
fighting the volunteers. In 1998 William Herrick (83) published his
memoir "Jumping the Line." Included in the work is his story of the
time he spent with the Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War
(1936-1939). The events were fictionalized in his 1969 novel
"Hermanos." In 2001 the Soviet Union’s role was documented in "Spain
Betrayed" edited by Ronald Radosh, Mary R. Habeck and Grigory
Sevostianov.
(WSJ, 4/30/98, p.A17)(WSJ, 7/11/01, p.A15)
1936-1939 The term "fifth column" was first applied
during the Spanish Civil War of 1936-'39. As the forces of General
Francisco Franco laid siege to Madrid, General Emilio Mola referred to
a "fifth column" that would sabotage the city's defenses and help his
forces, which were marching in four columns, take the city. Thereafter,
the term has been used to refer to a clandestine, subversive force at
work within a country to further the military and political aims of an
enemy.
(HNQ, 8/17/98)
1937 Jan 6, The U.S. banned the
shipment of arms to war-torn Spain.
(HN, 1/6/99)
1937 Mar 20, A Franco offensive
took place at Guadalajara, Spain.
(MC, 3/20/02)
1937 Apr 26, German planes from
the Condor Legion--sent to Spain by Adolf Hitler to help fascist
General Francisco Franco overthrow the communist Popular Front regime--
attacked the Basque town of Guernica in Spain. Bombs fell for
three hours and escaping villagers were shot down by machine-gun
fire from the air. The attack killed as many as 1,600-1,650 Basque
civilians and injured 900. Although the alleged target was a bridge of
military significance some distance from the town, dazed survivors
described a merciless four-hour bombing and strafing attack by German
pilots directed toward the village and its inhabitants. The Guernica
atrocity became synonymous with the horror of modern warfare and
inspired one of the 20th century's greatest works of art, Guernica, by
Spanish artist Pablo Picasso.
(440 Int’l., 4/26/97, p.2)(WSJ, 4/28/97, p.A1)(AP,
4/26/98)(HNPD, 4/26/99)
1937 Apr 27, German bombers of the
Condor Legion conducted follow up raids at Guernica, Spain. [see Apr 26]
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombing_of_Guernica)
1937 May 31, German battleships
shelled Almeria, Spain.
(MC, 5/31/02)
1937 Jun 19, The town of Bilbao,
Spain, fell to the Nationalist forces.
(HN, 6/19/98)
1937 Jul 1, Spanish bishops
supported Franco & fascists.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1937 Jul 5, There was a Republican
offensive by Brunete in Spain.
(MC, 7/5/02)
1937 Aug 6, Franco's artillery
opened fire on Madrid.
(MC, 8/6/02)
1937 Aug 24, There was a
Republican offensive near Belchite, Spain.
(MC, 8/24/02)
1937 Oct 31, Spanish government
moved from Valencia to Barcelona.
(MC, 10/31/01)
1937 Nov 28, Franco blockaded the
Spanish coast.
(HN, 11/28/98)
1937 Dec 1, Japan recognized
Spain’s Franco govt.
(MC, 12/1/01)
1937 Pablo Picasso painted the
black-and-white "Guernica" mural for the 1937 International Exposition
in Paris. The Republican government commissioned the mural painting as
part of the Spanish pavilion at the 1937 World’s Fair in Paris. Picasso
managed to complete the huge work (11.5 by 25.5 feet) in just over
three weeks, with the assistance of Dora Maar. Picasso never returned
to his native Spain (he had last been there in 1934). Before his death
in 1973, he directed that "Guernica" not be returned to Spain until the
restoration of democracy there. Francisco Franco, leader of the
Nationalist forces that overthrew the Republican government in the
Spanish Civil War, remained the head of the Spanish government until
1973, dying in 1975. Economic initiatives and other reforms begun in
the 1960s helped transform Spain into a democratic constitutional
monarchy in the three years following his death. The painting
"Guernica" was returned from New York City in 1981 and is now on
exhibit, along with other 19th and 20th century works, at the Buen
Retiro Palace in Madrid.
(SFC, 4/26/00, p.C5)
1937 A Hungarian brigade joined
the Spanish civil war to fight the fascists.
(MT, Fall. ‘97, p.4)
1938 Jan 5, Juan Carlos I, King of
Spain, was born.
(HN, 1/5/99)
1938 Jan 12, Austria recognized
the Franco government in Spain.
(HN, 1/12/99)
1938 Feb 27, Britain and France
recognized the Franco government in Spain.
(MC, 2/27/02)
1938 Apr 19, General Francisco
Franco declared victory in the Spanish Civil War. [see 1939]
(HN, 4/19/97)
1938 May 3, Vatican recognized
Franco's Catholic and fascist Spain.
(MC, 5/3/02)
1938 Oct 28, There was a farewell
parade of International Brigade in Barcelona, Spain.
(MC, 10/28/01)
1938 Nov 15, Farewell Parade of
International Brigades in Barcelona.
(MC, 11/15/01)
1938 Juan Miro, Spanish painter,
completed a set of 8 etchings titled the "Black and Red Series."
(SFEC, 1/10/99, p.T3)
1938 The Spanish Loyalist defense
at the battle of the Ebro was photographed by Robert Capa.
(SFEM, 1/12/97, BR p.9)
1939 Jan 26, Franco conquered
Barcelona.
(MC, 1/26/02)
1939 Feb 6, Spanish government
fled to France.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1939 Feb 11, The Negrin government
returned to Madrid, Spain.
(HN, 2/11/97)
1939 Feb 28, Great Britain
recognized the Franco regime in Spain. [see Feb 27, 1938]
(MC, 2/28/02)
1939 Mar 6, Jose Miaja took over
the Madrid government after a military coup and vowed to seek "peace
with honor."
(HN, 3/6/98)
1939 Mar 28, The Spanish Civil War
ended as Madrid fell to Francisco Franco. He emerged victorious and
became head of Fascist Spain ending the Spanish Civil War. France
executed more than 100,000 people who had opposed him. In 1982 Dan
Richardson wrote "Comintern Army," a historical work on the Spanish
Civil War. "The Historical Dictionary of the Spanish Civil War" was
published in 1982. In 1991 Burnett Bolloten wrote "The Spanish Civil
War." In 2006 Antony Beevor authored “The Battle for Spain: The Spanish
Civil War 1936-1936.” This was an update of his 1982 account.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)(AP, 3/28/97)(HN,
3/28/98)(WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A22)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.97)
1939 Apr 1, The United States
recognized the Franco government in Spain following the end of the
Spanish civil war. A Spanish official later said that without American
petroleum and American trucks and American credit we could never have
won the civil war.
(AP, 4/1/98)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.97)
1941 Jan 21, Placido Domingo,
opera tenor (Pinkerton-Mme Butterfly), was born in Madrid, Spain.
(MC, 1/21/02)
1942 Camilo Jose Cela (d.2002),
Spanish author, published "The Family of Pascual Duarte" in Argentina
because it was considered too violent and crude for Spain. Cela won the
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1989. Cela’s style was called
"tremendismo" and clashed with the lyrical writing of previous Spanish
writers.
(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A23)
1943 Sep 23, Julio Iglesias De la
Cueva, Spanish singer (To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before…), was born
in Madrid.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julio_Iglesias)
1943 Gonzalo Torrente Ballester
(d.1998 at 88) published his first novel "Javier Marino." He went on to
publish over 30 novels that included "La Saga/Fuga de J.B" (The
Legend/Flight of J.B), "Los Gozos y Las Sombras" (The Delights and the
Shadows).
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E2)
1944 Jan 16, In Leon Province,
Spain, train wrecks in the Torro Tunnel killed more than 500 people.
(AP, 2/18/04)(SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)
1944-1945 Bunol, Spain, 25 miles west of Valencia. La
Tomatina, the tomato throwing festival, began when some boys tossed
tomatoes during a procession in honor of the patron saint, San Luis
Bertran. The festival grew even though banned a few times in the 50's
to the purchase of $18,400 worth of tomatoes by the town government
from the Spanish province of Extremadura, 500 miles away. [see 1932]
(WSJ, 8/31/95, p.A-1)
1945 Carmen Laforet (23), Spanish
writer, authored her first novel “Nada” (Nothing). It was set in Spain
during the 1930s and conveyed the crushing weight of war through its
characters. An English translation became available in 2007.
(SFC, 3/2/07, p.E7)
1946 Nov 14, Manuel de Falla (69),
Spanish composer (Vita Breve, Atl ntida), died.
(MC, 11/14/01)
1946 Dec 5, Jose Carreras, opera
tenor (I Lombardi, Werther, Three Tenors), was born in Barcelona, Spain.
(MC, 12/5/01)
1946 Dec 11, Spain was suspended
from the UN.
(MC, 12/11/01)
1947 Jul 9, Spain voted for Franco.
(MC, 7/9/02)
1947 Aug 18, Naval torpedo and
mine factory exploded at Cadiz, Spain, killing 300.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1947 Aug 28, Legendary bullfighter
Manolete was mortally wounded by a bull during a fight in Linares,
Spain; he died the following day at age 30.
(AP, 8/28/97)
1950 Nov 10, Spanish dictator
Generalissimo Francisco Franco ended war in Gibraltar.
(MC, 11/10/01)
1950 Dec 27, U.S. and Spain
resumed relations.
(HN, 12/27/98)
1950 Gilbert Trigano (d.2000 at
80) of France and Gerard Blitz, a Belgium water polo champion, founded
the 1st Club Med on the Spanish island of Mallorca.
(SFC, 2/5/01, p.A21)
1952 Barnaby Conrad (30) authored
the bestseller "Matador," about the life of Manolete, Spain's greatest
bullfighter.
(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.E3)
1952 Rafael del Pino founded Grupo
Ferrovial S.A., a multinational Spanish company involved in
construction, infrastructure, real estate, and related services.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferrovial)(Econ,
7/7/07, p.67)
1953 Feb 25, Jose Maria Aznar,
later prime minister, was born.
(WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)
1953 Sep 26, US and Spain signed a
defense treaty with 4 US bases to be set in Spain .
(MC, 9/26/01)
1953 Claudio Rodriguez published
the first of his 5 books of poetry: "Don de Ebriedad" (Gift, or Master
of Drunkenness).
(SFC, 7/23/99, p.D6)
1953 Opera lovers in Bilbao
founded the Association Bilbaina de Amigos de la Opera (A.B.A.O.).
(WSJ, 11/23/99, p.A21)
1954 Gen. Franco closed the
Spanish consulate on Gibraltar in a fit of rage over a visit by Queen
Elizabeth II.
(AP, 9/19/06)
1955 Oct 18, Jose Ortega y Gasset,
Spanish philosopher, died at 72.
(MC, 10/18/01)
1956 Nov 6, Holland and Spain
withdrew from Olympics, to protest Soviets in Hungary.
(MC, 11/6/01)
1957 Ramon Rubial (d.1999 at 92),
an anti-Franco socialist, was released from prison and became the
underground leader of the Socialist Party.
(SFC, 5/26/99, p.C8)
1957 In Spain a flood devastated
the Ciutat Vella, the historic district of Valencia. To avoid another
such deluge the government diverted the Turia River and turned the
riverbed into a public green zone.
(SFC, 8/15/07, p.G1)
1958 May 29, Juan Ramón
Jimenez (76), Spanish poet (Nobel 1956), died.
(SC, 5/29/02)
1958 New York papers reported that
San Francisco writer and bon vivant Barnaby Conrad was dying due to a
goring wound received in a Spanish bullfight. Conrad survived and later
opened the Matador nightclub in SF.
(SSFC, 11/16/03, p.E3)
1959 Jul 31, In Spain dissident
student members of the Basque Nationalist Party (PNV), inspired by
Marxist-Leninist teachings, founded ETA, which stands for Euskadi ta
Askatasuna, meaning Basque Fatherland and Liberty in the Basque
language. Its founders focused on Gen. Francisco Franco's suppression
of the Basque language and culture.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ETA)(AP,
7/30/09)(www.cfr.org/publication/9271/)
1960 Aug 10, Antonio Banderas,
actor (Phila, Evita, Mambo Kings, was born in Malaga, Spain.
(MC, 8/10/02)
1960 Nov 13, Fire in movie theater
killed 152 children in Amude, Spain.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1961 Jul 15, Spain accepted equal
rights for men and women.
(MC, 7/15/02)
1961 Jul 18, In Spain ETA’s first
violent action tried to derail a train carrying supporters of dictator
Gen. Francisco Franco.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1961 The film "Viridiana" from
Spain was directed by Luis Bunuel.
(SFEC, 4/13/97, DB p.44)
1962 May 14, Princess Sophia of
Greece wed Don Juan Carlos of Spain.
(MC, 5/14/02)
1963 In Spain Amancio Ortega Gaona
began to trade garments. He later founded Inditex, a holding company of
retail brands, which included Zara. By 2005 Inditex had emerged as one
of the world’s fastest-expanding makers of affordable fashion clothing.
(Econ, 6/18/05, p.57)
1965 Jan 20, Generalissimo
Francisco Franco met with Jewish representatives to discuss
legitimizing Jewish communities in Spain.
(MC, 1/20/02)
1966 Jan 2, The 1st Jewish child
was born in Spain since the 1492 expulsion.
(MC, 1/2/02)
1966 Jan 17, A US Air Force B-52
carrying four unarmed hydrogen bombs crashed on the Spanish coast.
Three of the bombs were quickly recovered, but the fourth wasn't found
until April. Two US Air Force jets collided in the skies over Spanish
coastal village of Palomares. The mid-air crash of the B-52 bomber and
a KC-135 refueling plane killed 8 crew members.
(AP,
1/17/06)(www.commondreams.org/views01/0803-08.htm)
1966 May 27, 6 French fighters
crashed above Spain.
(MC, 5/27/02)
1967 Nov 26, Cloudburst over
Lisbon killed 450.
(MC, 11/26/01)
1968 Mar 3, The embassies of
Greece, Portugal and Spain were bombed in the Hague.
(http://1968ineurope.sneakpeek.de/index.php/chronologies/index/42)
1968 May 5, Spain closed its
frontier with Gibraltar. This Followed a referendum in which
Gibraltar's voters were asked whether they wished to become part of
Spain and voted with a resounding no vote.
(www.thepeoplehistory.com/may5th.html)
1968 Jun 7, In Spain ETA, a Basque
Homeland and Freedom separatist group, shot and killed Civil Guard Jose
Pardines Arcay at a checkpoint. This marked ETA’s 1st killing as it
began fighting for independence. Its political wing was Herri Batasuna.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)(SFC, 7/21/97, p.A10)(AP,
3/22/06)
1968 James Michener (1907-1997),
American author, wrote his travel book "Iberia," a detailed and
illustrated exploration of Spain at it was during the mid 1960s.
(SFC,10/17/97,
p.A17)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_A._Michener)
1969 Jan 4, Spain returned the
Ifni province to Morocco.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ifni)
1969 Jan 23, Gregorio Ordonez,
deputy mayor of San Sebastian, Spain, was assassinated by an ETA
terrorist.
(Econ, 5/17/08,
p.66)(www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/basque/stories/overview.html)
1969 Jun 6, Gen. Franco closed the
Gibraltar border with Spain. It stayed closed for 16 years. This
effectively starved Gibraltar of workers while depriving some 9,000
former workers of much-needed jobs and of a right to claim pensions.
The frontier was not fully reopened until 1985.
(WSJ, 4/8/02, p.A8)(AP,
9/19/06)(http://web.mit.edu/cascon/cases/case_gib.html)
1969 Jun, A block of flats near
Segovia, Spain, collapsed killing 58 people. Developer Jesus Gil y Gil
(1933-2004) was jailed for 5 years for criminal negligence, but was
pardoned after 18 months.
(Econ, 8/23/03,
p.40)(www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/1462047/Jesus-Gil.html)
1969 Jul 22, Dictator
Francisco Franco appointed Prince Juan Carlos de Borbon y Borbon as
official successor to the position of Head of State.
(www.archontology.org/nations/spain/spain_1936s/franco.php)
1969 The International Convention
for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas entered into force. ICCAT,
with headquarters based in Madrid, Spain, was established at a
Conference of Plenipotentiaries, which prepared and adopted the
convention, signed in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 1966.
(Econ, 11/1/08, p.93)(www.iccat.int/en/)
1970 Jul 3, A British Dan-Air
charter, flying a Comet 4 turbojet, crashed near Barcelona and 112 were
killed.
(www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?action=Article&id=834)
1970 Airbus Industrie was formally
set up following an agreement between Aerospatiale (France) and
Deutsche Aerospace (Germany). In 1971 it was joined by CASA (Spain).
The name "Airbus" was taken from a nonproprietary term used by the
airline industry in the 1960s to refer to a commercial aircraft of a
certain size and range, as term was acceptable to the French
linguistically.
(www.absoluteastronomy.com/reference/airbus)
1971 Jun 16, An El Greco sketch,
"The Immaculate Conception," stolen in Spain 35 years earlier, was
recovered in New York City by the FBI.
(www.historynet.com/tdih0616.htm)
1972 Pablo Picasso (1881-1973)
drew his chilling crayon self-portrait as a skull.
(SFC, 6/4/96, p.E5)(SFC, 7/14/96,
p.C11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Picasso)
1973 Apr 8, Pablo Picasso
(b.1881), Spanish artist, died at his home near Mougins, France, at age
91. He left some 50,000 works that included 1,885 paintings, 1,228
sculptures, 2,880 ceramics, 18,095 engravings, 6,112 lithographs, 3,181
linocuts, 7,089 drawings plus 4,669 drawings and sketches in 149
notebooks, 11 tapestries and 8 rugs. Two books of a planned 4-volume
biography were published by John Richardson, who then interrupted the
series in 2000 with "The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Picasso, Provence, and
Douglas Cooper." Picasso’s estate owed so much in death duties that
many of his works fell into government hands. In 2007 John Richardson
authored “A Life of Picasso: The Triumphant Years, 1917-1932.”
(AP, 4/8/97)(SFEC, 1/30/00, BR p.6)(SSFC, 5/20/01,
p.T8)(Econ, 11/17/07, p.99)
1973 Aug 6, Fulgencio Batista y
Zaldivar (b.1901), former dictator Cuba (1940-58), died in Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista)
1973 Oct 22, Spanish cellist,
conductor and composer Pablo Casals died in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico,
at age 96.
(AP, 10/22/98)
1973 Dec 20, ETA killed PM Adm.
Luis Carrero Blanco with a bomb in Madrid.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1973 Salvador Dali (1904-1989),
Spanish artist, painted "Portrait of Alice Cooper's Brain."
(WSJ, 1/26/00,
p.A20)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salvador_Dal%C3%AD)
1974 Sep 12, In its 1st major
attack ETA killed 12 people with a bomb at a Madrid cafe.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1974 The Dali Museum opened in
Figueres.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.T4)
1975 May, Spain moved out of
Spanish Sahara and the native Sahrawi called for independence. Spain
allowed Spanish Sahara (Western Sahara) to go to Morocco and Mauritania.
(www.africaaction.org/docs02/wsah0205.htm)(WSJ,
6/7/00, p.A1)(Econ, 8/28/04, p.76)
1975 Oct 30, Juan Carlos (37)
assumed power in Spain after General Franco, near death, gave him
control.
(http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/30/newsid_2464000/2464945.stm)
1975 Nov 20, After nearly four
decades of absolute rule (1936-1975), Spain's General Francisco Franco
died, two weeks before his 83rd birthday. Juan Carlos, grandson of King
Alfonso, was his designated successor and the monarchy was restored. In
2002 Gabrielle Ashford Hodges authored "Franco: A Concise Biography."
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A17)(AP,
11/20/97)(SSFC, 4/21/02, p.M4)
1975 Nov 22, Juan Carlos was
proclaimed king of Spain.
(AP, 11/22/97)
1975 Spain created the Cervantes
Prize, the Spanish speaking world’s highest literary prize.
(SFC, 11/28/08, p.E10)
1976 Sep 8, Joaquin Zamacois Soler
(b,1894), Spanish composer, died.
(http://ca.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaquim_Zamacois_i_Soler)
1976 Nov 18, Spain's parliament
approved a bill to establish a democracy after 37 years of
dictatorship.
(AP, 11/18/97)
1976 Dec 11, Hungarian art forger
Elmyr de Hory (b.1906) died of a lethal overdose of barbiturates in
Ibiza, Spain. The 1969 book "Fake" by Clifford Irving was about De Hory
and both Irving and de Hory were featured in the 1975 Orson Welles film
"F" for Fake.
