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Pablo Ruíz Picasso

Pablo Ruíz Picasso

Pablo Ruiz Picasso (Full name) (October 25, 1881 in Málaga, Spain – April 8, 1973) was a Spanish painter and one of the recognized figures in 20th century art, probably most famous as the co-founder, along with Georges Braque, of cubism. He worked mainly with paint, but had equal facility in oil, watercolour, pastels, charcoal, pencil and ink. He famously rendered complex scenes as just a few geometric shapes in his mixed-media cubist works, but also produced masterful realist portraits.

Periods

Picasso's work is often categorized into "periods". While the names of many of his later periods are debated, the most commonly accepted periods in his work are: ink (1907).]]
- Blue Period (1901–1904), consisting of sombre, blue-tinted paintings influenced by a trip through Spain and the recent death of a friend, often featuring depictions of acrobats, harlequins, prostitutes, beggars and artists.
- Rose Period (1905–1907), characterized by a more cheerful style with orange and pink colors, and again featuring many harlequins. He met Fernande Olivier in Paris at this time, and many of these paintings are influenced by his warm relationship with her, in addition to his exposure to French painting.
- African-influenced Period (1908–1909), influenced by the two figures on the right in his painting of Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, he used African artifacts as the inspiration for his work.
- Analytic Cubism (1909–1912), a style of painting he developed along with Braque using monochrome brownish colours, where they took apart objects and "analyzed" them in terms of their shapes. Picasso and Braque's paintings at this time are very similar to each other.
- Synthetic Cubism (1912–1919), involving the use of collage and cut paper, the first time collage had been used in fine art.

Early life

Synthetic Cubism Pablo Picasso was the first child of José Ruiz y Blasco and María Picasso y López. Picasso's father, José Ruiz y Blasco, was himself a painter, and for most of his life a professor of art at the School of Fine Arts and Crafts and a curator of a local museum. It was from his father that Picasso learned the basics of formal academic art training, such as figure drawing and painting in oil. Although Picasso attended art schools throughout his childhood, often those where his father taught, he never finished his college-level course of study at the Academy of Arts (Academia de San Fernando) in Madrid, leaving after less than a year. Madrid The Museu Picasso in Barcelona features many of Picasso's early works, created while he was living in Spain, as well as the extensive collection of Jaime Sabartés, Picasso's close friend from his Barcelona days who, for many years, was Picasso's personal secretary. There are many precise and detailed figure studies done in his youth under his father's tutelage, as well as rarely seen works from his old age that clearly demonstrate Picasso's firm grounding in classical techniques. Picasso used harlequins in many of his early works, especially in his Blue and Rose Periods. A comedic character usually depicted in checkered patterned clothing, the harlequin became a personal symbol for Picasso. During the 1930s, the minotaur replaced the harlequin as a motif which he used often in his work. His use of the minotaur came partly because from his contact with the surrealists, who often used it as their symbol, and appears in Picasso's Guernica.

Pacifism

surrealists in the Spanish Civil War.]] Picasso remained neutral during the Spanish Civil War, World War I and World War II, refusing to fight for any side or country. Picasso never commented on this but encouraged the idea that it was because he was a pacifist. Some of his contemporaries though (including Braque) felt that this neutrality had more to do with cowardice than principle. As a Spanish citizen living in France, Picasso was under no compulsion to fight against the invading Germans in either world war. In the Spanish Civil War, service for Spaniards living abroad was optional and would have involved a voluntary return to the country to join either side. While Picasso expressed anger and condemnation of Franco and the Fascists through his art he did not take up arms against them. He also remained aloof from the Catalan independence movement during his youth despite expressing general support and being friendly with activists within it. No political movement seemed to compel his support to any great degree. During the Second World War, Picasso resided in Paris when the Germans occupied the city. The Nazis hated his style of painting, so he was not able to show his works during this time. He retreated into his studio, continuing to paint all the while. While the Germans outlawed bronze casting in Paris, Picasso was still able to continue because of the French resistance who would smuggle bronze to him. Arguably Picasso's most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica, Spain — Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. The act of painting was captured in a series of photographs by Picasso's most famous lover, Dora Maar, a distinguished artist in her own right. Guernica hung in New York's Museum of Modern Art for many years. In 1981 Guernica was returned to Spain and exhibited at the Casón del Buen Retiro. In 1992 the painting hung in the Madrid's Reina Sofía Museum when it opened. After the Second World War, Picasso rejoined the French Communist Party, and even attended an international peace conference in Poland. But party criticism of a portrait of Stalin as insufficiently realistic cooled Picasso's interest in Communist politics, though he remained a loyal member of the Communist Party until his death.