(SFC, 7/29/99,
p.E6)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elmyr_de_Hory)
1977 Jun 15, The first general
election in Spain since 1936 resulted in victory for the UCD (Union of
Democratic Centre).
(HN, 6/15/99)
1978 Jul 11, In Spain 216 people
were killed at a camping site when a tanker truck overfilled with
propylene gas exploded on a coastal highway south of Tarragona.
(WUD, 1994, p.1691)(AP, 7/11/97)
1978 Dec 27, King Juan Carlos
ratified Spain's 1st democratic constitution. A parliamentary monarchy
was established with power in the hands of the legislative branch. Many
powers centralized under Franco were devolved to the 17 autonomous
regions.
(www.igsap.map.es/cia/dispo/ce_ingles_index.htm)(Econ, 1/14/06, p.17)
1979 Jun 28, Philippe Cousteau
(b.1940), the youngest son of Jacques Cousteau, was killed while
testing a seaplane near Lisbon.
(SFC, 6/26/97, p.A7)
1979 Pilar Miro (d.1997), film
director, made "The Cuenca Crime," an expose of Civil Guard torture
with graphic violence. It was censored.
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A19)
1980 Mar 31, In Spain the first
session of the Basque parliament was held in Guernica.
(Econ, 3/7/09,
p.60)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basque_Parliament)
1980 Jul 16, Juan Antonio
Samaranch (b.1920) of Spain was elected president of the Int’l. Olympic
Committee (IOC). His reign lasted 21 years.
(www.olympic.org/uk/organisation/ioc/presidents/samaranch_uk.asp)
1980 Aug 29, Louis Darquier de
Pellepoix (real name Louis Darquier), born in Cahors, France, on
December 19, 1897, died near Malaga (Spain). He was commissioner to
Jewish questions under the Vichy Régime from 1942-1944. In 2006
Carmen Callil authored “A Forgotten History of Family, Fatherland and
Vichy, France.”
(SSFC, 9/24/06,
p.M1)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louis_Darquier_de_Pellepoix)
1980 In Spain ETA had its
bloodiest year with 91 victims, nearly half of them civilians.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1981 Feb 23, An attempted coup
began in Spain as 200 members of the Civil Guard and some of the
military invaded the Parliament, taking lawmakers hostage. The attempt,
led by Colonel Antonio Tejero, collapsed 18 hours later. Juan Carlos
spoke to the nation on behalf of democracy and the coup collapsed.
(SFC, 11/12/96, p.A12)(AP, 2/23/98)(Econ, 2/4/06,
p.48)
1981 Sep 10, Pablo Picasso’s
painting Guernica was returned to Spain and installed in Madrid’s Prado
Museum. Picasso had stated in his will that the painting was not to
return to Spain until the Fascists lost power and democracy was
restored.
(HN, 9/10/00)
1981 Adulterated cooking oil
killed 500 [435] people and more than 20,000 [30,000] remained disabled
in 1996. In the original 1989 trial 13 merchants were convicted and
sentenced to prison. They were also ordered to compensate the victims
but declared bankruptcy. Miguel Hernandez Bolanos, director of the
Central Customs Laboratory, was found guilty in 1996 of negligence for
having written a favorable report for the industrial oil sold as
cooking oil. In 1997 Federico Povedano Alonso, a former official in
charge of agricultural imports, was also found guilty. Both men
received 6-year suspended sentences.
(SFC, 5/25/96, p.A11)(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B3)
1982 May 30, Spain became
NATO's 16th member, the first country to enter the Western alliance
since West Germany in 1955.
(AP,
5/30/97)(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1982/index_en.htm)
1982 Oct 28, The Spanish Socialist
Workers’ Party won the elections and Felipe Gonzalez (b.1942) became
prime minister. He served 4 successive mandates and stepped down as
head of the party in 1997.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felipe_Gonz%C3%A1lez)(WSJ, 11/30/95,
p.A-10)
1982 Oct 31, Pope John Paul II
became the 1st pontiff to visit Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_pastoral_visits_of_Pope_John_Paul_II_outside_Italy)
1982 Gala, wife of Salvadore Dali,
died.
(SFEC, 7/16/00, p.T5)
1983 Nov 27, In Spain 181 people
were killed when a Colombian Avianca Airlines Boeing 747 crashed near
Madrid's Barajas airport.
(AP, 11/27/07)
1983 Dec 7, In Madrid, Spain, an
Aviaco DC-9 collided on a runway with an Iberia Air Lines Boeing 727
that was accelerating for takeoff, killing all 42 people aboard the
DC-9 and 51 aboard the Iberia jet.
(AP, 12/7/03)
1983 Dec, Segundo Marey, a French
furniture dealer, was kidnapped from his home in France as a suspected
Basque terrorist. In 1998 former Interior Minister Jose Barrionuevo and
Rafael Vera, former director of state security, were arrested for the
kidnapping and misappropriation of government funds for the crimes
along with Julian Sancristobal, former civil governor of Vizcaya
province.
(SFC, 7/30/98, p.A16)
1983-1987 Spain waged a "dirty war" against Basque
rebels. A former interior minister and 11 others went on trial in 1998
for kidnapping linked to the war in which 27 [28] people were killed.
The killings were attributed to the Anti-Terrorist Liberation Groups
known as GAL.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)(WSJ, 5/26/98, p.A1)(SFC,
6/24/98, p.A12)
1984 Dec, Spain’s Socialist
government permanently shuttered its nuclear facilities.
(WSJ, 5/10/96, p.A-5D)
1985 Feb 19, 150 were killed when
a Spanish jetliner crashed approaching Bilbao, Spain.
(http://tinyurl.com/ylaall)
1985 Mar 24, Thousands
demonstrated in Madrid against the NATO presence in Spain.
(HN, 3/24/98)
1985 Mar 29-1985 Mar 30, A
European Council is held in Brussels, Belgium. It accepts the adhesion
of Spain and Portugal in the European Communities and agrees on the
Integrated Mediterranean Programmes (IMP) as proposed by the Commission.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1985/index_en.htm)
1985 Apr 12, A bombing in Madrid,
Spain, killed 18 and injured 82. Shia Muslim extremists claimed
responsibility.
(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.A11)
1985 Jun 12, Spain and Portugal
signed Accession Treaties to the European Community.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1985/index_en.htm)
1985 Jul 20, Divers found the
wreck of Spanish galleon Atocha.
(MC, 7/20/02)
1985 The Socialist government
approved pensions for 60,000 soldiers or their dependents who supported
the losing Republican side in the Civil War.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A18)
1986 Jul 14, In Spain Jose Ignacio
De Juana Chaos (b.1955), a former police officer who joined one of
ETA's most active commando units, took part in a Madrid car bombing
that killed 12 Civil Guard policemen. 45 people were wounded.
(AP,
8/2/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%C3%B1aki_de_Juana_Chaos)
1986 Spain’s Socialist government
paid $30 million and returned 100 properties to the Socialist-leaning
General Workers Union. In 1997 the union sought an additional $155
million for hundreds of other properties.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A18)
1986 Portugal and Spain entered
the European Union expanding the membership to 12.
(WSJ, 5/23/96, p.A-1)(SFC, 7/18/03, p.D5)(Econ,
6/13/09, SR p.3)
1987 Jan 16, Jose Ignacio De Juana
Chaos (b.1955), a former police officer who joined one of ETA's most
active commando units, was arrested. In 1989 he was convicted of
killing 25 people in a string of attacks, including the Madrid car
bombing that killed 12 Civil Guard policemen on July 14, 1986. In 2008
De Juana Chaos (52) was released from prison after serving 21 years.
(AP,
8/2/08)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I%C3%B1aki_de_Juana_Chaos)
1987 May 13, The Bank of Spain
signed an agreement to join the European Monetary System.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1987/index_en.htm)
1987 Jun 3, Andres Segovia
(b.1893), Spanish classical guitarist, died in Madrid.
(WSJ, 8/7/00,
p.A6)(www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Andr%E9s_Segovia)
1987 Jun 19, In Spain an ETA car
bomb in the parking lot of the Hipercor department store in Barcelona
killed 21 and wounds 45. This was ETA’s bloodiest attack. In 2003 two
top members of the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA were sentenced
to 790 years in prison.
(AP, 3/22/06)(AP, 7/26/03)
1987 Dec 26, A bomb exploded at a
USO bar in Barcelona, Spain, killing one U.S. sailor and injuring nine
others; a little-known group called the Red Army of Catalonian
Liberation claimed responsibility.
(AP, 12/26/97)
1988 The intelligence agency,
CESID, kidnapped 3 street people to test an experimental tranquilizer
they hoped to use on a fugitive Basque separatist leader.
(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A10)
1989 Jan 23, Surrealist artist
Salvador Dali died in his native Spain at age 84. His autobiography was
titled "Secret Life of Salvadore Dali." His work included 2 surrealist
films made with Luis Bunuel: "Un Chien Andalou" and "L'Age d'Or." In
1984 Rafael Santos Torroella (d.2002 at 88), art historian, authored
"La Miel Es Mas Dulce Que La Sangre" (Honey Is Sweeter Than Blood),
considered one of the most important studies of Dali’s art. In 1998
Albert Field (d.2003), Dali expert, published his "Official Catalogue
of the Graphic Works of Salvador Dali." In 1999 Ian Gibson published
"The Shameful Life of Salvador Dali."
(AP, 1/23/99)(WSJ, 1/25/99, p.A16)(SFEC, 7/16/00,
p.T4)(SFC, 10/4/02, p.A26)(SFC, 8/15/03, p.A25)
1989 Jan, In Spain ETA called a
unilateral truce to help ultimately unsuccessful peace talks in Algeria.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1989 Jun 19, The Spanish peseta
entered the European Monetary System (EMS) exchange-rate mechanism; the
composition of the ECU is adjusted following the inclusion of the
Spanish peseta and the Portuguese escudo.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1989/index_en.htm)
1989 Oct 19, Camilo Jose Cela
(d.2002 at 85)) of Spain received the Nobel Prize for literature.
(AP, 10/19/99)(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.A1)
1989 The 300-sq. km. Donana
wetland, the richest in Europe, was declared a national park. The belt
around Donana was managed by the regional government of Andalusia. The
Madrid government managed the park.
(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A13)
1989 Thomas Nord Riley (d.2001 at
87) authored "Nord Riley’s Spain," a collection of columns originally
published in Lookout, an English-language magazine published in Spain.
(SFC, 12/25/01, p.A28)
1989 The Spanish government paid
$350 million for half of the (German-Hungarian) Thyssen-Bornemusza art
collection and provided a substantial gallery to house the collection.
In 2007 David R.L. Litchfield authored “The Thyssen Art Macabre.”
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.88)
1990 Jul 1, The first phase of the
Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) comes into force. Four Member States
(Spain, Portugal, Greece and Ireland) are granted an exceptional regime
given their insufficient progress towards financial integration.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1990/index_en.htm)
1991 Feb 5, Pedro Arrupe (83),
Basque priest and head of the Jesuit order, died.
(www.bc.edu/offices/ministry/justice/arrupe/pedro/)
1991 Jul 28, Miguel Indurain of
Spain won the Tour de France bicycle race.
(SC, 7/28/02)
1991 Oct 30, The Middle East peace
conference in Madrid, Spain, opened with addresses to the delegates by
President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail S. Gorbachev. The
Madrid Two conference was organized by the US.
(SFC, 6/24/96, p.A10)(WSJ, 9/19/01, p.A14)(AP,
10/30/01)
1991 Oct 31, On the second day of
the Middle East peace conference in Madrid, Spain, Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Shamir and Arab delegates clashed bitterly over land
issues.
(AP, 10/31/01)
1991 Nov 1, The 3-day session of
the Middle East peace conference recessed in Madrid, Spain. The
conference led to Israeli deals with Jordan and the Palestinians and
established the principle of land for peace.
(AP,
11/1/01)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madrid_Conference_of_1991)(Econ,
5/24/08, p.68)
1991 Spain’s economics began a
current account reversal.
(Econ, 8/19/06, p.64)
1992 Jul 25, Opening ceremonies
were held in Barcelona, Spain, for the 25th Summer Olympics.
(AP, 7/25/97)
1992 Jul 26, Miguel Indurain of
Spain won cycling's Tour de France for the second year in a row.
(AP, 7/26/97)
1992 Jul 27, At the Barcelona
Olympics, the U.S. women's 400-meter freestyle relay team won the gold
medal.
(AP, 7/28/97)
1992 Aug 7, Jennifer Capriati won
the gold medal in tennis at the Barcelona Olympics, beating Steffi Graf.
(AP, 8/7/02)
1992 Nov 25, Spain ratifies the
Treaty on the European Union.
(http://europa.eu.int/abc/history/1992/index_en.htm)
1992 Dec 3, The Greek tanker
Aegean Sea spilled 21.5 million gallons of crude oil when it ran
aground at La Coruna, Spain.
(AP, 12/3/97)
1992 In Spain the suspension
bridge El Puente de las Oblatas was built over the Arga River.
(SSFC, 6/16/02, p.C7)
1992 Spain signed accords with
Islamic, Jewish and Protestant representatives.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.46)
1992 Leaders of the Basque
Separatist Group (ETA) were captured. The acronym stands for Basque
Homeland and Liberty.
(WSJ, 1/3/96, p.A-6)
1992 Spain opened its first
high-speed rail line, the Alta Velocidad Espanola (AVE), between Madrid
and Seville.
(WSJ, 4/20/09, p.A12)
1992 Eduardo Barreiros (b.1919),
Spanish businessman, died in Havana. He was Spain’s most important
businessman during the middle years of the Franco dictatorship. In 2009
Hugh Thomas authored “Eduardo Barreiros and the Recovery of Spain.”
(Econ, 5/23/09,
p.90)(www.history.ac.uk/ihr/Resources/Books/yale.html)
1993 A national hydrological plan
was proposed by Spain’s Socialist government.
(Econ, 1/10/04, p.45)
1993-1996 Felipe Gonzalez led Spain's socialist
government.
(Econ, 11/22/03, p.49)
1994 Jan 31, Barcelona opera
theater "Gran Teatro del Liceo" burned down.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1994 Mar 9, Fernando Rey (b.1917),
Spanish actor (French Connection), died of cancer.
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0721073/)
1994 Apr 1, Leon Degrelle
(b.1906), Belgium-born founder of the fascist Rexist party, died in
Malaga, Spain. He was a Walloon Belgian politician, who founded Rexism
and later joined the Nazi German Waffen SS (becoming a leader of its
Walloon contingent). After World War II, he was a prominent figure in
the neo-Nazi and Holocaust denial movements.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A9on_Degrelle)
1995 Mar 18, Spain's Princess
Elena married a banker, Jaime de Marichalar y Saenz de Tejada, in
Seville; it was Spain's first royal wedding in 89 years.
(AP, 3/18/00)
1995 Apr 19, In Spain a failed
ETA car-bomb attempted to kill conservative opposition leader and
future Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1995 Nov, The Barcelona Process,
launched by Euro-Mediterranean Foreign Ministers, formed an innovative
alliance based on the principles of joint ownership, dialogue and
co-operation. It brings together the 27 Members of the European Union
and 12 Southern Mediterranean states. Economic incentives and the
strengthening of civil society were used to encourage reform.
(http://ec.europa.eu/external_relations/euromed/index_en.htm)(Econ,
11/26/05, p.68)
1995 Dec11, A car bomb killed six
and injured 15 in southern Madrid. Authorities suspected Basque
separatists.
(WSJ, 12/12/95, p.A-1)
1995 Dec, Foreign Minister Javier
Solana was elected as secretary of NATO.
(WSJ, 12/4/95, p.A-9)
1995 Bilbao on the Nervin River
opened a subway system designed by British architect Norman Foster.
(SFEM, 2/1/98, p.11)
1995 Spain and Morocco agreed to
build a channel tunnel under the Strait of Gibraltar. The plan was for
3 tunnels at a cost of $4 bil.
(WSJ, 6/18/96, p.A10)
1996 Jan 17, In Spain ETA abducted
a prison officer and held him for 532 days.
(AP, 3/22/06)
1996 Mar 4, In Spain the
conservative Popular Party under Jose Maria Aznar won general elections
over PM Felipe Gonzalez and ended 13 years of Socialist rule. The
national government created an Environment Ministry. Previously the
environment was the responsibility of the Public Works Ministry.
(WSJ, 3/4/96, p. A-1)(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A17)
1996 Jun 9, The latest
unemployment rate was 22.5%.
(SFC, 6/9/96, Parade, p.9)
1996 Jun 10, The new center-right
government introduced sweeping economic measures. Taxes were eased on
small and mid-size companies, savings and job creation were encouraged,
the powerful professional guilds were weakened and various markets
liberalized, and double taxation for large foreign companies was
eliminated.
(WSJ, 6/11/96, p.A9A)
1996 Jun 12, Judge Jose Jimenez
Alfaro lost most of his right hand when a letter bomb exploded at his
courthouse in Madrid. He had sent policemen to jail for Spain’s "dirty
war" war on Basque rebels in the 1980s.
(SFC, 6/13/96, p.C3)
1996 Jul 20, The Basque separatist
group ETA set off 3 bombs at tourist sites. One at the airport of Reus,
and 2 at the beach resorts of Cambrils and Salou.
(SFC, 7/21/96, p.A18)
1996 Aug 7, Flash floods in the
Pyranees killed at least 71 people at a campground.
(WSJ, 8/9/96, p.A1)
1996 Oct 6, At the Tokyo Int’l.
film festival a special jury prize went to the Spanish film
"Libertarias" by Vicente Aranda.
(SFEC, 10/7/96, D3)
1996 Spain's Magic Box Int'l.
introduced Crazy Bones to Europe, popcorn-size plastic figures for kids
to use in their own games. They reached the US market in 1997 and by
1999 were a major craze.
(WSJ, 2/4/99, p.B1)
1997 Feb 10, A Supreme Court
Justice, Rafael Martinez Emperador, was shot dead in Madrid. In Grenada
a car bomb exploded and killed one person and wounded 7. Guerrillas of
the ETA, Basque Homeland and Liberty, were blamed.
(USAT, 2/11/97, p.5A)
1997 Feb 17, A Basque court guard,
Modesto Rico Pasarin (33), was killed by a car bomb attributed to the
ETA. He was the 4th victim in a week.
(SFC, 2/18/96, p.A8)
1997 Mar 2, Matadors across the
country went on strike as the bullfighting season opened. They favored
a policy of shaving bull’s horns that was opposed by the government.
(SFEC, 3/3/97, p.A12)
1997 Mar 4, Matadors agreed to go
back to work but the bull horn issue remained unsettled.
(SFC, 3/5/97, p.A9)
1997 Mar 31, A passenger train
north of Pamplona derailed and killed at least 22 and injured some 87
people.
(WSJ, 4/1/97, p.A1)
1997 Apr 19, A Barcelona court
found Jose Puignero, factory owner, guilty of illegally dumping
chemical dyes into a river in the town of Sant Bartomeu del Grau. This
was the first punishment for crimes against the environment ever handed
out.
(SFEC, 4/20/97, p.A17)
1997 Apr 21, The ashes of Timothy
Leary, Gene Roddenberry and 22 others were fired into space aboard a
rocket that carried the first Spanish satellite, MINI-SAT-01, into
orbit.
(SFC, 4/22/97, p.A3)
1997 May 3, Narciso Yepes, Spanish
classical guitarist, died at age 69. His interpretation of Rodrigo’s
"Concert of Aranjuez" was one of his greatest achievements. He designed
a 10-string guitar suited to Baroque music.
(SFC, 5/5/97, p.A20)
1997 May 29, Spanish scientists
announced a new human species in 780,000 year old fossil.
(www.anomalous-images.com/news/news049.html)
1997 May 31, Thousands of olive
oil workers protested in Madrid against the EU plan to force a cut in
olive oil production and to lower subsidies.
(SFEC, 6/1/97, p.D1)
1997 Jun 5, The parliament
approved a labor reform pact to reduce the 22% unemployment.
(SFC, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1997 Jun 20, Former prime minister
Felipe Gonzalez quit as the leader of the Spanish Socialist Party. He
was succeeded by Joaquin Almunia.
(WSJ, 6/23/97, p.A1)
1997 Jul 10, Miguel Angel Blanco
was kidnapped by the ETA.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 12, ETA kidnapped small
town politician Miguel Angel Blanco and demanded that the group's
prisoners be brought to Basque jails. Blanco was found mortally dead
shortly after a deadline. His slaying triggered widespread
demonstrations in Spain.
(AP, 7/12/98)(AP, 3/22/06)
1997 Jul 13, In San Sebastian
Miguel Angel Blanco (29), a Basque town councilor and low-ranking
member of the Popular Party of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar, died of
head wounds from the ETA, Basque Homeland and Freedom, a Basque
separatist group. Almost 800 people have died since the ETA began
fighting in 1968.
(SFEC, 7/13/97, p.A11)
1997 Jul 14, More than 2 million
people took to the streets across Spain to mourn the death of Miguel
Angel Blanco and to condemn the Basque separatist guerrillas who killed
him.
(SFC, 7/15/97, p.A10)
1997 Jul 27, In San Sebastian,
some 30,000 marched in support of the ETA separatist movement.
(SFC, 7/28/97, p.A11)
1997 Oct 4, Princess Christina
Federica de Borbon y Grecia (32) married Inaki Urdangarin (29), a
Basque professional handball team player.
(SFEC, 10/5/97, p.A17)
1997 Oct 14, A separatist
guerrilla group killed a policeman while trying to bomb the new
Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao. Jose Maria Aguirre was killed when he
helped foil the ETA attack. One of three gunmen, Kepa Arronnategui, was
captured.
(SFC,10/16/97, p.A14)(SFC,10/18/97, p.A10)
1997 Oct 19, In Bilbao the new
Guggenheim Museum Bilbao opened. The 256,000 sq. ft. titanium,
limestone and glass structure was designed by American (Canadian-born)
architect Frank Gehry and funded entirely by the Basque regional
government under the direction of Thomas Krens, director of the
Guggenheim.
(WSJ, 7/2/96, p.A12)(USAT, 10/8/97, p.1D)(WSJ,
10/16/97, p.A20)
1997 Oct 19, Pilar Miro, film
director, died in Madrid at age 57. Her films included "Beltenebros,"
"Gary Cooper Is in Heaven," "Bird of Happiness," "The Dog in the
Manger," and the 1979 expose "The Cuenca Crime."
(SFC,10/20/97, p.A19)
1997 Oct, The 23-member leadership
council of Herri Batasuna was arrested for distributing a video that
presented the ETA's terms for peace.
(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A4)
1997 Nov 6, Flooding of the
Guadiana River killed 18 people in Badajoz. A total of 31 died along
the Spanish-Portuguese border from the storm induced flood.
(SFC,11/7/97, p.D3)
1997 Dec 1, Spain’s Supreme Court
convicted 23 leaders of the Herri Batsuna (Unified Country) Basque
separatist coalition. Each was sentenced to 7 years in prison and fined
$3,500. In 1999 the Constitutional Court annulled the sentences and 22
leaders were released.
(SFC, 12/2/97, p.A10)(SFC, 7/21/99, p.A12)
1997 Dec 2, The National Court
found journalists Fernando Alonso and Andoni Murga guilty of weapons
possession and membership in the ETA and sentenced them to 39 years
each in prison.
(SFC, 12/3/97, p.C5)
1997 Dec 5, In San Sebastian a
politician’s bodyguard was shot to death hours before authorities
arrested 19 of 23 leaders of the pro-Basque independence party, Herri
Batasuna. Protestors also commandeered a bus and burned it.
(SFC,12/6/97, p.A8)
1997 Dec 11, Jose Luis Caso, a
former town councilor in Renteria, was killed by two suspected Basque
separatists in Irun.
(SFC,12/12/97, p.B6)
1997 Dec 13, Tens of thousands
marched in San Sebastian to protest the murder of Jose Luis Caso.
(SFEC,12/14/97, p.A24)
1997 Dec 27, In Bilbao thousands
marched on behalf of the 23 Basque separatists of the Herri Batasuna
separatist group, who were recently sentenced to 7 years each in prison.
(SFEC,12/28/97, p.A18)
1997 Dec 30, A Spanish judge
accused 36 Argentine military and police officers of involvement in
torture and the disappearance of 600 Spaniards during the dirty war
from 1976-1983. Most of those named served in the ESMA, a torture
center used by the military regime.
(SFC,12/31/97, p.A9)
1997 Mohamad Kamal Mustafa, imam
of Fuengirola, Spain, authored “Women in Islam,” in which he defended a
husband’s right to beat his wife.
(WPR, 3/04, p.11)
1997 Jerome Mintz (d.1997 at 67),
US anthropologist, published "Carnival, Song and Society: Gossip,
Sexuality and Creativity in Andalusia." He had earlier produced 6 films
about tradition and change in Andalusia.
(SFC,12/20/97, p.A21)
1997 The film "The Disappearance
of Garcia Lorca" was directed by Puerto Rican Marcos Zurinaga. It was
based two books by Ian Gibson that describe the story of a journalist
who returned to Spain in 1954 to seek the murderer of the poet Federico
Garcia Lorca.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.D5)
1997 The documentary film
"Flamenco" was filmed by Vittorio Storaro in an abandoned train station
in Seville.
(SFC, 9/8/97, p.D5)(AP, 9/18/97)
1997 The Spanish film "Mouth to
Mouth" was directed by Peter Cattaneo. It was about an actor struggling
to survive in Madrid while working at a phone-sex service.
(WSJ, 9/16/97, p.A20)
1997 The German film "Ballermann
6" was about a bar by the same name on the Spanish Island of Majorca.
(WSJ, 12/4/97, p.A1)
1997 Luis Antonio Garcia Navarro
(d.2001) was named music and artistic director at the long-closed
Teatro Real in Madrid.
(SFC, 10/18/01, p.A21)
1997 Pernod Ricard SA acquired the
Spanish gin Larios.
(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.B2)
1998 Jan 30, Alberto Jimenz
Becerril, a Popular Party Councilman, and his wife, Asuncion Garcia
Ortiz, were assassinated in Seville.
(SFEC, 2/1/98, p.A12)
1998 Apr 25, A wall of acidic
toxic liquid, 5 million cubic meters, broke free from a Aznalcollar
mine waste lagoon near Seville and threatened the 300-sq. ml. Donana
National Park. The tainted water was diverted to the Guadalquivir River
and then to the Gulf of Cadiz. 13,300 acres of cropland were expected
to be left barren for 25 years due to the spill.
(WSJ, 4/27/98, p.A1)(WSJ, 4/28/98, p.A13)(SFC,
4/29/98, p.A10)
1998 Jun 23, A Boeing 727 with 131
people was hijacked and diverted to Valencia.
(SFC, 6/23/98, p.A11)
1998 Jul 11, It was reported that
tens of thousands of rotting fish were left when a section of the
Llobregat River was drained too fast to fill a repaired canal.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.A8)
1998 Aug 31, Jose Antonio Ardanza,
14-year president of the Basque country, dissolved the regional
parliament and set elections for Oct 25. He urged ETA extremists to lay
down their arms.
(SFC, 9/1/98, p.A9)
1998 Sep 16, The Basque separatist
ETA announced an indefinite cease fire to begin Sep 18. It ended 14
months later after one round of talks with the Aznar government. PM
Jose Maria Aznar responded with a hard-line crackdown that ended
cooperation between Basque moderates and Spanish political parties.
(SFC, 9/17/98, p.C4)(SFC, 5/24/99, p.A1)(AP, 3/22/06)
1998 Oct 8, In northeastern Spain
and excursion boat capsized and sank on Lake Banyoles and 20 French
tourists were drowned.
(WSJ, 10/8/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 17, In Britain former
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet was arrested in a London medical
clinic following a request from Spain for his extradition. Chilean
officials lodged a formal complaint to Britain.
(SFEC, 10/18/98, p.A1)
1998 Oct 19, A Spanish judge filed
a motion for the extradition of Gen’l. Pinochet from England that
encompassed 94 cases of genocide, as well as the deaths of 79 Spaniards
who were killed in Chile after being abducted by an alliance of south
American intelligence services.
(SFC, 10/20/98, p.A8)
1998 Oct 30, Spanish judges ruled
that Spain had the legal right to bring criminal charges against
Augusto Pinochet and to seek his extradition from Britain.
(SFC, 10/31/98, p.A12)
1998 Nov 3, Prime Minister Jose
Aznar authorized preliminary talks with the Basque ETA.
(SFC, 11/4/98, p.A12)
1998 Dec 19, Antonio Ordonez,
bullfighter, died at age 66. His career was chronicled in a Hemingway
novel.
(WSJ, 12/21/98, p.A1)
1998 Dec 30, Joan Brossa, poet,
died in Barcelona at age 79. He published poems in Catalan and founded
a surrealist magazine in 1948 with Antoni Tapies.
(SFC, 1/2/99, p.C2)
1998 Spain deregulated its energy
market.
(AFP, 10/23/06)
1998 Ramon Sampredro, a Spanish
paraplegic who campaigned for euthanasia and spent 30 years in bed,
died by sipping water laced with cyanide. He did this after crafting a
complex scheme to have friends prepare and deliver the poison in
incremental steps so no single one of them could be charged criminally.
The story was made into the movie "El Mar Adentro" (The Sea Inside),
which won an Oscar for best foreign film in 2005.
(AP, 11/29/06)
1999 Jan 1, Spain along with 10
other European Union nations made the transition to the new Euro
monetary system.
(SFC, 1/1/99, p.A8)
1999 Mar 10, Nine Basque
separatists were arrested.
(WSJ, 3/11/99, p.A1)
1999 Mar 20, Some 60,000 people
marched in Bilbao to protest recent arrests of members and supporters
of the ETA.
(SFEC, 3/21/99, p.A23)
1999 Jun 14, Dolores Jimenez, a
leading flamenco singer known as La Nina de la Puebla, died at age 90
in Malaga.
(SFC, 6/16/99, p.B4)
1999 Jul 6, Joaquin Rodrigo,
classical composer, died at age 97 in Madrid. His best known work was
"Concierto de Aranjuez."
(SFC, 7/8/99, p.A19)
1999 Jul 22, Claudio Rodriguez,
poet, died at age 65.
(SFC, 7/23/99, p.D6)
1999 Oct 7, In Barcelona the Gran
Teatre del Liceu opera house opened after a 3-year, $120 million
renovation due to a 1994 fire.
(SFC, 10/8/99, p.C10)
1999 Nov 28, The Basque ETA
announced that it would end a 14-month cease-fire due to inaction over
their call for independence.
(SFC, 11/29/99, p.A12)
1999 Dec 22, Police found a 2nd
van loaded with 1,650 pounds of explosives in Alhama de Aragon. Two
days earlier a van, bound for Madrid, was stopped with 1,980 pounds of
explosives.
(SFC, 12/24/99, p.A20)
1999 Mark Kurlansky authored "The
Basque History of the World."
(SFEC, 10/17/99, Par p.20)
1999 The Spanish film "Barrio" was
written and directed by Fernando Leon de Aranoa.
(SFEC, 4/11/99, DB p.37)
1999 The Spanish film "Open Your
Eyes" was directed by Alejandro Amenabar.
(WSJ, 4/16/99, p.W1)
1999 In Bilbao the Euskalduna
Palace of Congresses and Music was completed with the design by
Federico Soriano and Dolores Palacios.
(WSJ, 11/23/99, p.A21)
1999 Parliament approved an
amnesty for illegal immigrants and authorized visas for those able to
prove that they had arrived before July 1, 1999.
(SFC, 8/11/00, p.D4)
1999 Spain’s Ferrovial, led by
Rafael del Pino, went public.
(Econ, 7/7/07, p.67)
2000 Jan 21, In Madrid Basque
separatists ended a 19-month lull in their guerrilla war with a remote
bomb that killed Lt. Col. Pedro Antonio Blanco Garcia (48).
(SFC, 1/22/00, p.A10)
2000 Jan 23, Some 1.1 million
people marched in Madrid to protest the recent car-bomb attack by
Basque separatists.
(SFC, 1/24/00, p.A6)
2000 Feb 22, A car bomb killed
Fernando Buesa, a Socialist Party leader in Vitoria, and his bodyguard
Jorge Diez Elorza (27).
(SFC, 2/23/00, p.A14)
2000 Mar 12, The conservative
Popular Party under Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar won the general
election with 44.7% of the vote. The party won 183 of the 350 seats in
Congress of Deputies.
(SFC, 3/13/00, p.A10)
2000 Mar, EU leaders met in
Lisbon, Spain, and agreed to turn Europe into the world’s most
competitive economy by 2010. this became known as the Lisbon Agenda.
(Econ, 3/19/05, p.15)(Econ, 3/25/06, p.58)
2000 May 7, Jose Luis Lopez de La
Calle, a columnist for El Mundo, was shot and killed in Andoain. The
ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 5/8/00, p.A13)
2000 Jul 6, A bus enroute to a
summer camp for teens collided with a truck hauling pigs near Soria and
at least 25 people were killed.
(SFC, 7/7/00, p.D6)
2000 Jul 10, DASA (minus MTU)
merged with Aerospatiale-Matra of France and Construcciones
Aeronáuticas SA (CASA) of Spain to form the European Aeronautic
Defence and Space Company (EADS). DASA was founded as Deutsche
Aerospace AG on May 19, 1989 by the merger of Daimler-Benz's aerospace
interests (MTU, Dornier and two divisions of AEG). In July 1989 the two
AEG divisions were themselves merged within Deutsche Aerospace to form
Telefunken Systemtechnik (TST). In December 1989 Daimler-Benz acquired
Messerschmitt-Bölkow-Blohm (MBB) and merged it into DASA.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DASA)
2000 Jul 12, A car bomb exploded
at the entrance of the Corte Ingles department store in Madrid. 10
people were injured.
(SFC, 7/13/00, p.C4)
2000 Jul 18, Jose Angel Valente,
poet, died at age 71. He wrote in Spanish and Galician and published
his 1st poems in 1947.
(SFC, 7/19/00, p.B2)
2000 Jul 25, A 100-foot-high
gusher burst forth in the city of Granatula in central Spain as olive
growers were deepening a well.
(SFC, 9/9/00, p.A22)
2000 Jul 29, A Socialist
politician was killed and Basque separatists were blamed.
(WSJ, 7/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Aug 7, A bomb exploded in
Bilbao and killed 3 suspected Basque separatists, who appeared to be
transporting explosives.
(SFC, 8/8/00, p.A12)
2000 Aug 8, A car bomb exploded in
Madrid, where 11 people were injured and in Zumaia where 1 man was
killed. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 8/9/00, p.A14)
2000 Aug 9, Francisco Casanova
Vicente, army officer, was shot twice in the back as he arrived home in
Pamplona. The murder was blamed on the ETA.
(SFC, 8/10/00, p.A11)
2000 Aug 20, A bomb killed 2
Spanish Civil Guard officers in Sallent de Gallego. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 8/21/00, p.A8)
2000 Aug 29, Manuel Indiano (29),
a councilman in Zumarraga, was shot and killed outside his candy store.
The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 8/30/00, p.B10)
2000 Sep 13, Masked police raided
the EKIN offices, the fund-raising wing of the ETA. 20 people were
arrested.
(SFC, 9/14/00, p.C5)
2000 Sep 14, Ramon Rekalde, a
former Socialist Party official, was wounded with a shot in the head in
San Sebastian. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 9/15/00, p.D2)
2000 Sep 15, Truckers across
Europe blocked highways to protest high fuel costs. Protests hit Spain,
Germany, Ireland, Poland and the Czech Republic.
(SFC, 9/16/00, p.A10)
2000 Sep 21, Jose Luis Ruiz Casado
(42), a town councilor, was shot and killed in Sant Adria de Besos
outside of Barcelona. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 9/22/00, p.D2)
2000 Oct 9, Luis Portero, a head
state attorney for the Andalusian Superior Court, was shot to death in
Granada. The ETA was suspected.
(SFC, 10/10/00, p.A13)
2000 Oct 16, Col. Antonio Munoz
Carinanos (58), a military doctor, was killed in Seville by 3 suspected
Basque gunmen. 2 suspects were arrested.
(WSJ, 10/17/00, p.A1)(SFC, 10/18/00, p.A26)
2000 Oct 22, Maximo Casada Carrera
(44), a prison officer, was killed by a car bomb in Vitoria. The ETA
was blamed.
(SFC, 10/23/00, p.A11)
2000 Oct 30, In Madrid a car bomb
killed Supreme Court magistrate Jose Francisco Querol (69), his driver
and an escort. 35 were wounded and the ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 10/31/00, p.A12)(WSJ, 10/31/00, p.A1)
2000 Nov 21, Ernest Lluch (63), a
former government minister, was killed by suspected ETA gunmen in a
Barcelona suburb.
(SFC, 11/22/00, p.C6)
2000 Nov 22, The government
reported its 1st case of mad cow disease.
(SFC, 11/23/00, p.D6)
2001 Jan 1, A weekend storm killed
7 people, including 5 in the Pyranees.
(SFC, 1/2/01, p.A10)
2001 Jan 3, A commuter train hit a
van near Lorca and 12 Ecuadoran farm workers were killed.
(WSJ, 1/04/01, p.A1)
2001 Feb 4, A crowd of 10-40
thousand marched in Barcelona to protest a tough new against illegal
immigrants.
(SFC, 2/5/01, p.A8)
2001 Feb 22, Two people were
killed when suspected Basque separatists bombed a train station in San
Sebastian. Separately French police arrested the alleged ETA military
chief.
(WSJ, 2/23/01, p.A1)
2001 Mar 11, Over 100,000 people
protested in Madrid against a $23 billion plan to divert water from the
Ebro river to areas in the south.
(SFC, 3/12/01, p.A14)
2001 Mar 17, Santos Santamaria
Avedano (32), a police officer, was killed when a car bomb went off as
he evacuated guests from a hotel in Roses.
(SFC, 3/19/01, p.A9)
2001 Mar 20, Froilan Elespe,
Socialist deputy mayor of Lasarte, was shot and killed. The ETA was
blamed.
(SFC, 3/21/01, p.A14)
2001 May 6, Manuel Jimenez Abad
(52), a politician of the ruling Popular Party, was shot to death in
Zaragoza.
(SFC, 5/7/01, p.C3)
2001 May 13, Basque elections were
held in Spain. Nationalists won the regional elections.
(WSJ, 5/11/01, p.A1)(SFC, 5/14/01, p.A9)
2001 May 24, In San Sebastian
Santiago Oleaga Elejabarrieta (54), financial director of the El Diario
Vasco daily newspaper, was shot and killed. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 5/25/01, p.D6)
2001 Jun 10, In Spain thousands
marched in Madrid to protest an upcoming visit by Pres. Bush.
(SFC, 6/11/01, p.A10)
2001 Jun 12, Pres. Bush on his 1st
major overseas trip met with Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in Madrid
and pushed for his missile defense shield.
(SFC, 6/11/01, p.A10)(SFC, 6/13/01, p.A1)
2001 Jun 28, A parcel bomb in
Madrid injured Gen. Justo Oreja Pedraza (63), a defense minister, along
with 15 others. The ETA was blamed.
(SFC, 6/29/01, p.D4)
2001 Jul 10, In Madrid a policeman
was killed by a bomb. Basque rebels were blamed.
(WSJ, 7/12/01, p.A1)
2001 Jul 14, In Spain gunmen shot
and killed a police officer, Mikel Uribe (44), in Leaburu and a bomb
killed a local politician, Jose Javier Mugica (50), in Leiza. The ETA
was blamed.
(SSFC, 7/15/01, p.A18)
2001 Aug 18, A Basque rebel car
bomb exploded outside 2 resort hotels in Salou.
(WSJ, 8/20/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 27, A Basque bomb went
off in the parking structure of Madrid’s main airport. There were no
injuries due to a phoned in tip.
(WSJ, 8/28/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 29, A Binter Mediterraneo
CN-235 airplane crash-landed near Malaga’s airport and at least 3 of 47
people aboard were killed.
(WSJ, 8/30/01, p.A1)
2001 Sep 26, Spain detained 6
Algerians with alleged links to Osama bin Laden and a group planning
attacks on US targets in Europe.
(SFC, 9/27/01, p.A3)
2001 Oct 1, In Spain suspected
Basque militants exploded a car bomb in Vitoria that caused much damage
to the city center.
(WSJ, 10/2/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 4, The EU made a joint
announcement with Spain that the Basque ETA would be put on the list of
terrorist organizations whose assets would be frozen by the EU.
(WSJ, 10/5/01, p.A1)
2001 Oct 12, A bombing caused wide
damage in Madrid. Basque separatists were suspected.