Personal life

Stalin Picasso hated to be alone when he wasn't working. In Paris, in addition to having a distinguished coterie of friends in the Montmartre and Montparnasse quarters, including André Breton, Guillaume Apollinaire, writer Gertrude Stein and others, he usually maintained a number of mistresses in addition to his wife or primary partner. Picasso married twice and had four children by three women. In the early years of the twentieth century, Picasso, still a struggling youth, began a long term relationship with Fernande Olivier. It is she who appears in many of the Rose period paintings. After garnering fame and some fortune, Picasso left Olivier for Marcelle Humbert, whom Picasso called Eva. Picasso included declarations of his love for Eva in many Cubist works. Humbert was diagnosed with cancer and during her rapid deterioration, Picasso administered to her every need, making daily trips across Paris to visit her in the hospital. Gertrude Stein In 1918, Picasso married Olga Khoklova, a ballerina with Sergei Diaghilev's troupe, for whom Picasso was designing a ballet, Parade, in Rome. Khoklova introduced Picasso to high society, formal dinner parties, and all the social niceties attendant on the life of the rich in 1920s Paris. The two had a son, Paulo, who would grow up to be a dissolute motorcycle racer and chauffeur to his father. Khoklova's insistence on social propriety clashed with Picasso's bohemian tendencies and the two lived in a state of constant conflict. In 1927 Picasso met 17 year old Marie-Thérèse Walter and began a secret affair with her. Picasso's marriage to Khoklova soon ended in separation rather than divorce, as French law required an even division of property in the case of divorce and Picasso did not want Khoklova to have half his wealth. The two remained legally married until Khoklova's death in 1955. Picasso carried on a long-standing affair with Walter and fathered a daughter, Maia, with her. Marie-Thérèse lived in the vain hope that Picasso would one day marry her and hanged herself four years after Picasso's death. The photographer and painter Dora Maar was also a constant companion and lover of Picasso. The two were closest in the late 1930s and early 1940s and it was Maar who documented the painting of Guernica. Guernica (in uniform), Marie Vassilieff, Max Jacob and Pablo Picasso (1915).]] After the liberation of Paris in 1944, Picasso began to keep company with a young art student, Françoise Gilot. The two eventually became lovers, and had two children together, Claude, and Paloma. Uniquely among Picasso's women, Gilot left Picasso in 1953, allegedly because of abusive treatment and infidelities. This came as a severe blow to Picasso. He went through a difficult period after Gilot's departure, coming to terms with his advancing age and his perception that he was an old man, now in his 70s, who was no longer attractive, but rather grotesque to young women. A number of ink drawings from this period explore this theme of the hideous old dwarf as buffoonish counterpoint to the beautiful young girl, including several from a six-week affair with Geneviève Laporte, who in June 2005 auctioned off the drawings Picasso made of her. Picasso was not long in finding another lover, Jacqueline Roque. Roque worked at the Madoura Pottery, where Picasso made and painted ceramics. The two remained together for the rest of Picasso's life, marrying in 1961. Their marriage was also the means of one last act of revenge against Gilot. Gilot had been seeking a legal means to legitimize her children with Picasso, Claude and Paloma. With Picasso's encouragement, she had arranged to divorce her then husband, Luc Simon, and marry Picasso to secure her children's rights. Picasso then secretly married Roque after Gilot had filed for divorce in order to exact his revenge for her leaving him. In addition to his manifold artistic accomplishments, Picasso had a film career, including a cameo appearance in Jean Cocteau's Testament of Orpheus. Picasso always played himself in his film appearances.

Later works

1961.]] In the 1950s his style changed once again as he began looking at the art of the great masters, and making new art about it. He made a series of works based on Velazquez's painting of Las Meninas. He also based paintings on works on art by Goya, Poussin, Manet, Courbet and Delacroix. During this time he lived at Cannes and in 1955 helped make the film Le Mystère Picasso (The Mystery of Picasso) directed by Henri-Georges Clouzot. Picasso had constructed a huge gothic structure and could afford large villas in the south of France, at Notre-dame-de-vie on the outskirts of Mougins, in the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. The media would give him much attention, though they were often more interested in his personal life than his art. Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur] He was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50 foot high sculpture to be built in Chicago, Illinois, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a sculpture which was ambiguous and became somewhat controversial. What the figure is exactly is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks of downtown Chicago was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of Chicago. In his 80s and 90s, Picasso, no longer quite the energetic dynamo he had been in his youth, became more and more impotent. To a man for whom this was such an important part of life, this was a serious life change and Picasso seems to have dealt with it by redoubling his already prolific artistic output. Picasso's final works were a mixture of styles, his styles and periods changing right until the end of his life. Devoting his full energies to his work, Picasso became more daring, his works more colourful and expressive, and from 1968 through 1971 he produced a torrent of paintings and hundreds of copperplate engravings. At the time these works were dismissed by most as pornographic fantasies of an impotent old man or the slapdash works of an artist who was past his prime. One long time admirer, Douglas Cooper, called them "the incoherent scribblings of a frenetic old man". Only later, after Picasso's death, when the rest of the art world had moved on from abstract expressionism, did the critical community come to see that Picasso had already discovered neo-expressionism and was, as usual, ahead of his time. Pablo Picasso died on April 8, 1973, and was interred at Castle Vauvenargues' park, in Vauvenargues, Bouches-du-Rhône. Jacqueline Roque prevented his children Claude and Paloma from attending the funeral. His final words were "drink to me".

Legacy

final words At the time of his death, he had many paintings, as he had kept off the art market what he didn't need to sell. In addition, Picasso had a considerable collection of the work of other famous artists, some his contemporaries, such as Henri Matisse, with whom he had exchanged works. Since Picasso left no will, his death duties, or estate tax to the French state, were paid in the form of his works and others from his collection. These works form the core of the immense and representative collection of the Musée Picasso in Paris. In 2003, relatives of Picasso inaugurated a museum dedicated to him in his birthplace, Málaga, Spain, the Museo Picasso Málaga. The film Surviving Picasso was made about Picasso in 1996, as seen through the eyes of Francois Gilot. Anthony Hopkins played Picasso in the movie. In 1999, Picasso's Les Noces (The Marriage of Pierrette) sold for more than USD $51 million. Several paintings by Picasso rank among the most expensive paintings in the world. On May 4, 2004 Picasso's painting Garçon à la pipe was sold for USD $104 million at Sotheby's, thus establishing a new price record (see also List of most expensive paintings).

Lists of works

List of most expensive paintings
- List of Picasso artworks 1889-1900
- List of Picasso artworks 1901-1910
- List of Picasso artworks 1911-1920
- List of Picasso artworks 1921-1930
- List of Picasso artworks 1931-1940
- List of Picasso artworks 1941-1950
- List of Picasso artworks 1951-1960
- List of Picasso artworks 1961-1970
- List of Picasso artworks 1971-1973 (For a comprehensive catalogue of his works visit the [http://picasso.tamu.edu/ On-Line Picasso Project])

References


- The Museum of Modern Art. Pablo Picasso, a retrospective. Ed. William Rubin, chronology by Jane Fluegel. New York. 1980. ISBN 0-87070-519-9
- Olivier Widmaier Picasso (grandson of Picasso (Maya's son)). PICASSO: The Real Family Story. Prestel Publ. 2004. 320 p. ISBN 3-79133-149-3 (biography)
- Mary Ann, Caws. Introd. by Arthur C. Danto. PICASSO, PABLO. London 2005. 173 p. 30 pict (biography).