(WSJ, 10/15/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 6, In Madrid a rush hour
car bomb blast injured 95 people. The ETA was suspected and a man and
woman were arrested.
(SFC, 11/7/01, p.A13)
2001 Nov 7, Judge Jose Maria Lidon
Corbi was shot to death as he drove out of his garage in Gexto, a
suburb of Bilbao. The ETA was held responsible.
(SFC, 11/8/01, p.A19)
2001 Nov 13, Spanish police
arrested 11 people with suspected links to Osama bin Laden.
(SFC, 11/14/01, p.A6)
2001 Nov 18, In Spain 8 men
detained last week were reported to be members of the al Qaeda network
and to have played a role in the Sep 11 attacks.
(SFC, 11/19/01, p.A5)
2001 Nov 23, Spain set terms for
extradition of 8 men charged with complicity in the Sep 11 attacks that
included trial by a civilian court. 2 policemen were killed in Beasain.
(SFC, 11/24/01, p.A1)(WSJ, 11/26/01, p.A1)
2001 Carlos Ruiz Zafon authored
“The Shadow of the Wind.” It became a best seller in Spain and in 2004
was translated into English by Lucia Graves.
(Econ, 4/3/04, p.87)
2002 Jan 17, Camilo Jose Cela
(85), novelist and 1989 Noble Prize winner, died in Madrid.
(WSJ, 1/18/02, p.A1)
2002 Jan 19, Spain arrested 2
suspected members of al Qaeda.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A4)
2002 Feb, Bruge 2002 opened. It
had been named as one of two Cultural Capitals of Europe for this year.
The other was Salamanca, Spain.
(SSFC, 2/24/02, p.C5)
2002 Mar 18, Police discovered at
least 19 corpses at the home and car of an ex-funeral parlor employee
in Malaga.
(SFC, 3/20/02, p.A10)
2002 Mar 21, A local Spanish
official was shot to death by gunmen in the Basque region. Police
suspected the ETA.
(WSJ, 3/22/02, p.A1)
2002 Apr 23, Spanish police
arrested Mohamed Zouaydi on charges of financing terrorist activities
around the world.
(SFC, 4/25/02, p.A9)
2002 May 1, In Madrid a bomb
exploded near a sports stadium and 17 people were injured.
(SFC, 5/2/02, p.A11)
2002 May 14, Police arrested 2
suspected ETA members who planned to bomb an upcoming meeting of Latin
American and European leaders.
(SFC, 5/16/02, p.A8)
2002 Jun 5, Carlos Berlanga (42),
pop singer and composer, died. He was associated with the La Movida
(The Happening) arts movement that surfaced after Franco’s death in
1975.
(SFC, 6/11/02, p.A22)
2002 Jun 15, In Spain tens of
thousands of people marched through Bilbao protesting the government’s
intention to outlaw a political party that refuses to condemn terrorism
in the name of independence.
(AP, 6/15/02)
2002 Jun 21, Two car bombs
exploded at Spanish coastal resort as a European Union summit got under
way about 90 miles away at a heavily guarded convention center in
Seville.
(AP, 6/21/02)
2002 Jun 22, In Spain it was
reported that police had found 10 of 17 artworks stolen last year from
the collection of a Spanish billionaire, including paintings by Goya,
Pissarro and Breughel.
(AP, 6/22/02)
2002 Jun 22, Two new bombs rocked
Spain's tourist coasts, making five in two days that the government
blamed on Basque separatist group ETA trying to disrupt a European
Union summit in Seville.
(Reuters, 6/22/02)
2002 Jun 22, Tens of thousands of
people banged drums, blew whistles and danced their way through
Seville's streets in a rally against globalization. The EU Summit ended
with new measures to deter illegal immigration.
(AP, 6/22/02)(SSFC, 6/23/02, p.A22)
2002 Jul 5, In Spain a judge froze
all bank accounts of Batasuna, the radical Basque political party.
(SSFC, 7/7/02, p.A18)
2002 Jul 7, The 14th Int’l. AIDS
Conference opened in Barcelona. Estimates said AIDS had claimed 20
million lives to date and threatened 40 million currently infected.
African cases were estimated at 28.5 million.
(SFC, 7/5/02, p.A1)(SSFC, 7/7/02, p.A6)
2002 Jul 11, Moroccan soldiers
planted a national flag on Perejil Island (parsley in Spanish), 200
yards off the coast near Ceuta. Spain had claimed control since the
17th century. Moroccans called the 0.58-square mile rocky outcrop Leila
(night in Arabic). Spanish troops swiftly dislodged the Moroccans
without a shot being fired. Under a diplomatic resolution, both sides
agreed to leave it as a no man's land.
(SSFC, 7/14/02, p.A20)(SFC, 7/20/02, p.A10)(AP,
11/3/07)
2002 Jul 17, Spanish troops
reclaimed the island of Perejil off the coast of Morocco, a week after
it was occupied by Moroccan troops.
(WSJ, 7/18/02, p.A1)(SFC, 7/18/02, p.A17)
2002 Jul 22, Morocco and Spain,
prodded by the US, agreed to leave Perjil Island empty and free of
symbols of sovereignty and planned for future talks on the issue.
(SFC, 7/23/02, p.A8)
2002 Jul 25, The Spanish
government welcomed a British proposal to turn its military base in
Gibraltar into a NATO facility, a move that would open it to all
alliance members including Spain. Spain and Britain came up with the
idea of sharing sovereignty over the Rock. This was rejected
resoundingly in a nonbinding referendum in Gibraltar.
(AP, 7/25/02)(AP, 9/19/06)
2002 Aug 4, In southeastern Spain
2 people, including a 6-year-old girl, were killed and several others
were injured when a car bomb exploded in front of a military police
barracks. Twenty-five others were injured.
(AP, 8/5/02)
2002 Aug 19, Eduardo Chillida
(78), Basque sculptor, died. He created monumental works and promoted
peace in the Basque region. His work included "The Comb of the Winds,"
an iron tangle in San Sebastian.
(SFC, 8/21/02, p.A19)
2002 Sep 24, In Spain a
booby-trapped sign bearing the logo of the armed Basque separatist
group ETA exploded, killing one police officer and wounding three
others.
(AP, 9/24/02)
2002 Oct 6, Pope John Paul II
raised to sainthood Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer the Spanish priest
who founded the conservative Catholic organization Opus Dei (1928),
only 27 years after his death.
(AP, 10/6/02)
2002 Oct 25, In Spain Jose Antonio
Rodriguez Vega (44), a serial killer sentenced to 440 years in jail for
raping and strangling 16 elderly widows, was murdered in prison. Two
prisoners with makeshift knives attacked Vega in the courtyard of Topas
jail in western Salamanca province.
(AP, 10/25/02)
2002 Nov 13, The
Bahamian-registered Prestige, with 85,000 tons of oil, sprang a leak
during a storm off the coast of Spain. Some 3,300 tons leaked and began
reaching the coast of Spain after a few days.
(AP, 11/16/02)
2002 Nov 19, The Prestige oil
tanker, carrying 20 million gallons of fuel oil, broke in two and sank
in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Spain. It leaked up to 1.02
million gallons of oil and threatened a spill nearly twice as big as
the Exxon Valdez in 1989. Leakage continued at some 33,000 gallons per
day and could drain until 2006. Spain later put the estimated cost of
the Prestige oil tanker spill at least $1.05 billion.
(AP, 11/19/02)(WSJ, 12/11/02, p.A1)(AP, 1/15/03)
2002 Dec 21, In Spain Jose Hierro
(80), a poet who won the Spanish-speaking world's highest literary
award while writing in a Madrid coffee shop, died.
(AP, 12/21/02)
2002 Dec 22, In Spain tens of
thousands of people marched in silence through the coastal city of
Bilbao to demand the dissolution of the armed Basque separatist group
ETA.
(AP, 12/22/02)
2002 Spain planed to abolish the
draft by the end of this year and to reduce its military to about
168,000.
(SFEC, 10/31/99, p.A28)
2002 The Web site Hoopshype.com
was started by 3 young men from Spain. By 2008 the site was attracting
half a million unique visitors a month.
(WSJ, 3/21/08, p.W1)
2003 Jan 2, A motorized rubber
boat carrying 41 illegal immigrants sank off the southern coast of
Spain, and six passengers drowned.
(AP, 1/2/03)
2003 Jan 3, Jose Maria Gironella
(85), Spanish author, died. His work included "The Cypresses Believe in
God," a trilogy based on the 1936-1939 Civil War, for which he won the
1953 National Literary prize.
(SFC, 2/10/03, p.B5)
2003 Jan 16, The European Union's
Court of Justice ordered Spain and Italy to drop national rules on what
constitutes chocolate, saying they can no longer bar British and Irish
confections made with vegetable fats instead of cocoa butter.
(AP, 1/16/03)
2003 Jan 17, France and Spain
opened the new 5.3-mile Somport tunnel through the western Pyrenees
mountains.
(AP, 1/18/03)
2003 Jan 24, In Spain police
arrested 16 suspected al-Qaida terrorists.
(AP, 1/24/03)
2003 Feb 20, In Spain
police shut down the daily Egunkaria, a Basque-language newspaper, and
arrested its editor-in-chief and 10 other executives on suspicion of
aiding the armed separatist group ETA.
(AP, 2/20/03)
2003 Feb 21, Spain’s PM
Jose Maria Aznar arrived in Texas for a meeting with Pres. Bush.
(WSJ, 2/21/03, p.A8)
2003 Feb 22, Pres. Bush told
Spain’s PM Aznar that nations like Mexico, Angola, Chile and Cameroon
must know that the security of the United States is at stake. Bush
threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN
resolution backing the Iraq war. A transcript of a meeting on this day,
one month before the US-led invasion of Iraq, was published in the El
Pais daily in 2007.
(AFP, 9/26/07)
2003 Mar, Spain’s Supreme Court
outlawed the radical Batasuna party linked to ETA.
(AP, 3/22/06)
2003 Apr 3, In Spain a female
doctor described as mentally unbalanced stabbed several people at a
Madrid hospital, killing a colleague and a patient and wounding six
others.
(AP, 4/3/03)
2003 May 3, Pope John Paul II
began a whirlwind visit to Madrid, Spain.
(AP, 5/3/03)
2003 May 4, In Spain Pope John
Paul II proclaimed five new saints and urged Spaniards to emulate them.
They included: Pedro Poveda, a priest killed in 1936; Angela de la
Cruz, who founded the Sisters of the Company of the Cross; Genoveva
Torres, who founded the Sisters of the Sacred Heart and of the Holy
Angels; Maravillas de Jesus, who founded convents for the Order of
Barefoot Carmelites, and Jose Maria Rubio, a Jesuit priest.
(AP, 5/4/03)
2003 May 9, Spain's highest court
barred nearly 1,500 Basque nationalists from running in municipal
elections, calling them camouflaged members of the outlawed party
Batasuna.
(AP, 5/9/03)
2003 May 25, In Spain PM Jose
Maria Aznar's party held its ground in city and regional elections.
(AP, 5/26/03)
2003 May 26, An airplane carrying
Spanish peacekeepers crashed into a mountain in northeastern Turkey
while making its third attempt to land in thick fog. All 74 people
aboard were killed. The Yak-42 was chartered from a Ukrainian company.
(AP, 5/26/03)(WSJ, 5/27/03, p.A1)
2003 May 30, In northern Spain ETA
committed its final fatal attack. A car bomb, placed by Basque
separatists, killed two police officers in Sanguesa in northern Navarra
region.
(AP, 5/30/03)(AP, 3/22/06)
2003 Jun 3, In Spain a head-on
train collision near Chinchilla in Albacete province left at least 11
people dead and another 16 missing.
(AP, 6/4/03)
2003 Jun 8, In Barcelona, Spain,
more than 7,000 people gathered at daybreak and shed their clothes to
take part in artist Spencer Tunick's largest work yet, an installation
featuring a sea of nude bodies covering a central Barcelona avenue.
(AP, 6/8/03)
2003 Jun, Moroccan authorities
warned Spain that Jamal Zougan, a radical Islamist with suspected links
to terrorists, had returned to Madrid.
(WSJ, 3/19/04, p.A11)
2003 Jul 10, Spain's Pres. Aznar
began a visit to 3 US states, California, New Mexico and Texas, to
promote trade and cultural connections.
(SFC, 7/11/03, p.A1)
2003 Jul 10, Grenada, Spain,
unveiled its first mosque since 1492 when the Moors were expelled.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, Spain, a leading U.S.
ally during the war to oust Saddam Hussein, agreed to send 1,300
soldiers to Iraq.
(AP, 7/12/03)
2003 Jul 25, In Spain 2 top
members of the outlawed Basque separatist group ETA were sentenced to
790 years in prison for a 1987 bombing that killed 21 people and
injured 45.
(AP, 7/26/03)
2003 Sep, Spanish judge Baltasar
Garzon indicted 35 suspected militants.
(Econ, 3/27/04, p.47)
2003 Oct 10, Spain's new
Madrid-Leida bullet train made its maiden journey. The train had an
average speed of 108 mph, with a peak of 124 mph. This was slower than
the intended average speed of 186 mph with peaks of 217 mph.
(AP, 10/11/03)
2003 Oct 12, In northern Spain 2
bombs exploded in a parking lot, destroying 11 freight trucks. No one
was injured in the blast blamed on the armed Basque separatist group
ETA,
(AP, 10/12/03)
2003 Oct 18, Manuel Vazquez
Montalban (64), one of Spain's best-known authors and the creator of
the Barcelona-based detective Pepe Carvalho, died.
(AP, 10/19/03)
2003 Oct 26, In Spain
conservatives regained control of Madrid's regional legislature in an
election giving PM Aznar's party momentum going into next year's
general elections.
(AP, 10/27/03)
2003 Oct 28, Joan Perucho (82),
judge, novelist and art critic, died in Barcelona.
(SFC, 10/31/03, p.A25)
2003 Nov 3, Spanish authorities
closed the border with the British colony of Gibraltar before the
arrival of a virus-stricken cruise ship carrying some 2,000 passengers.
More than 400 passengers on the ship fell ill with a norovirus after
the ship left Southampton, England, for a Mediterranean voyage on Oct.
20.
(AP, 11/3/03)
2003 Nov 16, Catalans chose among
parties all pledging to seek greater autonomy or independence from
Spain in elections that will give the wealthy region a new leader for
the first time in almost a quarter century.
(AP, 11/16/03)
2003 Nov 29, In Iraq US senators
Hillary Rodham Clinton and Jack Reed met with local officials in the
oil-rich northern city of Kirkuk. Attackers in Mahmudiyah killed 7
members of a Spanish intelligence team as it returned from a mission.
In northern Iraq gunmen ambushed and murdered two Japanese diplomats
and their Iraqi driver.
(AP, 11/29/03)(SSFC, 11/30/03, p.A1)(AP, 11/30/03)
2003 Dec 9, French police arrested
Gorka Palacios Alday, the alleged military leader of the banned Basque
separatist group ETA, along with three accomplices.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 20, Spain's PM Jose Maria
Aznar paid a surprise visit to Spanish troops in Iraq.
(AP, 12/20/03)
2003 Dec 22, The world's richest
lottery spread $2.2 billion in Christmas cheer throughout Spain,
including to a village whose name means luck.
(AP, 12/22/03)
2003 Dec 29, Jaime de
Pinies, a longtime Spanish diplomat who served as president of the
United Nations General Assembly (1985), died in Madrid.
(AP, 12/31/03)
2003 In Spain Jesus Gil y Gil
(1933-2004), developer and football club owner, was sentenced to
3½ years plus a fine of some $16m for siphoning off Atletico
funds and fraud. Gil was mayor of Marbella on the Costa del Sol.
Extensive corruption in the town was unveiled in 2006.
(Econ, 8/23/03, p.40)(Econ, 4/8/06, p.52)
2004 Jan 14, In Spain Mohammed
Kamal Mustafa, imam of the southern town of Fuengirola, was given a
suspended sentence of to 15 months in prison. Spanish women's
associations hailed the conviction of the Islamic cleric who advised
Muslims how to beat their wives.
(AP, 1/15/04)
2004 Jan 16, Kepa Junkera, button
accordionist, performed his rendition of Basque Trikitixa music at
Stanford, Ca.
(SFC, 1/13/04, p.D1)
2004 Feb 18, The armed Basque
separatist group ETA unilaterally declared a cease-fire for the
northeastern region of Catalonia, but the move was immediately
criticized by Spain's prime minister and politicians who refuse to
negotiate with the militant group.
(AP, 2/18/04)
2004 Feb 29, Spain averted a
bombing by the Basque separatist group ETA after the Civil Guard
stopped a small truck and found about 1,100 pounds of bomb-making
chemicals.
(AP, 2/29/04)
2004 Mar 11, In Madrid, Spain, a
series of 10 bombs hidden in backpacks exploded in quick succession at
3 stations, blowing apart four commuter trains. 191 people were killed
and over 1,450 wounded. Spanish leaders were quick to accuse Basque
terrorists but a shadowy group claimed responsibility in the name of
al-Qaeda. On October 31, 2007, 3 lead defendants were convicted of
murder. Four other top suspects were acquitted of murder but convicted
of lesser charges. In all 21 of the 28 defendants were convicted. On
July 17, 2008, a Spanish court cleared four of the 21 people charged
for crimes related to the train bombings.
(WSJ, 3/12/04, p.A1)(AP, 3/13/04)(SFC, 3/13/04,
p.A1)(SFC, 3/19/04, p.A3)(AP, 3/23/08)(AP, 10/31/07)(Reuters, 7/17/08)
2004 Mar 14, Elections in Spain
returned the Socialists to power. Mariano Rajoy (48) of the ruling
conservative Popular Party was the prime minister's hand-picked
candidate to succeed him. Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero of the Socialist
Party hoped to end eight years of conservative government after
promising to pull Spanish troops out of Iraq and address unaffordable
housing and job insecurity at home. PM Jose Maria Aznar's conservatives
became the first government that had backed Washington in Iraq to be
voted from office. Zapatero led the Socialists to victory.
(AP, 3/15/04)(Econ, 3/20/04, p.49)
2004 Mar 15, Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero, the leader of Spain's victorious Socialists, said he will
withdraw his nation's support for the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq.
(AP, 3/15/04)
2004 Mar 16, Spanish police
identified five additional Moroccan suspects they think took part in
last week's train bombing that killed 190 and injured 1,647 others.
(AP, 3/16/04)(AP, 3/23/04)
2004 Mar 20, The Economist
reported that a Goldman Sachs study found consumers in Australia and
Spain to be the most vulnerable, of 19 countries, to higher interest
rates or recession.
(Econ, 3/20/04, p.85)
2004 Mar 21, Spain's incoming
Socialist government rejected an offer for dialogue from the Basque
separatist group ETA.
(AP, 3/21/04)
2004 Apr 2, A Spanish railroad
inspector found a 26-pound bomb hidden in a bag on a busy high-speed
line. Police said the device may contain the same dynamite used in last
month's Madrid train bombings.
(AP, 4/2/04)
2004 Apr 3, In Spain Sarhane
Abdelmajid Fakhet (35), a Tunisian national and the alleged ringleader
of last month's train bombings in Madrid, was among 5 suspects who blew
themselves up as police raided their apartment.
(AP, 4/4/04)(SFC, 4/5/04, p.A3)(WSJ, 4/6/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 6, The Barcelona city
council passed a resolution condemning bullfighting and declaring the
city Spain's first to come out against the centuries-old sport.
(AP, 4/6/04)
2004 Apr 16, Jose Luis Rodriguez
Zapatero, Spain's young and largely untested Socialist leader, won
parliamentary Friday as prime minister.
(AP, 4/16/04)
2004 Apr 18, Rodriguez Zapatero,
Spain's new PM, ordered the withdrawal of 1,300 Spanish troops from
Iraq.
(SFC, 4/19/04, p.A1)
2004 Apr 22, Spain has agreed to a
U.S. request to leave its intelligence agents in Iraq and not withdraw
them along with its 1,300 troops.
(AP, 4/22/04)
2004 Apr 28, A Spanish judge
indicted Amer Azizi, a Moroccan fugitive, on charges of helping to plan
the Sept. 11 hijackings.
(AP, 4/28/05)
2004 May 22, Spain's Crown Prince
Felipe married former TV anchorwoman Letizia Ortiz, the first commoner
in line to be queen in Spanish history.
(AP, 5/22/04)
2004 Jul 5, Animal rights
activists protested in Pamplona, Spain, on the eve of the start of the
famous running of the bulls 'San Fermin' festival.
(Reuters, 7/5/04)
2004 Jul 20, EU lawmakers elected
a pro-European from Spain to be its next president as the expanded
European Parliament met for the first time. The 732-member assembly
chose Josep Borrell, a relatively unknown Spanish Socialist, to its top
job.
(AP, 7/20/04)
2004 Jul 25, A Spanish newspaper
reported that Morocco had warned Spain earlier this month that it lost
track of 400 Moroccan Islamist militants who trained in al Qaeda camps
in Afghanistan, Bosnia or Chechnya.
(AP, 7/25/04)
2004 Jul 26, Close to 5,000
'cybernauts' gathered for a weeklong computer party in Spain’s
southeastern city of Valencia.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2004 Jul 26, Banco Santander
Central Hispano of Spain, with the help of Royal Bank of Scotland,
announced a deal to acquire Abbey National Bank in the UK. The $16
billion deal created the tenth largest bank in the world.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbey_(bank))
2004 Sep 25, A film about Iraqi
children victims of war "Turtles can fly" directed by Iranian Bahman
Ghobadi won the Concha de Oro (Golden Shell) at the prestigious San
Sebastian film festival.
(AFP, 9/25/04)
2004 Oct 1, Spain's Socialist
government approved a controversial law that would give gay and lesbian
couples the same right to marry, divorce and adopt children as
heterosexuals.
(Reuters, 10/1/04)
2004 Oct 3, Two of Spain's most
wanted alleged terrorists and at least 16 other suspected members of
the armed Basque separatist group ETA were captured in a vast
French-Spanish police operation. Mikel “Antza” Albizu Iriarte was
arrested with his girlfriend Soledad Genetxea.
(AP, 10/3/04)(Econ, 10/9/04, p.48)
2004 Oct 6, In Spain a judge
ordered the top banker to stand trial on charges of tax fraud.
(AP, 10/6/04)
2004 Nov 16, Spanish police
arrested 17 suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA
in a series of pre-dawn raids in northern Spain.
(AP, 11/16/04)
2004 Dec 6, In Spain bombs injured
at least 18 people in 7 cities following warnings from callers claiming
to represent the Basque separatist group ETA.
(WSJ, 12/7/04, p.A1)
2004 Dec 28, The Spanish
government has reached an agreement with unions and employers to raise
the minimum monthly wage by 4.5 percent to euro512.90 ($699) on Jan. 1.
(AP, 12/28/04)
2004 Dec 30, Spain approved new
guidelines on immigration, including a partial amnesty aimed at giving
papers to some of the 800,000 illegal immigrants estimated to be living
in the country.
(AP, 12/30/04)
2004 Dec 31, Spain's socialist
government approved a bill to legalize same-sex marriages.
(AP, 12/31/04)
2005 Jan 1, Spain was forecast for
3% annual GDP growth with a population at 41.3 million and GDP per head
at $26,660.
(Econ, 1/8/05, p.89)
2005 Jan 13, In Spain an explosion
killed seven workers at a warehouse in the northern city of Burgos. A
gas leak was suspected.
(AP, 1/13/05)
2005 Jan 16, The armed Basque
separatist group ETA threw its weight behind an initiative by its
political wing to open dialogue with the Spanish government on solving
the Basque problem.
(AP, 1/16/05)
2005 Feb 6, The bodies of 18
victims of carbon monoxide poisoning from a faulty gas heater were
found at a cottage near the village of Todolella in Spain’s Castellon
province.
(WSJ, 2/7/05, p.A1)
2005 Feb 7, Spain launched an
immigrant amnesty program. As many as 800,00 new residency permits were
expected.
(WSJ, 2/7/05, p.A16)
2005 Feb 9, In Spain a car bomb
exploded in a business park on the outskirts of Madrid just after the
morning rush hour, injuring 43 people. Government officials blamed the
Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 2/9/05)
2005 Feb 13, Firefighters shot
jets of water on one of Madrid’s tallest office buildings for a 2nd
day, fighting to control a fiery orange blaze that began the night
before and threatened to collapse the 32-story skyscraper.
(AP, 2/13/05)
2005 Feb 17, Spanish police
arrested two suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA
in Valencia, seizing explosives that they planned to use for imminent
attacks.
(AP, 2/17/05)
2005 Feb 20, Spanish voters
endorsed the EU constitution in a nonbinding referendum.
(SFC, 2/21/05, p.A3)
2005 Mar 8, In Madrid, Spain, a
summit on terrorism opened.
(AP, 3/8/05)
2005 Mar 9, Spanish serial killer
Alfredo Galan, nicknamed the "playing card assassin" because he left a
card at the scene of each murder, received jail sentences totaling 142
years.
(AP, 3/9/05)
2005 Mar 12, Spanish police said
they had cracked a money-laundering operation worth up to 250 million
euros ($335.8 million) which might have links to YUKOS, but had not
specified what those links might be.
(AP, 3/13/05)
2005 Apr 10, Spanish police seized
a cache of explosives in an operation against the armed Basque
separatist group ETA one week before a Basque regional election.
(AP, 4/10/05)
2005 Apr 17, In northern Spain the
Basque region's ruling nationalists faced a test of their drive to
secure more autonomy as elections got under way. The Basque Nationalist
Party (PNV), led by Juan Jose Ibarretxe, lost 4 seats.
(AP, 4/17/05)(Econ, 4/23/05, p.51)
2005 Apr 19, A Spanish court
convicted Adolfo Scilingo (58), a former Argentine naval officer, of
crimes against humanity for throwing 30 naked and drugged prisoners
from planes during his country's "dirty war" more than two decades ago.
It sentenced him to 640 years in prison. During the trial, Scilingo
insisted he fabricated the taped testimony to trigger an investigation
into Argentina's "dirty war."
(AP, 4/19/05)
2005 May 17, Spain’s Parliament
approved a resolution authorizing a “negotiated end” to almost 40 years
of separatist violence. Parliament backed Socialist PM Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero's offer of talks with ETA if its groups end violence.
(WSJ, 5/18/05, p.A12)(AP, 3/22/06)
2005 May 17, The captain of the
Greenpeace boat, "The Rainbow Warrior," was sentenced to six months in
prison for disobedience during a protest against the war in Iraq in
2003. The case stemmed from the detention of five men on March 14,
2003, for staging a protest aboard the boat captained by Daniel
Rizzotti, an Argentine citizen, near the U.S.-Spanish Rota naval base
in southern Spain.
(AP, 5/17/05)
2005 May 18, Spain's Senate
ratified the new European Union constitution, becoming the ninth
country to approve the landmark document.
(AP, 5/18/05)
2005 May 25, A powerful car bomb
exploded in Madrid after a warning call from the armed Basque
separatist group ETA. 18 people were injured.
(AP, 5/25/05)
2005 Jun 8, A 2-day conference on
racism sponsored by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in
Europe (OSCE) opened in Cordoba, Spain.
(AP, 6/9/05)
2005 Jun 15, Spanish authorities
said police had arrested 16 Islamic terror suspects in raids in several
cities, including 11 men accused of having ties to Abu-Musab
al-Zarqawi's group al-Qaida in Iraq and recruiting people for suicide
attacks there.
(AP, 6/15/05)
2005 Jun 18, In Spain ETA
announced it will no longer kill elected members of political parties.
(AP, 3/22/06)
2005 Jun 19, Voters in Spain's
northwest Galicia region were deciding whether to extend the 15-year
rule of Manuel Fraga (82), the last surviving politician of Gen.
Francisco Franco's regime.
(AP, 6/19/05)
2005 Jun 28, In Madrid a Tibetan
group presented a criminal case against top Chinese officials for
genocide and crimes against humanity, seeking to take advantage of
Spain's laws on international human rights crimes.
(AP, 6/28/05)
2005 Jun 30, Spain’s Parliament
voted 187-147 to legalize gay marriages, defying conservatives and
clergy making Spain the 3rd country to allow same-sex unions nationwide.
(AP, 6/30/05)(WSJ, 7/1/05, p.A1)
2005 Jul 17, In central Spain 11
firefighters trying to extinguish a forest fire sparked by a smoldering
barbeque were killed.
(AP, 7/17/05)
2005 Jul 18, The United States
extradited a Moroccan held at Guantanamo Bay who was indicted in Spain
for his alleged links to an al-Qaida cell.
(AP, 7/19/05)
2005 Jul 22, Spain banned lighting
fires in open spaces nationwide until November. This was Spain’s worst
drought since 1947. Spaniards will no longer allowed to smoke as they
take a Sunday stroll in the woods, under new government rules aimed at
curbing the risk of fires such as a recent one in which 11 firefighters
died in Guadalajara.
(Reuters, 7/25/05)(Econ, 7/23/05, p.47)
2005 Jul 27, France Telecom bought
an 80% stake in Amena, Spain’s 3rd largest mobile telephone operator.
(Econ, 7/30/05, p.54)
2005 Aug 16, Two helicopters
carrying NATO-led forces to prepare for next month's elections crashed
in the desert in western Afghanistan, killing at least 17 Spanish
troops.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 31, In Spain tens of
thousands of people armed with 100 tons of plum tomatoes took part in
the "Tomatina," joyously splattering each other in the town of Bunol.
(AP, 8/31/05)
2005 Aug, A report, only made
public in 2008, marked confidential and bearing the official seal of
Spain's Defense Ministry charged that Pakistan's spy service was
helping arm Taliban insurgents for assassination plots against the
Afghan government.
(AP, 10/1/08)
2005 Sep 26, Spain’s high court
convicted 18 Muslim immigrants of terrorism-related charges. Imad Eddin
Barakat Yarkas, a suspected al-Qaida cell leader, was sentenced to 27
years in prison. He was convicted of conspiring to commit murder in
connection with the Sept. 11 attacks in the US, concluding Europe's
biggest trial of alleged members of the terrorist group. Among those
convicted was an Al-Jazeera TV correspondent, who was sentenced to 7
years.
(Reuters, 9/26/05)(SFC, 9/27/05, p.A3)
2005 Sep 29, Hundreds of African
migrants charged a razor-wire border fence at a Spanish enclave in
northern Morocco before dawn, and five people were killed and 50
injured, prompting Spain to send troops to secure the frontier.
(AP, 9/29/05)
2005 Sep 30, Catalonia's
parliament approved a new charter that called the wealthy region in
northeastern Spain "a nation," wording that has some worried that the
region is heading toward a break with Spain.
(AP, 9/30/05)
2005 Sep, The Economist
Intelligence Unit ranked IESE Business School, an arm of Spain’s Univ.
of Navarre, as the world’s top business school.
(Econ, 9/24/05, p.81)
2005 Oct 3, More than 300 Africans
tore through a razor-wire fence separating Morocco from the Spanish
enclave of Melilla, clashing with police in the latest wave of
undocumented immigrants seeking a foothold in Europe.
(AP, 10/3/05)
2005 Oct 4, Spain said it will
build a third high-security fence between its Melilla enclave and
Morocco after undocumented immigrants repeatedly stormed two existing
barriers.
(AP, 10/4/05)
2005 Oct 5, Some 500 African
immigrants defied increased security and tried to surge across
razor-wire fences separating Morocco and the Spanish enclave of
Melilla, the 5th such rush in a week. The assault in a week prompted
Spain to announce plans to expel the illegal migrants.
(AP, 10/6/05)
2005 Oct 13, Spanish authorities
said police have seized 3.5 tons of cocaine in a fishing boat bound for
Spain from Venezuela after tip-offs from U.S. authorities.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 13, At the Ibero-American
Summit in Spain, foreign ministers from Latin America, Spain and
Portugal backed Cuba on in two of its battles against the US, calling
for an end to the US embargo and the expulsion from the U.S. of a Cuban
militant wanted for a 1976 plane bombing.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 14, At the Ibero-American
Summit in Spain UN Sec.-General Kofi Annan called for greater progress
in trade talks on farming.
(AP, 10/14/05)
2005 Oct 15, In northeastern
Spanish at least 5 north African men were killed, four were injured and
one was believed still trapped under rubble after a three-storey 17th
century building collapsed in the town of Piera.
(AP, 10/15/05)
2005 Oct 19, A court officials
said a Spanish judge has issued an international arrest warrant for
three U.S. soldiers whose tank fired on a Baghdad hotel during the Iraq
war, killing a Spanish journalist and one other. Jose Couso, who worked
for the Spanish television network Telecinco, died April 8, 2003, after
a U.S. army tank crew fired a shell on Hotel Palestine.
(AP, 10/19/05)
2005 Oct 22, In Spain the Basque
country's ruling party called for new initiatives to end violence by
ETA guerrillas in Spain and break a political deadlock over the
region's status.
(AP, 10/22/05)
2005 Oct 23, Stella Obasanjo (59),
the wife of Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, died after undergoing
liposuction surgery in Spain. In 2009 A court in Malaga convicted
plastic surgeon Antonio Mena Molina of negligent homicide. He was given
a suspended sentence of a year in jail, barred from practicing medicine
for three years, and ordered to pay euro120,000 ($175,000) in damages
to the woman's son.
(AP, 10/23/05)(AP, 9/22/09)
2005 Oct 31, The Spanish
telecommunications company Telefonica announced an agreed $31.5 billion
takeover of mobile-phone operator O2, to be paid in cash.
(Econ, 11/5/05, p.65)
2005 Oct, Spain’s ENCE planned to
start a cellulose plant on the Uruguay River bordering Argentina.
(Econ, 10/8/05, p.47)
2005 Nov 4, Spain's Supreme Court
sentenced pro-Basque independence leader Arnaldo Otegi to a year in
prison for slandering King Juan Carlos by saying he was in charge of
torturers.
(AP, 11/4/05)
2005 Nov 7, A section of a bridge
under construction in southern Spain collapsed on workers, killing at
least five of them.
(AP, 11/7/05)
2005 Nov 13, China's President Hu
Jintao has arrived in Spain for the final leg of a European trip
dominated by trade, but was again set to be dogged by protests over his
country's human rights record.
(AP, 11/13/05)
2005 Nov 14, Spanish court
officials said the National Court has received a prosecutor's report on
allegations that the CIA used an airport on the Spanish island of
Mallorca for a program of covert transfers of terror suspects. The
114-page report was submitted in July.
(AP, 11/14/05)
2005 Nov 23, Spanish police
arrested 11 people suspected of financing and giving logistical support
to an Islamic extremist group linked to al-Qaida.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 28, Spain agreed to sell
12 military planes and eight patrol boats to Venezuela in a $2 billion
deal that the United States has threatened to block.
(AP, 11/29/05)
2005 Nov 29, Spain announced it
plans to sell planes and helicopters to Colombia.
(WSJ, 11/30/05, p.A1)
2005 Nov, In western Spain
officers of Seprona, the environmental unit of the paramilitary Civil
Guard, arrested hunters skinning a Bengal tiger. Agents also found
another tiger and lion in cages waiting their turn to be hunted. In the
1st half of the year officers confiscated 678 illegally imported live
animals.
(WSJ, 4/12/06, p.A1)
2005 Dec 7, Spanish authorities
arrested former Gen. Ante Gotovina, the top Croatian war crimes
suspect, after four years on the run. He was captured in the Canary
Islands when special police agents surprised him as he dined in a
luxury beach hotel.
(AP, 12/08/05)
2005 Dec 9, Spanish police
arrested at least 7 people over the last 24 hours suspected of
financing and giving logistical support to an Islamic extremist group
with links to al-Qaida.
(AP, 12/09/05)
2005 Dec 19, Spanish police
arrested 15 people on suspicion of recruiting and indoctrinating
fighters for Iraq's insurgency.
(AP, 12/19/05)
2005 Dec 22, A lottery known as
"El Gordo" — the Fat One — sprinkled more than $2.4 billion in
Christmas cheer around Spain, with this Catalan town known for its
churches and convents blessed with a quarter of the windfall.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 27, In Spain a new law
that took effect ordering government ministries to close no later than
6 p.m., part of a broad package of measures that are geared to help
Spaniards juggle their jobs and families.
(AP, 12/28/05)
2005 Spain unveiled a Renewable
Energy Plan.
(AFP, 10/23/06)
2005 Housing starts in Spain
reached 715,000 for the year.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.61)
2005 Some 650,000 people arrived
in Spain pushing the total population to over 44 million. Some 700,000
illegal immigrants were granted amnesty.
(Econ, 10/14/06, p.59)
2006 Jan 1, Spanish smokers faced
a wrenching change New Year's Day as a nationwide ban on tobacco in the
workplace came into force in a country known for its smoky bars.
(AP, 1/1/06)
2006 Jan 10, Spanish police
arrested 20 people, mostly Moroccans, linked to Islamic terrorism and
violence in Iraq in raids across Spain.
(AFP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 12, Spanish police
detained Omar Nakcha (23), a Moroccan whom they suspect of being the
leader of two extremist groups recruiting volunteers to fight in Iraq.
(AP, 1/12/06)
2006 Feb 9, Spanish police in
Madrid arrested Ricardo Taddei (63), a former Argentine police officer,
wanted in connection with kidnappings and torture during his country's
"dirty war" against leftist dissidents.
(AP, 2/9/06)
2006 Feb 13, In Spain survivors
and relatives of people killed in terrorist attacks worldwide gathered
to share stories of their common tragedy, discuss ways to fight the
scourge and hear what governments plan to do to make their citizens
safer.
(AP, 2/13/06)
2006 Feb 22, Spanish PM Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero expressed reticence about a takeover bid for leading
domestic electricity group Endesa by E.ON of Germany, saying national
interest was paramount. In July Spain’s energy regulator (CNE) imposed
19 conditions on the bid for Endesa. On Aug 25 EU regulators warned
that government restrictions on E.ON’s bid were illegal.
(AP, 2/22/06)(Econ, 9/2/06, p.58)
2006 Mar 19, In Seville, Spain,
Muslim and Jewish leaders met in a rare face-to-face forum and appealed
to their faithful not to view each other as enemies and keep religion
from being hijacked by extremists. The 4-day meeting, called the Second
World Congress of Imams and Rabbis for Peace, was sponsored by Hommes
de Parole, a peace foundation based in Paris.
(AP, 3/19/06)
2006 Mar 13, A Spanish judge
indicted 32 people for allegedly plotting to drive a truck packed with
explosives into a courthouse that has been the hub for anti-terrorism
investigations. Authorities suspected that Mohamed Achraf was planning
to ram a truck loaded with 1,100 pounds of explosives into the court in
downtown Madrid.
(AP, 3/21/06)
2006 Mar 22, The Basque separatist
group ETA announced a permanent cease-fire, ending a decades-long
campaign of violence and closing the door on one of Western Europe's
last active armed separatist movements.
(AP, 3/22/06)
2006 Mar 30, Spain's lower house
of parliament approved a divisive proposal to grant greater autonomy to
Catalonia and boost the wealthy region's tax collecting and judicial
powers.
(AP, 3/30/06)
2006 Mar, In Spain a dozen
councilors from the southern resort of Marbella were arrested for graft
related to construction projects.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.61)
2006 Apr 1, Tens of thousands of
people gathered at a rally in the northern city of Bilbao to call for
greater Basque self-determination and negotiations between the Spanish
government and separatists.
(AP, 4/1/06)
2006 Apr 11, In Spain a judge
handed down the first indictments in the Madrid train bombings,
charging 29 people with murder, terrorism or other crimes after a
two-year investigation.
(AP, 4/11/06)
2006 Apr 16, In Spain a bus
carrying Boy Scouts overturned on a northern highway, killing at least
four people, including three minors.
(AP, 4/16/06)
2006 May 10, In Madrid, Spain,
hundreds of thousands of small investors who fell victim to a stamp
scam demonstrated to try to recover lost savings potentially amounting
to billions of euros. A day earlier police arrested nine directors of
two philately organizations, Afinsa and Forum Filatelico.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 12, Spain's Banco Bilbao
Vizcaya Argentaria (BBVA) agreed to the French bank BNP Paribas'
purchase of its 14.75-percent stake in Italy's Banca Nazionale del
Lavoro (BNL), saying it will reap 567 million euros (731 million
dollars) in capital gains from the sale.
(AP, 5/13/06)
2006 May 13, Spanish police and
rescue vessels intercepted six boats carrying over 460 sub-Saharan
illegal migrants off the coast of the Canary Island of Tenerife.
Officials said as many as 1,000 immigrants may have drowned on this
route over just the last 6 months.
(AP, 5/13/06)(Econ, 5/13/06, p.61)
2006 May 14, The armed Basque
group ETA stated publicly for the first time since a ceasefire
declaration in March that it still demands self-determination for the
Basque Country.