External links

Museums:
- [http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/pica/hd_pica.htm Pablo Picasso at the Metropolitan Museum of Arts, New York]
- [http://www.museopicassomalaga.org/ Museo Picasso Málaga (Málaga, Spain)]
- [http://www.museupicasso.bcn.es/index.htm Museu Picasso (Barcelona, Spain]
- [http://www.musee-picasso.fr/ Musée National Picasso (Paris, France)] Online galleries:
- [http://picasso.tamu.edu/ On-Line Picasso Project] [over 9000 works]
- [http://www.insecula.com/contact/A009007.html Pablo Ruiz Blasco y Picasso (Picasso): 400 works]
- [http://www.malarze.walhalla.pl/galeria.php5?art=11 Pablo Picasso Art Gallery]
- [http://www.picasso.com Pablo Picasso paintings, prints and biography]
- [http://www.privateartcollection.net/pac/display/artist.do?groupid=&grouptype=&aoid=&artisttype=&aotype=&lang=en_EN&sort=&artistao=all&genericid=&artistid=A00000LQ Pablo Picasso's paintings in the Private Art Collection]
- [http://www.woomp.com/greatpainters/pablopicasso19121923Art gallery Gallery Pablo Picasso From 1912 to 1923] 30 pictures
- [http://www.woomp.com/greatpainters/pablopicasso19241937Art gallery Gallery Pablo Picasso From 1924 to 1937] 42 pictures Essays:
- [http://www.aestheticrealism.org/News-ck.htm Power and Tenderness in Men and in Picasso's 'Minotauromachy' by Chaim Koppelman] Other:
- [http://www.artquotes.net/masters/picasso_quotes.htm Pablo Picasso quotes and paintings]
- [http://www.peacemakersguide.org/peace/Peacemakers/Pablo-Picasso.htm Bruderhof Peacemakers Guide profile on Pablo Picasso] Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo Picasso, Pablo ko:파블로 피카소 ja:パブロ・ピカソ th:พาโบล ปิกัสโซ่

October 25

October 25 is the 298th day of the year (299th in leap years) in the Gregorian Calendar, with 67 days remaining.

Events


- 1415 - The army of Henry V of England defeats the French at the Battle of Agincourt.
- 1616 - Dutch sea-captain Dirk Hartog makes second recorded landfall by a European on Australian soil, at the later-named Dirk Hartog Island off the Western Australian coast.
- 1747 - British fleet under Admiral Sir Edward Hawke defeats French at the second battle of Cape Finisterre.
- 1760 - George III becomes King of Great Britain
- 1813 - War of 1812: Canadians and Mohawks beat the Americans in the Battle of Chateauguay.
- 1828 - The St Katharine Docks opened in London.
- 1854 - The Battle of Balaklava during the Crimean War (Charge of the Light Brigade).
- 1861 - The Toronto Stock Exchange was created.
- 1900 - The United Kingdom annexes the Transvaal.
- 1917 - The Bolshevik Revolution Commences.
- 1922 - The Dail of the Irish Free State approves the constitution of the new state, formally bringing it into being.
- 1923 - The United States Senate begins investigating the Teapot Dome scandal
- 1924 - The forged Zinoviev Letter is published in the Daily Mail, wrecking the British Labour Party's hopes of re-election.
- 1936 - Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini create the Rome-Berlin Axis.
- 1938 - The Archbishop of Dubuque, Francis J. L. Beckman, denounces Swing music as "a degenerated musical system... turned loose to gnaw away at the moral fiber of young people", warning that it leads down a "primrose path to hell".
- 1944 - Japan launches first kamikaze attacks, during the Battle of Leyte Gulf
- 1944 - Heinrich Himmler orders a crackdown on the Edelweiss Pirates, a loosely organized youth culture in Nazi Germany that had assisted army deserters and others to hide from the Third Reich
- 1944 - The USS Tang (SS-306) under Richard O'Kane (the top submarine captain of World War II) is sunk by her own torpedo.
- 1945 - The Republic of China takes over administration of Taiwan following Japan's surrender to the Allies.
- 1962 - Cuban missile crisis: Adlai Stevenson shows photos at the UN proving Soviet missiles are installed in Cuba
- 1971 - The United Nations seated the People's Republic of China and expelled the Republic of China (see China and the United Nations)
- 1983 - Operation Urgent Fury: The United States and its Caribbean allies invade Grenada, six days after Prime Minister Maurice Bishop and several of his supporters were executed in a coup d'état.
- 1986 - The New York Mets defeat the Boston Red Sox due to Bill Buckner's famous error in Game 6 of the World Series and go on to win the championship two days later.
- 1987 - Logan Tenhet born
- 1991 - Rock band Steely Dan reunites.
- 1992 - Latvia establishes its first post-Soviet constitution.
- 1993 - Jean Chrétien becomes prime minister of Canada with a massive majority for his Liberal Party in a general election in which the governing Progressive Conservatives, led by Kim Campbell, lost 149 of 151 seats in the parliament.
- 1994 - Susan Smith of Union, South Carolina claims that a black carjacker had driven off with her two sons. She later confessed to drowning the children in John D. Long Lake, and was convicted of murder.
- 1994 - Kara Spears Hultgreen is killed when on final approach to the USS Abraham Lincoln in her F-14 Tomcat.
- 1995 - A commuter train slams into a school bus in Fox River Grove, Illinois, killing seven students.
- 1997 - After a brief civil war which has driven President Pascal Lissouba out of Brazzaville, Denis Sassou-Nguesso proclaims himself the President of the Republic of the Congo.
- 2001 - Microsoft releases Windows XP
- 2003 - The Cedar Fire is reported at 5:37 pm. It becomes the largest wildfire in California history.
- 2004 - Fidel Castro, Cuba's President, announces that transactions using the American Dollar will be banned by November 8th.
- 2004 - Official Guided by Voices Day in Bloomington, Indiana.

Births


- 1102 - William Clito, Count of Flanders (d. 1128)
- 1330 - Louis II of Flanders (d. 1384)
- 1683 - Charles FitzRoy, 2nd Duke of Grafton, British politician (d. 1757)
- 1692 - Elizabeth Farnese, queen of Philip V of Spain (d. 1766)
- 1767 - Benjamin Constant, Swiss writer (d. 1830)
- 1806 - Max Stirner, German philosopher (d. 1856)
- 1811 - Évariste Galois, French mathematician (d. 1832)
- 1825 - Johann Strauss II, Austrian composer (d. 1899)
- 1838 - Georges Bizet, French composer (d. 1875)
- 1856 - Dragutin Gorjanovic-Kramberger, Croatian paleontologist (d. 1936)
- 1864 - Alexander Gretchaninov, Russian composer (d. 1956)
- 1867 - Józef Dowbór-Muśnicki, Polish general (d.1937)
- 1869 - John Heisman, American football coach (d. 1936)
- 1881 - Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter and sculptor (d. 1973)
- 1888 - Richard E. Byrd, American explorer (d. 1957)
- 1889 - Abel Gance, French film writer (d. 1981)
- 1892 - Leo G. Carroll, English actor (d. 1972)
- 1895 - Levi Eshkol, Prime Minister of Israel (d. 1969)
- 1902 - Eddie Lang, American jazz guitarist (d. 1933)
- 1903 - Katharine Byron, U.S. Congresswoman (d. 1976)
- 1908 - Edmond Pidoux, Swiss writer (d. 2004)
- 1910 - William Higinbotham, physicist (d. 1994)
- 1912 - Minnie Pearl, American comedienne and singer (d. 1996)
- 1913 - Klaus Barbie, Nazi war criminal (d. 1991)
- 1914 - John Berryman, American poet (d. 1972)
- 1915 - Ivan M. Niven, Canadian mathematician (d. 1999)
- 1921 - King Michael I of Romania
- 1924 - Billy Barty, American actor (d. 2000)
- 1926 - Galina Vishnevskaya, Russian soprano
- 1927 - Barbara Cook, American singer and actress
- 1928 - Marion Ross, American actress
- 1935 - Russell Schweickart, astronaut
- 1940 - Bobby Knight, American basketball coach
- 1941 - Anne Tyler, American novelist
- 1942 - Helen Reddy, Australian singer
- 1944 - Jon Anderson, English singer (Yes)
- 1944 - James Carville, American political operative
- 1948 - Dan Gable, American wrestler and coach
- 1948 - Glenn Tipton, English guitarist
- 1954 - Mike Eruzione, American hockey player
- 1955 - Robin Eubanks, American jazz trombonist
- 1959 - Nancy Cartwright, American voice actress
- 1961 - Grover Waldrop, American biochemist
- 1962 - Chad Smith, American drummer (Red Hot Chili Peppers)
- 1962 - Darlene Vogel, American actress
- 1964 - Nicole, German singer
- 1970 - Ed Robertson, Canadian guitarist and singer (Barenaked Ladies)
- 1971 - Pedro Martínez, Dominican Major League Baseball player
- 1971 - Midori, Japanese violinist
- 1976 - Joshua P. Warren, American author and paranormal investigator
- 1977 - Birgit Prinz, German footballer
- 1978 - Russell Anderson, Scottish footballer
- 1979 - Tony Torcato, baseball player
- 1981 - Shaun Wright-Phillips, English footballer
- 1984 - Sara Helena Lumholdt, Swedish musician (A-Teens)
- 1985 - Ciara Harris, American singer
- 1988 - Carolyn Hirtle, Canadian Chick
- 1995 - Conchita Campbell, Canadian actress

Deaths


- 304 - Pope Marcellinus (martyred)
- 625 - Pope Boniface V
- 1047 - King Magnus I of Norway (b. 1024)
- 1154 - King Stephen of England (b. 1096)
- 1230 - Gilbert de Clare, 5th Earl of Hertford, English soldier (b. 1180)
- 1400 - Geoffrey Chaucer, English poet
- 1415 - Killed in the Battle of Agincourt:
  - Charles d'Albret, Count of Dreux and Constable of France
  - John I of Alençon (b. 1385)
  - Antoine, Duke of Brabant (b. 1384)
  - Philip of Burgundy, Count of Nevers and Rethel (b. 1389)
  - Frederick of Lorraine (born 1371)
  - Philip II, Count of Nevers (b. 1389)
  - Michael de la Pole, 3rd Earl of Suffolk (born 1394)
  - Edward of Norwich, 2nd Duke of York (born 1373)
- 1492 - Thaddeus McCarthy, Irish Catholic bishop
- 1495 - King John II of Portugal (b. 1455)
- 1514 - William Elphinstone, Scottish bishop and statesman (b. 1431)
- 1555 - Olympia Fulvia Morata, Italian classical scholar (b. 1526)
- 1557 - William Cavendish, English politician (b. 1505)
- 1633 - Jean Titelouze, French organist
- 1647 - Evangelista Torricelli, Italian physicist and mathematician (b. 1608)
- 1683 - William Scroggs, Lord Chief Justice of England
- 1733 - Giovanni Gerolamo Saccheri, Italian mathematician (b. 1667)
- 1757 - Antoine Augustine Calmet, French theologian (b. 1672)
- 1760 - George II of Great Britain (b. 1683)
- 1889 - Émile Augier, French dramatist (b. 1820)
- 1895 - Charles Hallé, German pianist and conductor (b. 1819)
- 1910 - Willie Anderson, Scottish-born golfer (b. 1878)
- 1920 - King Alexander I of Greece (bitten by a pet monkey) (b. 1893)
- 1921 - Bat Masterson, American journalist and lawman
- 1938 - Alfonsina Storni, Argentine poet (b. 1892)
- 1953 - Holger Pedersen, Danish linguist (b. 1867)
- 1957 - Albert Anastasia, Italian-born gangster (b. 1902)
- 1957 - Lord Dunsany, Irish writer (b. 1878)
- 1963 - Roger Désormière, French conductor (b. 1898)
- 1973 - Abebe Bikila, Ethiopian athlete (b. 1932)
- 1974 - Nick Drake, English musician and songwriter (b. 1948)
- 1980 - Virgil Fox, American organist (b. 1912)
- 1986 - Forrest Tucker, America actor (b. 1919)
- 1991 - Bill Graham, German-born concert promoter (b. 1931)
- 1992 - Roger Miller, American musician and composer (b. 1936)
- 1993 - Danny Chan, Hong Kong singer, actor, and songwriter (b. 1958)
- 1993 - Vincent Price, American actor (b. 1911)
- 1995 - Bobby Riggs, American tennis player (b. 1918)
- 1999 - Payne Stewart, American golfer (b. 1957)
- 2002 - Richard Harris, Irish actor (b. 1930)
- 2002 - Paul Wellstone, U.S. Senator from Minnesota (b. 1944)
- 2004 - John Peel, British disc jockey (b. 1939)
- 2005 - Wellington Mara, American football team owner (b. 1916)