(AFP, 5/14/06)
2006 Jun 1, Spain's Supreme Court
acquitted the only person convicted of involvement in the September 11
attacks in a trial last year of suspected Al Qaeda members. Imad Eddin
Barakat Yarkas, known as Abu Dahdah, had been convicted of conspiracy
to commit terrorist murder and sentenced to 27 years in jail. He will,
however, continue to serve a 12 year sentence for leading a terrorist
group.
(Reuters, 6/1/06)
2006 Jun 1, In Spain Rocio Jurado
(61), hailed as the country’s greatest singer, died of cancer. Her
recordings included 5 platinum and 30 gold records.
(SFC, 6/2/06, p.B9)
2006 Jun 6, The Spanish interior
ministry said that 67 suspects had been arrested for accessing child
porn on the Internet over the past five days. The international police
operation arrested 38 in France, 10 in Spain, 9 in Slovakia, 7 in
Belgium and 3 in the Netherlands.
(AP, 6/6/06)
2006 Jun 6, Britain’s BAA, owners
of Heathrow, Stansted and Gatwick airports, accepted an $18.8 billion
bid from Spain’s Grupo Ferrovial, led by Rafael del Pino.
(Econ, 6/10/06, p.55)(Econ, 7/7/07, p.67)
2006 Jun 10, Tens of thousands of
Spaniards marched in Madrid to demand the government not hold talks
with Basque separatists.
(AP, 6/10/06)
2006 Jun 18, Catalans went to the
polls in a referendum on giving their region increased autonomy, in a
crucial test for Spanish PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero as he seeks to
rally support for peace talks with Basque separatists. Catalan voters
overwhelmingly approved a blueprint that some fear could leave Spain's
government cash-strapped and powerless.
(AP, 6/18/06)
2006 Jun 20, In Spain and France
12 people, including one of the founders of the Basque separatists ETA,
were arrested in pre-dawn raids in a crackdown on illegal financing of
the armed group.
(AFP, 6/20/06)
2006 Jun 29, Spain officially
announced the start of peace negotiations with the Basque separatist
group ETA after formally informing parliament, and PM Zapatero warned
that talks to end decades of bloodshed would be long and difficult.
(AP, 6/29/06)
2006 Jul 3, A subway train
derailed in the eastern Spanish city of Valencia, killing 43 people.
"Initial investigations show it was an accident," said Vicente Rambla,
spokesman for the Valencia regional government.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2006 Jul 6, A delegate from
Spain's ruling party met with the leader of an outlawed Basque
separatist group in historic talks hailed by both sides as a possible
step toward peace.
(AP, 7/6/06)
2006 Jul 7, A Spanish judge
charged two former Guatemalan dictators with genocide and issued
international warrants for their arrest. National Court Judge Santiago
Pedraz issued warrants on charges of genocide, torture, terrorism and
illegal detention against Gen. Efrain Rios Montt, Gen. Oscar Humberto
Mejia Victores and six other men.
(AP, 7/7/06)
2006 Jul 7, Spain’s Agriculture
Ministry said it has recorded its first case of H5N1 bird flu. The
deadly strain was found in a water fowl in a marsh area outside the
northern city of Vitoria.
(AP, 7/7/06)
2006 Jul 8, Pope Benedict XVI
stressed family values during a visit to Spain, where church influence
has waned and the government has angered the Vatican with its liberal
take on issues including gay marriage.
(AP, 7/8/06)
2006 Jul 20, Bio Fuel Systems, a
Spanish company, claimed to have developed a method of breeding
plankton and turning the marine plants into oil, providing a
potentially inexhaustible source of clean fuel.
(Reuters, 7/20/06)
2006 Jul 27, Police found the
bodies of four Africans on a boat packed with 26 other would-be
immigrants that was intercepted off Spain's Canary Islands.
(AP, 7/28/06)
2006 Jul 28, The Spanish
government approved a divisive bill allowing reparations for victims of
the Spanish Civil War and the ensuing dictatorship of Gen. Francisco
Franco.
(AP, 7/29/06)
2006 Jul, Spain’s inflation stood
close to 4%, almost 1.5 points above the average for the euro area.
Spain’s current account deficit was among the highest in the world
heading for over 9% of GDP. Housing was estimated to be overvalued by
as much as 25-30%.
(Econ, 7/29/06, p.49)
2006 Aug 6, Crews fought more than
20 forest fires in northern Spain and stopped blazes from advancing
into two historic towns. The fires killed three people and destroyed
thousands of acres of woodland. Authorities said most of the blazes
were deliberately set.
(AP, 8/6/06)(AP, 8/7/06)
2006 Aug 12, Hundreds of
paratroopers joined the struggle to control scores of forest fires in
northwestern Spain. A total of 24 people have been arrested since Aug.
1 on suspicion of deliberately starting many of the fires.
(AP, 8/13/06)
2006 Aug 21, In northern Spain at
least 6 people died in a train derailment.
(AP, 8/21/06)
2006 Aug 22, In Spain Grigory
Perelman (40), a reclusive Russian, won a Fields Medal, the math
world's highest honor, for solving a problem that has stumped some of
the discipline's greatest minds for a century, but he refused the award.
(AP, 8/22/06)
2006 Aug 27, Mauritania police
said the bodies of 15 people found washed ashore on the beaches of
Nouakchatt, Mauritania's capital, are believed to be those of African
migrants who were trying to reach Spain's Canary Islands by boat.
Spain's Interior Ministry said more than 18,300 people have reached the
Canary Islands so far this year, the highest total ever.
(AP, 8/27/06)
2006 Sep 1, Spain's Cabinet
approved sending 1,100 troops to the UN peacekeeping force in Lebanon,
calling it a "legitimate" mission to help maintain peace in the region.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 1, In Spain
self-contained, nonsmoking areas with their own ventilation systems,
became requisite for larger restaurants and bars.
(AP, 9/1/06)
2006 Sep 15, Alberto Linero (27)
and Alberto Sanchez (24) both privates in the Spanish air force,
exchanged vows in a reception room at Seville's town hall, in the first
known wedding among same-sex members of the military since Spain
legalized gay marriage last year.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 18, Britain and Spain
reached a historic deal to resolve side issues stemming from their
300-year-old dispute over Gibraltar, but sidestepped the main one,
their claims to the Rock's sovereignty.
(AP, 9/19/06)
2006 Sep 23, Spain's Basque
separatist group ETA has said it will not give up its weapons until
independence for the Basque region is won, fuelling concerns over the
future of a six-month-old ceasefire.
(AFP, 9/24/06)
2006 Sep, In Sesena, Spain, a town
of fewer than 10,000 40 km from Madrid, some 13,000 apartments were
under construction. Mayor Manuel Fuentes expected 40,000 new arrivals.
(Econ, 9/16/06, p.61)
2006 Oct 9, Khaled al-Masri (43),
a Kuwaiti-born German citizen, testified in a Spanish court that he was
kidnapped on Dec 31, 2003, at the Serbia-Macedonia border while on
vacation, tortured by US intelligence agents for 23 days, then flown by
the CIA to Afghanistan where he was imprisoned and abused for five
months. He was released in Albania in May 2004 after the CIA discovered
they had the wrong person.
(AP, 10/9/06)
2006 Oct 14, In northwestern Spain
vandals freed over 15,000 minks from breeding farms.
(SFC, 10/16/06, p.A3)
2006 Oct 26, Spanish police
arrested Orlando Sabogal Zuluaga (40), a leading member of one of
Colombia's most feared drug-trafficking cartels, in a shopping center
on the outskirts of Madrid.
(AP, 10/31/06)
2006 Nov 4, Spanish police said
that 1.8 billion euros (2.3 billion dollars) had been frozen in bank
accounts as investigations continued into possible tax fraud.
(AP, 11/4/06)
2006 Nov 4, Swathes of Austria,
Belgium, Croatia, France, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands
and went dark for up to an hour in the late evening as cold Germans
rushing to switch on heaters sucked up electricity from Europe's
interconnected networks.
(AP, 11/5/06)
2006 Nov 6, In Italy a Milan court
sentenced Rabei Ousmane Sayed Ahmed, the accused mastermind of the
March 2004 train bombings in Madrid, to 10 years in jail for membership
of a terrorist organization. A second Egyptian, Yahya Mawad Mohamed
Rajeh, was sentenced to five years in jail in the case.
(AFP, 11/6/06)
2006 Nov 7, French authorities
handed over to Spain Jose Javier Arizcuren Ruiz, a former leading
member of the armed Basque separatist group ETA, who police blame for
killing at least 15 people and planning several major attacks. Ruiz,
also known as "Kantauri," was arrested in Paris in 1999 and served time
in a French prison on charges of being a member of an armed group.
(AP, 11/7/06)
2006 Nov 12, Spanish farmers led a
flock of hundreds of bleating sheep through downtown Madrid in a
protest urging the protection of ancient grazing routes threatened by
urban sprawl.
(AP, 11/12/06)
2006 Nov 16, Spain, France and
Italy unveiled a five-point Middle East peace initiative, calling
Israeli-Palestinian violence intolerable and saying that Europe must
take a lead role in ending the conflict.
(AP, 11/16/06)
2006 Nov 17, Italy turned over
Rabei Osman Sayed Ahmed (35) an Egyptian Muslim militant convicted of
terrorism to Spain, where he is charged as a key suspect in the 2004
Madrid terror bombing.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 22, Authorities in Italy,
Spain, the United States and several South American countries arrested
76 people as part of a major drug crackdown in which a restaurant
linked to one of Colombia's most feared warlords was seized.
(AP, 11/22/06)
2006 Dec 12, Hundreds of Spanish
police and security officials arrested at least 11 suspected Islamic
militants in pre-dawn raids in Ceuta, a tiny Spanish enclave on
Morocco's coast.
(AP, 12/12/06)
2006 Dec 22, Residents of Almazan,
a small town in rural Spain, won the top prize of 390 million euros in
the world's richest lottery, known as El Gordo or "the fat one".
(Reuters, 12/22/06)
2006 Dec 24, A new study was
published saying traces of cocaine can be found on 94% of banknotes in
Spain, a country that has one of the world's highest rates of users.
(AP, 12/24/06)
2006 Dec 30, A car bomb exploded
in a parking lot at Madrid's glittery new airport terminal, and the
government blamed the Basque separatist group ETA. 26 were slightly
injured. The bodies of two people from Ecuador were later recovered.
This signaled the apparent end of a nine-month ceasefire.
(AP, 12/31/06)(AP, 1/6/07)
2006 Dec 30, Maria del Carmen
Bousada (66) of Spain became the world's oldest mother after she gave
birth to twins in the northern city of Barcelona. She had previously
undergone in vitro fertilization in Los Angeles. Bousada (69) died of
cancer on July 11, 2009, leaving behind her twin toddlers.
(AP, 12/30/06)(AP, 7/15/09)
2006 Javier Marias (b.1951),
Spanish novelist, authored “Written Lives,” a profile of his literary
favorites. The English translation was by Margaret Jull Costa.
(WSJ, 3/4/06, p.P8)
2006 Giles Tremlett authored
“Ghosts of Spain: Travels Through a Country's Hidden Past.”
(WSJ, 2/3/07, p.P13)
2006 Spain prepared to launch
production of solar energy from what will be Europe's largest
thermo-electric plant at Sanlucar La Mayor, near the southern city of
Seville.
(AFP, 10/23/06)
2006 Italy was taken over by Spain
in GDP per head. This was made public in late 2007.
(Econ, 1/5/08, p.44)
2007 Jan 4, Police in the Basque
region said they had found a bomb in northern Spain, five days after a
Madrid car bombing, blamed on the separatist group ETA, killed 2 people.
(AP, 1/4/07)(AP, 1/6/07)
2007 Jan 9, Armed Basque
separatist group ETA claimed responsibility for the bomb attack at
Madrid airport that killed 2 people last week but said its ceasefire
still held and it wanted peace.
(AFP, 1/9/07)
2007 Jan 16, Spanish court
officials said Spain has issued an international arrest warrant for
three US soldiers after reopening a murder investigation into the
killing of Spanish television cameraman Jose Couso in Iraq on Apr 18,
2003.
(Reuters, 1/16/07)
2007 Jan 31, Two Spanish men, both
charged with providing explosives for Islamist train bombings in Madrid
in 2004, were given jail sentences in a separate trial for selling
explosives in 2001. The court in Asturias said it jailed former miner
Jose Emilio Suarez-Trashorras and his brother-in-law, Antonio Toro, for
10 and 11-1/2 years respectively on charges of drugs and explosives
trafficking.
(Reuters, 1/31/07)
2007 Feb 3, Tens of thousands of
people marched in Madrid to reject any negotiations with the Basque
separatist group ETA, whose car bombing in the capital a month ago
shattered a nascent peace process.
(AP, 2/4/07)
2007 Feb 5, A home-made bomb
ripped through a train station in Spain's Basque region. Police said it
appeared to have been the work of Basque independence street gangs,
rather than armed separatists ETA.
(AP, 2/5/07)
2007 Feb 7, The Spanish Civil
Guard said authorities have arrested 52 people in a major crackdown on
a suspected ring of antiquities looters from dozens of sites in
southern Spain.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 16, BBVA, Spain's number
two bank, said it has reached an agreement to buy US bank Compass
Bancshares for around 9.6 billion US dollars (7.4 billion euros) in the
latest major foreign acquisition by a Spanish firm.
(AFP, 2/16/07)
2007 Feb 24, In Spain thousands of
people waving red-and-yellow Spanish flags protested in Madrid against
a court ruling that shortened the prison sentence for one of the Basque
separatist group ETA's most notorious killers.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Mar 1, In France, Germany and
Spain workers at Airbus revolted against massive cutbacks, planning a
strike next week in a warning to the company that its recovery strategy
is in for a long, tough haul.
(AFP, 3/1/07)
2007 Mar 9, Thousands of people
across Spain took part in rallies called by the right wing opposition
to protest the Socialists government's decision to allow a
hunger-striking Basque separatist serve out his jail term under house
arrest.
(AP, 3/9/07)
2007 Mar 11, Spain unveiled a
towering monument to those killed three years ago in the bombings that
ripped apart rush-hour commuter trains, a glass oval containing
messages of condolence written in the aftermath of Europe's worst
Islamic terror attack.
(AP, 3/11/07)
2007 Mar 12, Authorities said
Spanish police have arrested Brian David Anderson (61), a Canadian man
suspected of helping finance Islamist terrorist activities. The
Interior Ministry said Anderson is thought to be linked to a New York
businessman, Abdul Tawala Ibn Ali Alishtari, 53, who was charged last
month with terrorism financing, material support of terrorism and money
laundering.
(AP, 3/12/07)
2007 Mar 15, Spain’s Parliament
passed a gender-equality bill aimed at getting more Spanish women into
elected office and corporate boardrooms, and more men heating baby
bottles and changing diapers.
(AP, 3/15/07)
2007 Mar 17, In Spain film
director Pedro Almodovar joined tens of thousands of people in a march
through Madrid to protest the war in Iraq and to demand the closure of
the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 3/17/07)
2007 Mar 20, The Madrid government
said El Hierro, one of the smallest of Spain's Canary Islands, is to
receive 100 percent of its electricity supply from renewable energy
sources.
(AFP, 3/20/07)
2007 Apr 24, Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf arrived in Spain, part of a four-nation tour of
Europe, for talks expected to focus on Islamic radicalism and NATO's
mission in Afghanistan.
(AP, 4/24/07)
2007 Apr 25, Royal Bank of
Scotland, Fortis, a Belgian-Dutch lender and Santander of Spain
launched a blockbuster 72-billion-euro takeover battle for Dutch group
ABN Amro, outgunning by far an agreed offer by Barclays.
(AFP, 4/25/07)(Econ, 4/28/07, p.85)(Econ, 7/19/08,
p.84)
2007 Apr 27, A Spanish judge
indicted three US soldiers in the 2003 death of Jose Couso, a Spanish
journalist who was killed when their tank opened fire at a hotel in
Baghdad.
(AP, 4/27/07)
2007 May 6, Spain's Supreme Court
barred hundreds of Basque separatist candidates from running in
regional elections later this month because of links to an outlawed
party closely tied to armed group ETA.
(AP, 5/6/07)
2007 May 14, In Tunisia Sfax port
officials said the Tunisian coastguard had rescued 35 African would-be
immigrants who were trying to sail to Italy from the Libyan coast. More
than 1,000 people have landed on Spanish or Italian territory since May
10.
(AFP, 5/14/07)
2007 May 15, A Spanish
anesthesiologist with hepatitis C was sentenced to prison for infecting
275 people with the virus by injecting them with morphine from the same
needles he used to feed his own addiction. Juan Maeso (65) was
sentenced to 1,933 years in prison. The most he can serve under Spanish
law is 20 years.
(AP, 5/15/07)
2007 May 27, Spain's rival
Socialists and conservatives fought to a virtual tie in local
elections, highlighting the deep divisions in the country a year before
national elections. The opposition People’s Party (PP) led by Mariano
Rajoy won 35.6% vs. 34.9% for the Socialists.
(AP, 5/27/07)(Econ, 6/9/07, p.59)
2007 May 28, Spain arrested 2
Algerians and 14 Moroccans, on suspicion of recruiting volunteers to
fight in Iraq and other countries.
(AP, 5/28/07)(SFC, 5/29/07, p.A3)(WSJ, 5/29/07, p.A1)
2007 May 31, The Spanish
government said it has filed a lawsuit in a US federal court against an
American firm over a shipwreck the company has found laden with a
colonial-era treasure.
(AP, 5/31/07)
2007 Jun 5, In Spain the Basque
separatist group ETA called off its 15-month-old cease-fire,
formalizing what many saw as the demise of a once-promising peace
process already struck down by a deadly bombing in December.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 5, Spanish media said a
court has ordered police to capture and search two vessels belonging to
a Florida firm that recently announced it had found a shipwreck in the
Atlantic Ocean laden with an estimated $500 million worth of
Colonial-era treasure.
(AP, 6/5/07)
2007 Jun 7, In Spain Monzer
al-Kassar (61), a Syrian arms dealer previously accused of arming
militants from Iraq to Somalia, was arrested on suspicion of plotting
to send millions of dollars worth of weapons to Colombian rebels. A
federal indictment unsealed in NYC said al-Kassar has provided weapons
and military equipment to violent factions in Nicaragua, Brazil,
Cyprus, Bosnia, Croatia, Somalia, Iran and Iraq. Tareq Mousa al Ghazi
and Luis Filipe Moreno Godoy, also included in the indictment, were
arrested in Romania.
(AP, 6/8/07)
2007 Jun 8, Spanish police
arrested Arnaldo Otegi (48), the Basque separatist movement's most
prominent politician, on a court order for him to start serving a
15-month sentence for defending terrorism. A judge indicted 32 people
on charges of belonging to or collaborating with a militant group
working in Spain to recruit fighters for al-Qaida in Iraq.
(AP, 6/8/07)(AP, 6/9/07)
2007 Jun 16, Spanish police,
working with US and British authorities, seized four tons of cocaine
aboard a ship off the northwest coast.
(AP, 6/18/07)
2007 Jun 28, Federal authorities
in Brazil arrested 10 Brazilians accused of luring South American women
to Spain and forcing them into prostitution.
(AP, 6/29/07)
2007 Jun 29, Spanish researchers
said they had unearthed a human tooth more than one million years old,
which they estimated to be the oldest human fossil remain ever
discovered in western Europe.
(AFP, 6/29/07)
2007 Jul 2, In Yemen a suicide
bomber plowed his car into people visiting a temple linked to the
ancient Queen of Sheba, killing seven Spaniards and two Yemenis.
(AP, 7/3/07)
2007 Jul 3, Spanish PM Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero promised that every child born in Spain would
receive a baby bonus of €2,500, according to national press reports.
(Econ, 2/16/08, p.59)(http://piurl.com/5i)
2007 Jul 8, Spain's largest
fighting bulls lived up to their fearsome reputation, goring two and
crushing at least seven people as thousands of daredevils sprinted down
narrow streets Sunday in Pamplona's annual running of the bulls.
(AP, 7/8/07)
2007 Jul 12, In Spain charging
bulls gored 7 people and seriously injured several others as this
year's San Fermin festival in Pamplona served up its longest and most
dangerous run yet.
(AP, 7/12/07)
2007 Jul 12, Spanish Civil Guards
heightened a battle over a $500 million treasure of gold and silver
coins from a shipwreck when they seized the Ocean Alert, a vessel
belonging to a Tampa, Fla.,-based company. The ship was released a week
later.
(AP, 7/12/07)(Econ, 7/21/07, p.51)
2007 Jul 13, The Great Canary
Telescope, one of the most powerful in the world, began spying on the
universe, using its 34-foot wide mirror to search for planets similar
to our own from a mountaintop on one of Spain's Canary Islands. The
Canary Island observatory said institutes in Mexico and the US
collaborated in the project, involving more than 1,000 people in nearly
100 companies.
(AP, 7/14/07)
2007 Jul 15, Spanish officials
said police investigating a child pornography ring have arrested 66
people and seized computer hard drives containing 48 million
photographs and video images. The nationwide sweep came after a
10-month investigation.
(AP, 7/15/07)
2007 Jul 19, Up to 50 migrants
were missing in rough seas south of the Canary Islands after their boat
capsized.
(AP, 7/19/07)
2007 Jul 21, Jesus de Polanco
(77), chairman of Spain's main media group Prisa and one of the
country's richest men, died in Madrid.
(AFP, 7/21/07)
2007 Jul 23, Spain arrested
Roberto Florez Garcia in Tenerife, the Canary Islands, for selling the
identity of Spanish spies and other information about the intelligence
agency from 2001 until he left the service in 2004. Police accused him
of being a double agent for Russia.
(AP, 7/24/07)(WSJ, 1/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Jul 24, Barcelona, Spain,
faced Day Two of a major power outage.
(AP, 7/24/07)
2007 Jul 25, Miguel Angel
Moratinos, Spain’s Foreign Minister arrived in Algeria on a visit aimed
at strengthening cooperation in energy and sorting out a row with
Madrid's top gas supplier.
(AP, 7/25/07)
2007 Jul 26, Juan Cruz Maiza, the
alleged head of ETA’s logistics, was arrested in France along with two
helpers.
(Econ, 8/4/07, p.44)
2007 Jul 30, A raging forest fire
has destroyed thousands of acres of woodland on Spain's Gran Canaria
island and forced the evacuation of more than 2,000 people.
(AP, 7/30/07)
2007 Aug 24, In Spain a van loaded
with explosives blew up outside a police station in the Basque city of
Durango, slightly injuring two officers in what appeared to be the
first major attack by the separatist group ETA since it called off a
cease-fire in June.
(AP, 8/24/07)
2007 Sep 1, Police arrested four
suspected members of the armed Basque separatist group ETA in
south-west France, believed to be linked to the deadly Madrid airport
bomb in December.
(AP, 9/1/07)
2007 Sep 9, Shepherds from 32
countries joined their Spanish colleagues to lead flocks of sheep
through the streets of downtown Madrid in defense of ancient grazing
routes threatened by urban sprawl and manmade frontiers. Modern-day
Madrid lies squarely in the way of two venerable north-south routes,
one dating back to 1372.
(AP, 9/9/07)
2007 Sep 20, Spain’s Interior
Ministry said Spanish police and the FBI had arrested two Pakistani
nationals in a joint operation in Madrid and Barcelona on suspicion of
being involved in financing international terrorism. The men,
identified as Anar Muhammad Shan and Preces Mehmood Sandhu, were also
held on suspicion of belonging to a terrorist organization.
(AP, 9/21/07)
2007 Oct 4, Spanish police
arrested almost the entire leadership of Batasuna as the banned party
held a meeting in the Basque town of Segura. The operation confirmed
the hard line against ETA by the Socialist government of PM Jose Luis
Rodriguez Zapatero since the armed group officially ended a
15-month-old ceasefire in June.
(AP, 10/5/07)
2007 Oct 9, A car bomb exploded in
the northern city of Bilbao in Spain's Basque Country, badly burning a
man who worked as a bodyguard for a local politician.
(Reuters, 10/9/07)
2007 Oct 24, Spanish police broke
up an Islamic cell suspected of using the Internet to recruit fighters
for the Iraq insurgency, arresting six people in raids near the
northern city of Burgos.
(AP, 10/24/07)
2007 Oct 28, The Vatican staged
its largest mass beatification ceremony ever, putting 498 victims
(1934-1937) of religious persecution before and during Spain's civil
war on the path to possible sainthood.
(AP, 10/28/07)
2007 Oct 31, Spanish lawmakers
passed historic legislation condemning Gen. Francisco Franco's coup and
nearly 40-year fascist dictatorship, brushing aside complaints from the
conservative opposition that the bill would reopen old divides. 3 lead
defendants in the 2004 Madrid terror bombings that killed 191 people
were convicted of murder by the Spanish court. Four other top suspects
were acquitted of murder but convicted of lesser charges. In all 21 of
the 28 defendants were convicted.
(AP, 10/31/07)
2007 Nov 7, Moroccan PM Abbas El
Fassi condemned Spain's "occupation" of two disputed enclaves, in the
wake of a visit by Spain's King Juan Carlos which prompted Rabat to
recall its ambassador to Madrid.
(AFP, 11/7/07)
2007 Nov 13, Two cartoonists who
depicted Spain's crown prince having sex with his wife were convicted
of insulting the heir to the throne and were fined $4,370 each.
(AP, 11/13/07)
2007 Nov 16, In Spain negotiators
concluded a policy guide for governments on global warming that
declares climate change is here and is getting worse.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Dec 1, ETA gunmen shot and
killed a Spanish policeman and seriously injured another in France, the
first killing by the Basque separatist group in almost a year.
(AP, 12/1/07)
2007 Dec 5, French police arrested
two armed people in connection with a weekend shooting that left two
Spanish officers dead in what authorities described as the first
Basque-related killings in France in more than three decades.
(AP, 12/5/07)
2007 Dec 6, Zimbabwean President
Robert Mugabe arrived in Lisbon for an EU-Africa summit, which British
Prime Minister Gordon Brown is boycotting because he would not "sit
down at the same table" as him.
(Reuters, 12/6/07)
2007 Dec 8, In Spain 53 African
and 27 European countries began a summit to bury old colonial
relationships in favor of something more modern. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel challenged European and African leaders to confront human
rights abuses in Zimbabwe, putting the country's president Robert
Mugabe in the spotlight at an EU-Africa summit.
(Econ, 12/8/07, p.54)(AP, 12/8/07)
2007 Dec 9, In Lisbon, Spain,
Senegal's Pres. Abdoulaye Wade said most African leaders have rejected
EU proposals for a free-trade deal that would replace colonial-era
trading systems at a summit marred by disputes over Zimbabwe and
Darfur. Africa and Europe's first summit in seven years ended without
agreement on the key issue of trade.
(AP, 12/9/07)(Reuters, 12/9/07)
2007 Dec 13, EU leaders signed the
Treaty of Lisbon to reform the bloc's institutions and give it stronger
leadership, marking the end of a difficult process that has lasted
nearly a decade.
(Reuters, 12/13/07)
2007 Dec 16, Spanish police said
they had arrested 63 people across the country in five investigations
into child pornography being posted, viewed and paid for on the
Internet.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 16, Spanish construction
group BTP Sacyr Vallehermoso said it had created a joint company with
the Libyan government to bid for infrastructure contracts there.
(AP, 12/16/07)
2007 Dec 20, Spain banned parents
from using corporal punishment on children.
(WSJ, 12/21/07, p.A1)
2007 Dec 22, Spain's "El Gordo,"
the world's biggest lottery, gave out 2.2 billion euros ($3.2 billion)
in Christmas prizes.
(AP, 12/22/07)
2007 Dec 30, Spain’s Catholic
bishops called some 150,000 people onto the streets of Madrid for a
rally dubbed “Christian Family Day,” in opposition to Socialist PM
Zapatero.
(Econ, 1/12/08, p.46)
2008 Jan 12, Angel Gonzalez (82),
one of Spain's most prominent poets and member of a literary generation
known for its opposition to the dictatorship of Gen. Francisco Franco,
died.
(AP, 1/14/08)
2008 Jan 19, In Spain civil guard
police found explosives and other equipment during raids on five
addresses in Barcelona and arrested 12 Pakistanis and two Indians after
receiving information from its own and other European intelligence
agencies.
(Reuters, 1/19/08)
2008 Feb 11, Spanish police
arrested at least 13 members of the outlawed Basque separatist party
Batasuna in a crackdown on groups linked to the armed organization ETA
before next month's elections.
(AP, 2/11/08)
2008 Feb 27, Spanish judges
acquitted 20 Islamic terror suspects of the most serious charges in an
alleged plot to blow up a court, but convicted them of lesser offenses.
(AP, 2/27/08)
2008 Mar 1, In Spain thousands of
pro-hunting demonstrators blowing bugles and accompanied by hunting
dogs, thronged a boulevard in central Madrid to protest a law
restricting the use of lead shot.
(AP, 3/1/08)
2008 Mar 7, Both of Spain's major
political parties called off all election campaigning nationwide after
Isaias Carrasco, a former city councilman, was shot dead in the Basque
region just two days before general elections.
(AP, 3/7/08)
2008 Mar 9, Spaniards voted in a
general election after a divisive campaign dominated by economic
concerns. PM Zapatero won re-election as the Socialists gained five
seats for a total of 169 in the 350-seat parliament. The opposition
conservative Popular Party (PP) also gained five seats to reach 153,
while smaller left-wing parties and some nationalist parties lost
ground.
(AP, 3/9/08)(AP, 3/10/08)(WSJ, 3/10/08, p.A1)
2008 Mar 16, Ola Brunkert (62), a
former drummer for 1970s Swedish pop group ABBA, was found dead after
an apparent accident in his house in Mallorca. He first played with
ABBA on the group's first single, "People Need Love," and toured with
the band in 1977, 1979 and 1980.
(AP, 3/17/08)
2008 Mar 21, In Spain a car bomb
exploded at a police barracks in the northern Rioja region following a
warning from the Basque separatist organization ETA, injuring one
person.
(AFP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 24, Rafael Azcona
(b.1926), Spanish novelist and scriptwriter, died. He was known for
films such as the Oscar-winning comedy "Belle Epoque" and Luis Garcia
Berlanga's "The Executioner."
(AP,
5/21/08)(http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Azcona)
2008 Apr 1, Pedro Zaragoza Orts
(85), former Spanish mayor of Benidorm (1950-1967), died. In 1952 he
allowed the newfangled bikinis everywhere in town. During his term he
turned his town into a mecca for tourists from northern Europe.
(Econ, 4/19/08, p.105)
2008 Apr 7, Spanish officials said
2 people in Spain have died of the human variant of mad cow disease, in
the first such fatalities since 2005. The two new victims apparently
contracted the disease prior to 2001 and health controls on livestock
and meat production are much tighter now than they were then. Spain has
reported more than 700 cases of mad cow disease since it was first
detected in this country in 2000.
(AP, 4/7/08)
2008 Apr 9, Spanish astronomers
announced the discovery of "GJ 436T," the smallest planet discovered to
date outside the solar system, located 30 light years from earth.
(AFP, 4/9/08)
2008 Apr 12, Spain's re-elected PM
Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero was sworn in for his second term. He
announced a government which for the first time included more women
than men and a female defense minister.
(AFP, 4/12/08)
2008 Apr 17, In Spain a bomb
exploded in the offices of the governing Socialist party in the
northern Basque city of Bilbao, injuring seven police officers.
(AP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr 18,
Spain's newly re-elected government announced an 18-billion-euro
plan to revive the economy, which is suffering a slowdown after a
decade-long boom that had been the envy of the rest of Europe.
(AP, 4/18/08)
2008 Apr 19, In southern Spain a
crash of a bus filled with Finnish tourists left nine people dead near
the resort town of Benalmadena. Police arrested the driver of the other
vehicle, who was not seriously injured, after he failed a blood alcohol
test.
(AP, 4/20/08)
2008 Apr 20, Pirates off the
Somali coast, armed with grenade launchers, stormed a Spanish tuna
fishing boat, the Playa de Bakio, with 26 crew members.
(AFP, 4/21/08)
2008 Apr 26, The Spanish
government said the 26 crew members onboard the Playa de Bakio fishing
boat, hijacked by pirates off the coast of Somalia nearly a week ago,
have been freed. A maritime official said it was freed after a 1.2
million-dollar ransom was paid.
(AP, 4/26/08)(AP, 4/27/08)
2008 May 1, Three bombs exploded
in Spain's Basque region. No one was injured in the blasts, which
police said were carried out by the separatist group ETA.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 3, The Asian Development
Bank, announced emergency funding to help poor countries struggling
with rice prices that have nearly tripled in four months. The
Manila-based organization made the announcement while meeting in Spain.
(AP, 5/4/08)
2008 May 8, Spain formally laid
claim to a shipwreck that yielded a $500 million treasure, saying it
has proof the vessel was Spanish. Officials said the shipwreck at the
heart of the dispute is the Nuestra Senora de las Mercedes, a Spanish
warship sunk by the British navy southwest of Portugal in 1804 with
more than 200 people on board.
(AP, 5/8/08)
2008 May 14, In Spain a
booby-trapped van exploded outside a civil guard barracks in the
restive Basque country, killing one guard and wounding four others. The
government blamed the attack on separatist group ETA.
(AP, 5/14/08)
2008 May 17, Spanish police
announced the arrest of five people this week suspected of hacking into
or outright disabling thousands of Internet pages, some of them run by
government agencies in the US, Latin America and Asia. Two of the
suspects were 16 years old. The others were 19 or 20.
(AP, 5/17/08)
2008 May 19, Suspected members of
a Basque separatist group allegedly exploded a car bomb in a northern
Basque town, causing considerable damage but no injuries.
(AP, 5/19/08)
2008 May 20, Xavier Lopez Pena
(49), the suspected leader of the Basque separatist group ETA, was
detained along with three other suspected ETA members in a sweep on an
apartment in the French city of Bordeaux just before midnight.
(AP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 21, The interior
ministers of Senegal and Spain signed an agreement extending
cooperation between the west African nation and the EU border control
agency Frontex to combat illegal immigration by one year.
(AFP, 5/21/08)
2008 May 25, Spanish coastguard
boats rescued 67 immigrants, including two corpses, from the sea near
the Canary Islands.
(AP, 5/25/08)
2008 Jun 5, Dutch police arrested
Aqueel Ur Rehman Abbasi, a 26-year-old Pakistani man, sought in Spain
on terrorism charges. He was arrested in his prison cell in Vught where
he was being held by the immigration and naturalization services.
(AFP, 6/6/08)
2008 Jun 10, Spanish officials
announced the arrest of 8 suspected members of an Islamic extremist
cell. The Europa Press news agency said the detainees were suspected of
raising money for terrorist activities.
(AP, 6/10/08)
2008 Jun 11, Spain deployed riot
police to lift striking truckers' blockades of a border crossing with
France and a major highway outside Madrid and made dozens of arrests.
(AP, 6/11/08)
2008 Jun 13, A Spanish judge
jailed six Algerians on provisional charges of aiding terror groups
linked to al-Qaida in North Africa.
(AP, 6/13/08)
2008 Jun 13, The US Embassy in
Madrid said suspected Syrian arms dealer Monzer al-Kassar was
extradited to the US. He was arrested in Spain in June 2007 as part of
a US sting operation. The United States said he had plotted to buy
weapons for leftist rebels in Colombia.
(AP, 6/13/08)
2008 Jun 14, Zaragoza, Spain,
opened a World Expo and expected some 6 million visitors. The expo was
due to close on Sep 14.
(SSFC, 3/25/07, p.G2)
2008 Jun 14, Spanish police said
they had charged 20 people with exchanging child pornography online and
arrested 14 others in a nationwide operation.
(Reuters, 6/14/08)
2008 Jun 15, Rafael Del Pino Y
Moreno (b.1920), Spain’s “King of the Bricks,” died. His Grupo
Ferrovial SA built the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao and other emblematic
infrastructure across Spain.
(WSJ, 6/21/08, p.A6)
2008 Jun 25, Spain's parliament
voiced its support for the rights of great apes to life and freedom in
what will apparently be the first time any national legislature has
called for such rights for non-humans.
(Reuters, 6/25/08)
2008 Jun 27, In Spain the Basque
parliament approved a plan for a regional referendum on
self-determination, setting the stage for a confrontation with the
central Spanish government in Madrid which has condemned the poll as
illegal.
(AP, 6/27/08)
2008 Jun 29, Spain’s soccer team
beat Germany 1-0 to win the Euro 2008 finals.
(www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/jun/30/tvratings.television?gusrc=rss&feed=media)
2008 Jul 9, A Spanish patrol boat
rescued 33 people and recovered one body from the boat off the coast of
southern Almeria province. 15 African migrants, most of them small
children, died of hunger, thirst or exposure as they drifted across the
Mediterranean on the small, overcrowded boat.
(AP, 7/10/08)
2008 Jul 14, Spain's biggest bank,
Santander, said it had reached agreement to buy British lender Alliance
and Leicester in an all-share deal worth 1.26 billion pounds (1.57
billion euros) as it continues its push into the British market.
(AFP, 7/14/08)
2008 Jul 14, Spanish construction
giant Martinsa-Fadesa announced in a filing with Spanish stock market
regulators that it is seeking protection from creditors.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 15, A plan for a
referendum on self-determination in Spain's northern Basque Country
became law in the region, setting the stage for a confrontation with
the government in Madrid which has termed the poll illegal.
(AP, 7/15/08)
2008 Jul 16, In Spain King
Abdullah of Saudi Arabia kicked off an interfaith conference in Madrid,
an effort to bring Muslims, Christians and Jews closer together amid a
world that often puts the three faiths at odds.
(AP, 7/16/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Spain, a spokesman
said police in the southern city of Seville have been left red-faced
after more than 100 kilos of drugs were stolen from police headquarters
and replaced with talcum powder.
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 18, In Spain a
Saudi-organized conference of the world's great religions called for an
international agreement to combat terrorism, "a universal phenomenon
that requires unified international efforts."
(AFP, 7/18/08)
2008 Jul 20, In northern Spain 4
bombs exploded at popular seaside resorts in Cantabria, after warning
calls from the Basque separatist group ETA. No casualties were reported.
(AP, 7/20/08)
2008 Jul 22, Spanish police
dismantled the most active cell of the armed Basque separatist group
ETA with the detention of nine suspected members of the group. Among
those captured was Arkaitz Goikoetxea, the leader of the "Vizcaya" cell
which Spanish authorities suspect was behind most of the attacks
carried out by ETA since it called off a ceasefire in June 2007.
(AFP, 7/22/08)
2008 Jul 26, In Spain Maria
Remedios Garcia Albert (57) was arrested in San Lorenzo de el Escorial
on suspicion of belonging to Colombia's FARC rebel group.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 27, Spain's National
Court jailed seven people on charges of belonging to a militant cell of
the Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 7/27/08)
2008 Jul 31, Venezuela’s Pres.
Chavez said his government will nationalize Banco de Venezuela, the
local unit of the Spanish banking giant Banco Santander.
(WSJ, 7/31/08, p.A6)
2008 Aug 12, Spanish officials
said local police acting on a tip-off from US authorities have seized
1.4 tons of cocaine and arrested eight South American suspects, 6 from
Colombia and 2 from Venezuela.
(AP, 8/12/08)
2008 Aug 14, American Airlines,
British Airways and Iberia of Spain said they had signed an agreement
to cooperate over flights between North America and Europe to help them
overcome soaring fuel costs.
(AP, 8/14/08)
2008 Aug 18, Equatorial Guinea's
exiled opposition leader Severo Moto was released from a Spanish jail
four months after he was detained for allegedly trying to send weapons
to the oil-rich African nation.
(AFP, 8/18/08)
2008 Aug 20, A Spanair MD-82 bound
for the Canary Islands caught fire while trying to make an emergency
landing just after departing from Madrid airport leaving 153 people
dead. This was the nation's worst air disaster in nearly 25 years. The
toll rose to 154 on Aug 23.
(AP, 8/20/08)(AP, 8/21/08)(Reuters, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 27, In Spain tens of
thousands of people from around the world hurled tons of ripe tomatoes
at each other in the annual food fight in the eastern Spanish town of
Bunol.
(AP, 8/27/08)
2008 Sep 1, A Spanish judge began
gathering information about people who disappeared during Spain's civil
war and subsequent dictatorship, seeking to produce a reliable list of
victims slain away from the battlefield during the vicious fight
between left and right.
(AP, 9/2/08)
2008 Sep 3, Spanish authorities
found 13 bodies and 46 survivors on a packed migrant boat near one of
Spain's Canary Islands.