Holidays and observances


- R.C. Saints - Feast day of Saints Crispin and Crispian; Six Welsh martyrs and companions; forty martyrs of England and Wales
- Also see October 25 (Eastern Orthodox liturgics)
- Kazakhstan - Republic Day
- Republic of China - Taiwan Retrocession Day (1945)
- Virgin Islands - Thanksgiving Day : end of the hurricane season
- Day of the Romanian Army

External links


- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/25 BBC: On This Day] ---- October 24 - October 26 - November 25 - September 25 - more historical anniversaries ko:10월 25일 ms:25 Oktober ja:10月25日 simple:October 25 th:25 ตุลาคม

1881

1881 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events

January - April


- January 16-January 24 - Siege of Geok Tepe - Russian troops under general Skobeleff defeat Turkomans
- January 24 - William Edward Forster, the chief secretary for Ireland, introduces his Coercion Bill - it goes through a long debate before it is accepted February 2
- January 25 - Thomas Edison and Alexander Graham Bell form the Oriental Telephone Company
- February 5 - Phoenix, Arizona is incorporated.
- February 13 - First issue of the feminist newspaper La Citoyenne is published by Hubertine Auclert.
- February 19 - Kansas became the first U.S. state to prohibit all alcoholic beverages.
- March 4 - Rutherford Birchard Hayes is succeeded as President of the United States by James Abram Garfield.
- March 12 - Andrew Watson makes his Scotland debut as the world's first black international football player and captain.
- March 13 - Alexander II of Russia is killed near his palace when a bomb is thrown at him. He is succeeded by his son, Alexander III.
- March 16 - Fenian dynamiters hit Mansion House in London.
- April 21 - The University of Connecticut is founded as the Storrs Agricultural School.
- April 25 - Caulfield Grammar School is founded in Melbourne, Australia.
- April 28 - Billy the Kid escapes from New Mexico jail.

May - August


- May 12 - In North Africa, Tunisia becomes a French protectorate.
- May 21 - The American Red Cross is established by Clara Barton.
- May 21 - The United States Tennis Association is established by a small group of tennis club members.
- June 12 - The USS Jeannette is crushed in an Arctic Ocean ice pack.
- July 1 - General Order 70, the culmination of the Cardwell-Childers reforms of the British Army's organisation, came into effect.
- July 2 - James Abram Garfield, President of the United States is shot by lawyer Charles Julius Guiteau. He survives the assassination attempt but he suffers from infection of his wound.
- July 4 - In Alabama, the Tuskegee Institute opens.
- July 20 - Indian Wars: Sioux chief Sitting Bull leads the last of his fugitive people in surrender to United States troops at Fort Buford in Montana.

September - December


- September 5 - The Thumb Fire in the U.S. state of Michigan destroys over a million acres (4,000 km²) and kills 282 people.
- September 19 - James Abram Garfield, President of the United States dies due to an infected wound caused by an assassin's bullet and is succeeded by Vice President Chester Alan Arthur.
- October 26 - Gunfight at the O.K. Corral in Tombstone, Cochise County, Arizona, USA.
- October 29 - The Judge (US magazine) first published.
- November 19 - A meteorite struck earth near the village of Großliebenthal, a few kilometers southwest of Odessa, Ukraine.
- December 8 - At least 620 die in fire at Ring Theatre, Vienna

Unknown date


- Founding of the Pali Text Society
- University College Dublin is established in Ireland
- The United States National Lawn Tennis Association (USNLTA) is founded, and the first U.S. Tennis Championships are played.
- Founding of the League of the Three Emperors
- London Evening News begins publication
- Some Vatican archives opened to scholars for the first time
- Abilene, Texas is founded.
- Leyton Orient F.C. is Founded

Births


- January 6 - Sam Rayburn, Speaker of the United States House of Representatives (d. 1961)
- January 9 - Lascelles Abercrombie, English poet and critic (d. 1938)
- January 17 - Antoni Łomnicki, Polish mathematician (d. 1941)
- January 31 - Irving Langmuir, American chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1957)
- February 12 - Anna Pavlova, Russian ballerina (d. 1931)
- March 17 - Walter Rudolf Hess, Swiss physiologist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1973)
- March 23 - Roger Martin du Gard, French writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
- March 23 - Hermann Staudinger, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1965)
- March 25 - Béla Bartók, Hungarian composer (d. 1945)
- March 25 - Mary Gladys Webb, English writer (d. 1927)
- May 1 - Mary MacLane, Canadian-born feminist writer (d. 1929)
- June 17 - Tommy Burns, Canadian-born boxer (d. 1955)
- July 4 - Ulysses S. Grant III, American soldier and planner (d. 1968)
- July 27 - Hans Fischer, German chemist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1945)
- July 30 - Smedley Butler, U.S. general (d. 1940)
- August 6 - Sir Alexander Fleming, Scottish researcher, recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (d. 1955)
- August 19 - Georges Enescu, Romanian composer (d. 1955)
- August 20 - Edgar Guest, English poet (d. 1959)
- September 8 - Harry Hillman, American athlete (d. 1945)
- September 16 - Clive Bell, English art critic (d. 1964)
- September 17 - Alfred Francis Blakeney Carpenter, English soldier (d. 1955)
- October 1 - William Boeing, American engineer and airplane manufacturer (d. 1956)
- October 11 - Hans Kelsen, Austrian legal theorist (d. 1973)
- October 15 - P. G. Wodehouse, English-born writer (d. 1975)
- October 22 - Clinton Davisson, American physicist, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
- October 25 - Pablo Picasso, Spanish painter (d. 1973)
- November 14 - Nicholas Schenck, Russian-born film studio executive (d. 1969)
- November 24 - Al Christie, Canadian-born director and producer (d. 1951)
- November 25 - Pope John XXIII (d. 1963)
- December 24 - Juan Ramón Jiménez, Spanish writer, Nobel Prize laureate (d. 1958)
- Antoni Józef Śmieszek, Polish Egyptologist and linguist (d. 1943)
- William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury (d. 1944)
- Hiram Wesley Evans, American leader of KKK and prohibitionist, (d. 1966)
- Kemal Atatürk, founder and the first President of Turkey (d. 1938)

Deaths


- January 3 - Anna McNeill Whistler, Whistler's mother (b. 1804)
- January 21 - Wilhelm Matthias Naeff, member of the Swiss Federal Council (b. 1802)
- February 5 - Thomas Carlyle, Scottish writer and historian (b. 1795)
- February 9 - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Russian novelist (b. 1821)
- March 13 - Czar Alexander II of Russia (b. 1818)
- March 28 - Modest Mussorgsky, Russian composer (b. 1839)
- April 19 - Benjamin Disraeli, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (b. 1804)
- May 24 - Samuel Palmer, English artist (b. 1805)
- June 6 - Henri Vieuxtemps, Belgian composer (b. 1820)
- July 17 - Jim Bridger, American explorer and trapper (b. 1804)
- July 18 - Billy the Kid, American gunslinger (b. 1859)
- September 7 - Sidney Lanier, American writer (b. 1842)
- September 19 - James A. Garfield, 20th President of the United States (assassinated) (b. 1831)
- September 22 - Solomon L. Spink, U.S. Congressman from Illinois (b. 1831)
- October 3 - Orson Pratt, American religious leader (b. 1811)
- October 31 - George DeLong, American naval officer and explorer (starvation) (b. 1844)

Trivia

1881 was the only year in which three different U.S. Presidents occupied the White House: Rutherford B. Hayes, James A. Garfield, and Chester A. Arthur. Category:1881 ko:1881년 ms:1881 simple:1881 th:พ.ศ. 2424

Spain

The Kingdom of Spain (Spanish and Galician: Reino de España or España; Catalan: Regne d'Espanya; Basque: Espainiako Erresuma). To west (and, in Galicia, south), it borders Portugal. To south, it borders Gibraltar and Morocco. To the northeast, along the Pyrenees mountain range, it borders France and the tiny principality of Andorra. It includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the cities of Ceuta and Melilla in north Africa, and a number of uninhabited islands on the Mediterranean side of the strait of Gibraltar, known as Plazas de soberanía, such as the Chafarine islands, the "rocks" (peñones) of Vélez and Alhucemas, and the tiny Isla Perejil (disputed). In the Northeast along the Pyrenees, a small exclave town called Llívia in Catalonia is surrounded by French territory.

History

Main article: History of Spain

Prehistory

The aboriginal peoples of the Iberian peninsula, consisting of a number of separate tribes, are given the generic name of Iberians. This may have included the Basques, the only pre-Celtic people in Iberia surviving to the present day as a separate ethnic group. The most important culture of this period is that of the city of Tartessos. Beginning in the 9th century BC, Celtic tribes entered the Iberian peninsula through the Pyrenees and settled throughout the peninsula, becoming the Celtiberians. The seafaring Phoenicians, Greeks and Carthaginians successively settled along the Mediterranean coast and founded trading colonies there over a period of several centuries. Around 1,100 BC Phoenician merchants founded the trading colony of Gadir or Gades (modern day Cádiz) near Tartessos. In the 8th century BC the first Greek colonies, such as Emporion (modern Empúries), were founded along the Mediterranean coast on the East, leaving the south coast to the Phoenicians. The Greeks are responsible for the name Iberia, after the river Iber (Ebro in Spanish). In the 6th century BC the Carthaginians arrived in Iberia while struggling with the Greeks for control of the Western Mediterranean. Their most important colony was Carthago Nova (Latin name of modern day Cartagena).

Roman Empire

The Romans arrived in the Iberian peninsula during the Second Punic war in the 2nd century BC, and annexed it under Augustus after two centuries of war with the Celtic and Iberian tribes and the Phoenician, Greek and Carthaginian colonies becoming the province of Hispania. It was divided in Hispania Ulterior and Hispania Citerior during the late Roman Republic; and, during the Roman Empire, Hispania Taraconensis in the northeast, Hispania Baetica in the south and Lusitania in the southwest. Hispania supplied the Roman Empire with food, olive oil, wine and metal. The emperors Trajan, Hadrian and Theodosius I, the philosopher Seneca and the poets Martial and Lucan were born in Spain. The Spanish Bishops held the Council at Elvira in 306. Many of Spain's present languages, religion, and laws originate from this period.