(AP, 9/3/08)
2008 Sep 4, Spanish police
arrested Vallejo-Guarin (47), a suspected Colombian drug trafficker,
listed among the most wanted by the US Drug Enforcement Administration.
(AP, 9/5/08)
2008 Sep 7-2008 Sep 8, Spanish
police said immigrants went on a rampage in the southern Spanish town
of Roquetas de Mar overnight, setting fire to homes and cars and
throwing stones at police, after a Senegalese man (28) was stabbed to
death in an apparent dispute over drugs. The Rampage continued for a
2nd night.
(Reuters, 9/7/08)(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 19, Spain approved a
decree under which it will pay jobless immigrants to go home, more
evidence of how its once-booming economy has quickly gone bust.
(AP, 9/19/08)
2008 Sep 21, In northeast Spain
suspected Basque separatists threw petrol bombs at a police station in
Ondorroa to lure officers outside before detonating a car bomb, which
injured 10 people. The attack came only hours after a car bomb exploded
in the regional capital of Vitoria. Nobody was injured. Authorities
suspected ETA.
(AFP, 9/21/08)
2008 Sep 22, In northern Spain a
car bomb killed a soldier in the third attack in just over 24 hours by
the Basque separatist group ETA.
(AP, 9/22/08)
2008 Oct 1, Spanish police said
they have staged their biggest ever operation against Internet child
pornography, arresting 121 people suspected of involvement in a network
that reached 75 countries. Some 800 police took part in Operation
Carousel, an investigation that began last year in cooperation with
Brazilian police.
(AFP, 10/1/08)
2008 Oct 10, Spain's government
insisted that a 30 billion euros ($41 billion) fund it will use to buy
assets from banks starved for liquidity will have zero cost for
taxpayers.
(AP, 10/10/08)
2008 Oct 14, The World
Conservation Congress ended in Barcelona, Spain. The meeting was awash
in gloomy forecasts.
(Econ, 10/18/08, p.68)
2008 Oct 16, Spain's leading judge
agreed to investigate the disappearances of tens thousands of people
during the 1936-39 civil war and the ensuing Franco dictatorship, many
of whom are believed to be buried in mass graves. Spanish police
arrested 13 men accused of harboring Islamic extremists and helping
them flee the country, including several suspects in the Madrid terror
bombings of 2004.
(AFP, 10/16/08)(AP, 10/16/08)
2008 Oct 30, A powerful car bomb
exploded at a university in the northern Spanish city of Pamplona,
wounding 17 people and setting a building on fire in an attack blamed
on Basque separatists.
(AP, 10/30/08)
2008 Oct 31, Spain approved a
measure to let descendants of people who fled into exile after its
1936-39 Civil War apply for Spanish citizenship. The government said it
believes up to 500,000 children and grandchildren of such emigres are
eligible. The government says 300,000 of those people live in Argentina.
(AP, 11/1/08)
2008 Nov 3, Spain's government,
grappling with soaring unemployment and an economy buffeted by the
global credit crunch, announced a plan to help families make mortgage
payments and reward businesses that hire.
(AP, 11/3/08)
2008 Nov 4, Spain’s government
reported that the number of people claiming unemployment benefits has
jumped to 2.8 million (11.3%), the highest since 1996, in the latest
devastating fallout from the international financial crisis.
(AP, 11/4/08)
2008 Nov 7, European planemaker
Airbus said that Spanish tourism company Grupo Marsans has signed a
firm order for 61 aircraft worth almost $9 billion at list prices.
(AP, 11/7/08)
2008 Nov 9, In western Afghanistan
a Taliban suicide attacker rammed a bomb-filled minivan into a NATO
military convoy, killing two Spanish soldiers and critically wounding
another.
(AFP, 11/9/08)
2008 Nov 9, Egyptian authorities
denied entry to one of Osama bin Laden's sons and put him on a plane to
Qatar, becoming the third country to reject the self-proclaimed
"ambassador for peace." Omar Osama bin Laden (27) and his British wife,
Zaina Alsabah (52), arrived at Cairo International Airport over the
weekend after he unsuccessfully tried to seek political asylum in Spain.
(AP, 11/9/08)
2008 Nov 17, French police
arrested ETA's alleged military chief, the most wanted Basque
separatist still at large and a man Spanish officials branded a
"bloodthirsty terrorist." Miguel De Garikoitz Aspiazu Rubina (35),
alias "Txeroki", was captured in Cauterets, a spa and ski resort in the
Pyrenees near the border with Spain's autonomous Basque region. On Nov
24 Spain indicted Aspiazu and four other men over the car bombing at a
Madrid airport parking garage on Dec. 30, 2006.
(AFP, 11/17/08)(AP, 11/24/08)
2008 Nov 18, Spanish artist Miquel
Barcelo unveiled his lavish, $23 million ceiling painting at the
European headquarters of the United Nations in Switzerland, a project
that has evoked controversy over its hefty price tag.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 18, Spain's most famous
judge abandoned a drive for a symbolic indictment of the late Gen.
Francisco Franco and his regime, dropping a probe into atrocities
committed during and after the country's ruinous civil war.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 19, Spanish doctors
reported the successful transplant to a woman of a new windpipe with
tissue grown from her own stem cells, eliminating the need for
anti-rejection drugs.
(AP, 11/18/08)
2008 Nov 27, Spain's prime
minister announced an euro11 billion ($14 billion) stimulus plan to
revive the country's flagging economy.
(AP, 11/27/08)
2008 Nov 27, In Spain novelist
Juan Marse (75), known for his descriptions of hardship in Catalonia
during the Spanish civil war (1936-1939), won the Cervantes Prize, the
Spanish speaking world’s highest literary prize.
(SFC, 11/28/08, p.E10)
2008 Dec 3, In Spain's northern
Basque region suspected ETA separatists shot and killed a businessman
in the first attack linked to the group since the arrest of its
military chief last month.
(AP, 12/3/08)
2008 Dec 11, As Greece suffered
through its sixth day of violence, there were troubling signs of unrest
spreading across Europe. Angry youths smashed shop windows, attacked
banks and hurled bottles at police in small but violent protests in
Spain and Denmark, while cars were set alight outside a consulate in
France.
(AP, 12/11/08)
2008 Dec 13, In northern Spain
about 100 demonstrators, formerly jailed as members of the violent
Basque group ETA, protested and called on the government to begin talks
to end the region's long-running separatist conflict.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2008 Dec 16, In Spain an
unoccupied hotel on the resort island of Mallorca partially collapsed
during remodeling work, killing four workers.
(AP, 12/16/08)
2008 Dec 26, Spain approved a new
provision that also allows anyone whose parents or grandparents were
born in Spain but went overseas because of their political beliefs or
economic hardship to become Spaniards.
(AP, 12/29/08)
2008 Spain’s population reached 45
million, up from 40 million in 2000, mostly due to immigration. 12% of
the population was foreign born, up from 3% in 1998.
(Econ, 11/8/08, SR p.11,16)
2009 Jan 8, In Spain Leonidas
Vargas (60), a convicted Colombian drug baron with links to two major
smuggling cartels, was shot dead in a Madrid hospital.
(AP, 1/8/09)
2009 Jan 19, An Atheist Bus
Campaign's message, translated into Catalan, began appearing on two
routes in Barcelona, with plans to extend the campaign to the rest of
the country. A campaign with the concise message "There's probably no
God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life," took to the road in
Britain this month. In Italy buses with the slogan "The bad news is
that God does not exist. The good news is that we do not need him" will
begin traversing the northern Italian city of Genoa on February 4.
(AFP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 20, In Spain 6 people of
Pakistani origin were arrested on suspicion of "fraud" in Barcelona.
They were suspected of financing terrorist activities by carrying out
thefts and sending money raised from criminal activities to Pakistan.
(AFP, 1/20/09)
2009 Jan 24, A storm killed 11
people in Spain, including four children who were killed when a sports
center collapsed near Barcelona, and four in France as high winds swept
across Spain and southern France.
(AP, 1/24/09)(AP, 1/25/09)
2009 Jan 26, Spain's Prado Museum
named Asensio Julia as the workshop assistant believed mostly likely to
have painted "Colossus" (1808-1912), a work that was once attributed to
Francisco de Goya y Lucientes.
(AP,
1/26/09)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Colossus)
2009 Feb 3, Spanish police
arrested 13 people on suspicion of links to organized crime and
terrorism groups.
(AP, 2/3/09)
2009 Feb 9, Spain's interior
minister blamed the armed Basque separatist group ETA for an explosion
in the east of Madrid, which police said caused extensive damage but no
casualties.
(AP, 2/9/09)
2009 Feb 16, In Spain Samsung of
South Korea unveiled the world's first solar-powered mobile phone at an
industry show where the sector is showcasing the new technology it
hopes will drive demand through the economic crisis.
(AFP, 2/16/09)
2009 Feb 19, In Spain the mobile
phone industry's biggest trade show wrapped up after four days that
delivered exciting news for technophiles, average phone users and even
environmentalists. During the show leading manufacturers announced an
initiative to produce a standard charger that would fit all phones by
2012 in a step set to reduce waste and increase convenience.
(AFP, 2/19/09)
2009 Feb 25, Spain’s Foreign
Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos said Spain is open 'in principle' to
accepting prisoners from the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay.
(AP, 2/25/09)
2009 Mar 1, In Spain Basque voters
chose a new government. Socialists scored big electoral gains at the
expense of nationalists who have held power there for nearly 30 years.
The nationalist coalition with 37 seats fell one seat short of the
needed majority.
(AP, 3/1/09)(AP, 3/2/09)(SFC, 3/2/09, p.A2)
2009 Mar 10, Spanish police said
they have arrested an Ecuadorian woman who tried to smuggle into
Barcelona liquid cocaine hidden in spray cans of products to starch
clothes or clean glass.
(AFP, 3/10/09)
2009 Mar 19, Venezuela’s Pres.
Chaves announced the nationalization of Banco de Venezuela, a unit of
Spain’s Banco Santander SA.
(WSJ, 3/20/09, p.A10)
2009 Mar 29, In Spain tens of
thousands of demonstrators crowded central Madrid, chanting slogans
against government plans to liberalize the country's abortion laws.
(AP, 3/29/09)
2009 Apr 2, Morocco transferred to
Spain Hassan Al Haski, an Islamist convicted in both countries for
terrorist acts, apparently to resume serving time behind bars there.
(AFP, 4/3/09)
2009 Apr 10, In France Ekaitz
Sirvent Auzmendi (29), suspected of being a master forger for ETA, was
captured by French and Spanish police as he got off a bullet train that
had arrived from Bordeaux at the French capital's Montparnasse station.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 11, Corin Tellado (81), a
well-known Spanish author of more than 4,000 romance novels, died while
celebrating the Easter holidays with her family.
(AP, 4/11/09)
2009 Apr 18, French and Spanish
security forces thwarted a new ETA attack with the arrest of Jurdan
Martitegi, the military chief of the Basque separatist group, and seven
other suspected members.
(AFP, 4/19/09)(Econ, 4/25/09, p.56)
2009 Apr 27, Governments around
the world acted to stem a possible flu pandemic, as a virus that has
killed 103 people in Mexico and spread to North America was confirmed
to have reached Europe. Spain's Health Ministry confirmed the country's
first case of swine flu and said another 20 people are suspected of
having the disease.
(Reuters, 4/27/09)(AP, 4/27/09)
2009 May 3, In northwest Spain one
member of the country’s second-place junior female volleyball team died
and 12 others were injured, two seriously, in a bus crash. The Emeve de
Lugo team had just arrived in Santiago de Compostela from the Canary
Islands when their bus overturned.
(AP, 5/3/09)
2009 May 5, In Spain Basque
Socialist leader Patxi Lopez (49), expected to be sworn in as the
Basque region's first non-nationalist president, vowed to wage a
relentless fight against the armed separatist group ETA.
(AP, 5/5/09)
2009 May 6, Spanish authorities
said they have arrested 29 people suspected of forging credit cards to
finance an elaborate scheme to smuggle Cubans into the US from Mexico.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 14, In Spain a new study
said the air in Madrid and Barcelona is laced with at least five drugs,
including trace amounts of amphetamines, opiates, cannabinoids and
lysergic acid, a relative of LSD. The tests were done in areas where
drugs were likely to be consumed.
(AP, 5/14/09)
2009 May 15, In Spain police
arrested of Raffaele Amato, an alleged Camorra boss who investigators
say was one of Italy's top cocaine importers.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 19, A Spanish court
sentenced three senior army officers to prison for knowingly
misidentifying the bodies of 30 peacekeepers killed in a plane crash on
May 26, 2003, in northwestern Turkey. 32 of the Spaniards were
identified correctly but relatives of the other 30 got the wrong bodies.
(AP, 5/19/09)
2009 May 27, In Spain some 100,000
people spilled onto the streets of the Catalan capital after
Barcelona's 2-0 triumph over Manchester United in Rome. The carnival
atmosphere turned ugly after midnight when youths began clashing with
police around Las Ramblas, the city's most famous street. Police
arrested 134 people and more than 150 were injured.
(AFP, 5/28/09)
2009 Jun 4, British naturalist Sir
David Attenborough won Spain's prestigious Prince of Asturias social
sciences prize for his "great contributions to the defense of life and
conservation of our planet."
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 17, American engineers
Raymond Tomlinson (b.1941) and Martin Cooper (b.1928), who were
instrumental in developing e-mail and mobile phones, won one of Spain's
prestigious Prince of Asturias awards for revolutionizing the way
people communicate.
(AP, 6/17/09)
2009 Jun 19, In Spain a powerful
bomb exploded near the Basque city of Bilbao, killing a policeman in an
attack blamed on the separatist group ETA.
(AP, 6/19/09)
2009 Jun 25, Spanish legislators
voted to change a law that let judges indict Osama bin Laden and
Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, narrowing its scope to cases with a
clear link to this country and yielding to criticism that Spain should
not be a global cop.
(AP, 6/25/09)
2009 Jul 1, In San Sebastian,
Spain, a meeting was underway of five regional fisheries management
organizations, tasked primarily with protecting tuna populations
worldwide. The groups representing 80 countries met for the first time
in two years to assess stocks of the fish and determine what more can
be done to save the 23 tuna populations, nine of which are under threat.
(AP, 7/1/09)
2009 Jul 2, Spain's intelligence
chief, Alberto Saiz, resigned amid allegations he used government money
to go on hunting and fishing trips and had staffers remodel his house.
(AP, 7/2/09)
2009 Jul 4, A joint French-Spanish
operation captured 3 suspected members of ETA in the French city of Pau.
(SFC, 7/6/09, p.A2)
2009 Jul 7, Spanish police
arrested Jorge Alberto Soza (72), an ex-Argentine police official
suspected of human rights abuses committed during the South American
country's dirty war. Soza was wanted in Argentina in connection with 18
cases of kidnapping and torture between 1975 and 1977 when he was an
assistant Federal Police commissioner and chief delegate in the
southern Argentine city of Neuquen.
(AP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 10, In Spain charging
bull gored a young Spanish man to death at Pamplona's San Fermin
festival, the first such fatality in nearly 15 years. Nine others were
injured in a particularly dangerous and chaotic chapter of the running
of the bulls.
(AP, 7/10/09)
2009 Jul 12, In Spain 10 people
were injured, two of them seriously, in the Pamplona bull run, two days
after a man was gored to death by a bull.
(AP, 7/12/09)
2009 Jul 21, Mali's president's
office announced that Spain plans to help Mali fight Al-Qaeda of the
Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), which is active in the desert north of the west
African nation.
(AFP, 7/21/09)
2009 Jul 24, In Europe deadly
summer wild fires spread across Spain, France, Italy and Greece with
holidaymakers rescued from beaches and thousands of firefighters
brought into the battle.
(AFP, 7/24/09)
2009 Jul 29, In northern Spain a
powerful car bomb destroyed a police barracks housing officers and
their families in Burgos, injuring about 60 people and causing major
damage in the surrounding area. The attack was blamed on the Basque
separatist group ETA.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jul 30, On the Spanish island
of Majorca 2 civil guard officers were killed when their booby-trapped
car exploded near a barracks.
(AP, 7/30/09)
2009 Aug 4, Officials said a
forest fire on the Canary Island of La Palma was brought under control
and another that raged for two weeks in Spain's northern Catalonia
region has been extinguished.
(AP, 8/4/09)
2009 Aug 6, Juan Manuel Inciarte
Gallardo (55), a suspected member of the armed Basque group ETA, was
deported from Mexico and arrested in Spain, where he is wanted for
allegedly killing five Spanish police officers and a pregnant wife of
one of the officers. Inciarte allegedly took part in the slaying of the
five police officers and the pregnant wife of one officer between 1983
and 1985. He was wanted on terrorism charges.
(AP, 8/6/09)
2009 Aug 9, On the Spanish island
of Mallorca a small bomb exploded in a restaurant, causing minor damage
and no injuries. A caller, who said he was calling on ETA's behalf,
warned of the bomb.
(AP, 8/9/09)
2009 Aug 19, French police with
Spanish help detained three suspected members of Basque separatist
group ETA in a French Alps ski resort and seized material for making
explosives, after a series of bombings claimed by the group on the
Spanish island of Mallorca.
(AP, 8/19/09)
2009 Aug 26, In Spain Bunol's town
hall estimated more than 40,000 people, some from as far away as Japan
and Australia, took up arms with 100 tons of tomatoes in the yearly
food fight known as the "Tomatina," now in its 64th year.
(AP, 8/26/09)
2009 Sep 9, Spain’s PM Rodriguez
Zapatero told Parliament the 2010 budget would aim to raise overall
taxes by 1.5% of GDP in order to help meet demands of the most needy.
Unemployment, the worst in Europe, had reached 18% and was still
climbing.
(Econ, 9/12/09, p.58)
2009 Sep 10, Berlin won Spain's
prestigious Prince of Asturias prize for its contribution to promoting
peace and harmony.
(AP, 9/10/09)
2009 Sep 11, Spain's government
agreed to send 220 more troops to Afghanistan, raising the total to
about 1,000.
(AP, 9/11/09)
2009 Sep 11, In Spain Venezuela’s
Pres. Chavez paid a brief courtesy call on King Juan Carlos and met
briefly with PM Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero to discuss energy issues
and Spanish investment in oil-rich Venezuela.
(AP, 9/11/09)
2009 Sep 13, Bolivia's Pres. Evo
Morales began a visit to Spain. His plans to nationalize Bolivia’s
electricity sector and how this might affect Spanish companies will be
among the top items on his agenda.
(AP, 9/14/09)
2009 Sep 17, Spanish National
Court Judge Ismael Moreno indicted three alleged ex-Nazi death camp
guards, who are or were longtime residents of the United States,
charging them with being accessories to genocide and crimes against
humanity. Moreno issued international arrest warrants for the three:
Johann Leprich, Anton Tittjung and Josias Kumpf. The 18-page indictment
says Kumpf apparently lives now in Austria and other two in the US.
(AP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 17, Spanish oil major
Repsol YPF said it had discovered oil off the coast of Sierra Leone,
its first find in the west African nation, along with its Australian,
American and British partners.
(AFP, 9/17/09)
2009 Sep 22, In Spain Julio
Alberto Poch, an Argentine-born pilot for a low-cost airline, was
arrested during a stopover in a Spanish airport on suspicion of
piloting planes that carried hundreds of dissidents to their deaths
during his country's 1976-1983 "dirty war." He was wanted for
questioning in four probes of more than 1,000 deaths during his time as
a pilot at the Navy Mechanics School.
(AP, 9/23/09)
2009 Sep 22, A sharply divided EU
failed to protect the threatened bluefin tuna, as the bloc's
Mediterranean nations refused to back even a temporary a ban on
catching the fish prized by sushi aficionados. Greece, Cyprus, Malta,
Spain, France and Italy, with strong fishermen's lobbies at home,
insisted on continuing the hunt despite the precarious state of the
species. Conservation groups had earlier criticized the EU for not
pushing to list the bluefin tuna under the Convention on International
Trade in Endangered Species.
(AP, 9/22/09)
2009 Sep 24, Spain said it has
disqualified a group of Israeli academics from a solar power design
competition because their university is in the West Bank, the latest in
a series of low-level European sanctions against Israel over its
settlement policy.
(AP, 9/24/09)
2009 Sep 24, In Spain Garry
Kasparov soundly defeated Anatoly Karpov in an exhibition chess match
marking the 25th anniversary of their first title bout.
(AP, 9/25/09)
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Subject = Spain
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