Muslim Spain

Main articles: Al-Andalus and Reconquista In the 8th century, nearly all the Iberian peninsula, which had been under Visigothic rule, was quickly conquered (from 711), by Muslims (the Moors), who had crossed over from North Africa, as part of the conquests of the Christian kingdoms there by the religiously inspired Umayyad empire. Only three small counties in the north of Spain kept their independence: Asturias, Navarra and Aragon, which eventually became kingdoms. Very soon the Muslim emirate split into small kingdoms. Christian and Muslim kingdoms fought and allied among themselves, with the Christians driving the Moorish forces out of the northern most parts of the peninsula within a few decades. The Muslim taifa kings competed in patronage of the arts, and the Jewish population of Iberia set the basis of Sephardic culture. Much of Spain's distinctive art originates from this seven-hundred-year period, and many Arabic words made their way into Castilian (Spanish) and Catalan, and from them to other European languages. The Moorish capital was Córdoba, in the southern portion of Spain known as Andalucía. During the time of Arab occupation, large populations of Jews, Christians and Muslims living in close quarters, and at its peak some non-Muslims were appointed to high offices. Though its tolerance has been exaggerated and romanticised by 19th century scholars it did produce some real achievements. At its best it produced great architecture, art, and Muslim and Jewish scholars played a great part in reviving the study of ancient western culture and philosophy, making their own important contributions to it, and becoming one of the most important ways by which these studies were revived in Europe. However there were also restrictions and imposts on non-Muslims, which tended to grow after the death of Al-Hakam II in 976, and worsened after the fall of Al-Andalus in 1031. Later invasions of stricter Muslim groups from north Africa even led to persecutions of non-Muslims, forcing some (including some Muslim scholars) to seek safety in the then still relatively tolerant city of Toledo after its Christian reconquest in 1085. 1085] The long, convoluted period of expansion of the Christian kingdoms, beginning in 722, only eleven years after the Moorish invasion, is called the Reconquista. As early as 739, the northwestern region of Galicia, which became one of the most important centres of western medieval Christian pilgrimage, Santiago de Compostela, had been liberated from Moorish occupation by forces from neighbouring Asturias. The 1085 conquest of the central city of Toledo had largely brought to an end the reconquest of the northern half of Iberia. The Battle of Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212 heralded the collapse, within a few decades, of the great Moorish strongholds, such as Seville and Córdoba, in the south-west. By the middle of the thirteenth century most of the Iberian peninsula had been reconquered, leaving only Granada as a small tributary state in the south. It ended in 1492, when Isabella and Ferdinand captured the southern city of Granada, the last Moorish city in Spain. The Treaty of Granada [http://www.cyberistan.org/islamic/treaty1492.html] guaranteed religious toleration toward Muslims while Jews were expelled that year. At Ferdinand's insistance the Spanish Inquisition had been established and Tomás de Torquemada was appointed as its first Inquisitor General in 1482. Behind much of the real religious intolerance was always the ever present fear that the Muslims might assist another Muslim invasion. Furthermore Aragonese labourers were angered by the use of Moorish workers by landlords to undercut them. A 1499 Muslim uprising was crushed and was followed by the first of the expulsions of Muslims, in 1502. The year 1492 was also marked by the discovery of the New World. Isabel I funded the voyages of Columbus. In their contests with the French army, Spanish forces relied more on well trained, highly mobile, regular soldiers and eventually achieved success with the organised tactical use of hand guns against armoured French knights, in the Italian Wars from 1494. Already considerable powers, these wars saw the emergence of the new combined Spanish kingdoms of Castile and Aragon as a European great power.

From the Renaissance to the 19th Century

Until the late of the 15th century, Castile and Léon, Aragon and Navarre were independent states, with independent languages, monarchs, armies and, in the case of Aragon and Castile, two empires: the former with one in the Mediterranean and the latter with a new, rapidly growing, one in the Americas. The process of political unification continued into the early sixteenth century. It was the unification of these separate Iberian empires that became the base of what is in now referred to as the Spanish Empire. By 1512, most of the kingdoms of present-day Spain were politically unified, although not as a modern, centralized state (in contemporary minds, "Spain" was a geographic term meaning Iberian Peninsula, which includes Portugal, not the present-day state called Spain). The grandson of Isabella and Ferdinand, Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor but called in Spain Carlos I, extended his crown to other places in Europe and the rest of the world. The unification of Iberia was complete when Charles V's son, Philip II, became King of Portugal in 1580, as well as of the other Iberian Kingdoms (collectively known as "Spain" at that time). During the 16th century, under the reigns of Charles V and Philip II, Spain became the most powerful nation in Europe. The Spanish Empire covered most territories of South and Central America, Mexico, some of Eastern Asia (including The Philippines), the Iberian peninsula (including the Portuguese empire from 1580), southern Italy, Germany, and the Netherlands. It was the first empire about which it was said that the sun did not set. It was a time of daring explorations by sea and by land, the opening up of new trade routes across oceans, conquests and the beginning of European colonization. Not only did this lead to the arrival of ever increasing quantities of precious metals, spices and luxuries, and new agricultural plants, that had a great influence on the development of Europe, but the explorers, soldiers, traders and missionaries also brought back with them a flood of knowledge that radically transformed the European understanding of the world, ending conceptions inherited from medieval times. The treasure fleet across the Atlantic and the Manila galleons across the Pacific made it the wealthiest and most powerful nation in Europe, but the rapidly rising influx of silver and gold from the colonies in the Americas throughout the 16th century ultimately resulted in economically damaging rampant inflation and led to economic depression by the 17th century. Religious and dynastic wars supported by the Spanish crown, especially in the Netherlands, also greatly burdened the empire's economy. 17th century] In 1640, under Philip IV, the centralist policy of the Count-Duke of Olivares provoked wars in Portugal and Catalonia. Portugal became an independent kingdom again, taking with it its empire, and Catalonia enjoyed some years of French-supported independence but was quickly returned to the Spanish Crown, except Roussillon. A series of long and costly wars and revolts followed in the early 17th century, and began a steady decline of Spanish power in Europe from the 1640s. Controversy over succession to the throne consumed the country and much of Europe during the first years of the 18th century (see War of the Spanish Succession). It was only after this war ended and a new dynasty—the French Bourbons—was installed that a true Spanish state was established when the absolutist first Bourbon king Philip V of Spain in 1707 dissolved the parliamentarist Aragon court and unified the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon into a single, unified Kingdom of Spain, abolishing many of the regional privileges and autonomies (fueros) that had hampered Habsburg rule. The British abandoned the conflict after Utrecht (1713), which led to Barcelona's easy defeat by the absolutists in 1714. The National Day of Catalonia still commemorates this defeat. Of note during the 17th century was the cultural efflorescence now known as the Spanish Golden Age. Historically, the period of the mid 17th century to the mid 20th century was a failure for Spain compared to north western Europe. The extended, lingering decline of the Spanish empire was due in large part, ironically, to its spectacular successes in the 15th and 16th centuries that led to the centuries of the treasure fleets bringing back silver and gold into the country from the American mines. These shipments engendered inflation (a fact noticed by the School of Salamanca) that ate away at Spanish trades and commerce by causing local goods to be uncompetitive, and eventually making the country almost totally dependant upon imports by the mid seventeenth century, which proved disasterous as the silver mines became exhausted. Greatly worsening matters were the constant wars defending the world empire against envious European rivals, internal successions and the European wars (Eighty Years War and Thirty Years War), where Spain's resources were constantly drained defending the Habsburg's dynastic and religious interests, including the Counter Reformation. From the early 17th century the government sought to meet its needs by tampering with the silver content of the currency, leading to severe bouts of inflation and deflation. The terrible burden of taxes on the productive classes of the country, and the financial instability led to the collapse of the Castilian economy to the point where people reverted to bartering in the 1620s. A severe decline in food production ensued. The result was a steep real economic and demographic decline during the 17th century, especially in empire's overburdened lynchpin, Castile, aggravated by failed harvests and plagues. Habsburg policies that entrenched the privileges and exemptions of the nobility (with its roots back in the Castilian War of the Communities) and the Church (as part of support of the Counter Reformation), with a great extension of Church lands, also played a decisive part in the undermining the Spanish economy and in curtailing the spread of modern thought. This was in stark contrast to the diminishing status of both institutions in rivals France, England and the Netherlands. The resentment of ordinary peasants and labourers would find expression in implicating the nobility of Moorish ancestory and the churchmen of hypocrisy. These accusations found their way into the theatre and literature of the time. The beggary that grew rapidly from the late 16th century forced many to live by their wits and inspired the popular picaresque genre of literature. Following the wars of Spanish succession at its commencment, the 18th century saw a long, slow recovery, with an expansion of the iron and steel industries in the Basque country, some increase in trade and a recovery in food production and population. The Bourbons drew on the French system in trying to modernise the administration and economy, in which it was more successful in the former than the latter. However in the last two decades of the century there was a rapid growth (from a relatively low base) in general trade after the opening up of free trade within the empire (ending the south's monopoly), and even the beginnings of an industrialisation of the textile industry in Catalonia. But this promising late eighteenth century surge was shortlived, being totally disrupted by the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars at the beginning of the 19th century, that preceeded the loss of the vast mainland American territories and plunged the country into endemic political instability, which lasted until 1939. The Napoleonic incursion led to a fierce guerilla war (Peninsular War) and saw the first wide spread appearance of Spanish nationalism. In the latter half of the 19th century, Spanish Catalonia became a center of Spain's industrialization. Pockets of relative modernity in Catalonia and the north would appear, but Spain's relative economic and political decline overall mirrored in general the fate of other regions of southern Europe such as Portugal, the Italian states, the Balkans, and much of central and eastern Europe, as much of the rapidly growing global oceanic trade, pioneered by the Iberian countries, was diverted to northwestern Europe. Spain lost all of its remaining old colonies in the Caribbean region and Asia-Pacific region at the end of the 19th century, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Philippines, and a large number of Pacific islands to the United States after the Spanish-American War of 1898. However "the Disaster" of 1898, as Spanish-American War was called, led to Spain's cultural revival (Generation of '98) in which there was much critical self examination, and relieved it from the burden of its last major colonies. However political stability in such a dispersed and variegated land, caught between pockets of modernity and large areas of extreme rural backwardness and strongly differentiated regional identities would elude the country for some decades yet, and was ultimately imposed only by a brutal dictatorship in 1939.

20th century

The 20th century initially brought little peace; colonization of Western Sahara, Spanish Morocco and Equatorial Guinea was attempted. A period of dictatorial rule (1923 - 1931) ended with the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic. The Republic offered political autonomy to the Basque Country and Catalonia and gave voting rights to women. However, in July 1936, against a backdrop of increasing political polarization, anti-clericalism and pressure from all sides, coupled with growing and unchecked political violence, the Republic was faced with an attempted military coup d'etat led by right-wing army generals. Although the coup initially failed, the ensuing Spanish Civil War ended in 1939 with the victory of the nationalist forces led by General Francisco Franco and supported by Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and the United States of America, increasingly concerned about communism. The Republican side received tepid support from European democracies, which left the Soviet Union and idealist voluntary International Brigades as the only supporters of the legitimate democratic Republican rule. The Spanish Civil War has been called the first battle of the Second World War. After the civil war, General Francisco Franco ruled a nation exhausted politically and economically. During the Second World War Franco, under extreme pressure (Hitler had brought his army to the border of Spain after invading France), opted to remain neutral arguing that Spain could not afford a new war, but, as a concession to his civil war backer, authorised volunteers to go to the Russian front to fight the Soviet Union in an anti-Communist crusade in what came to be known as the Blue Division. The resentment of Franco's brutality towards the more modern pro-Republican regions of Catalonia and the Basque country, whose distinctive languages and identity he suppressed during his long reign, continues to fuel strong separatist movements to this day. The only official party in Spain at the time of Franco´s regime was the Falange party founded by Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. Primo de Rivera denied his party was fascist, calling fascism fundamentaly false. His political philosophy was based on Catholicism, saying that man "carries eternal values" and carries "a soul that is capable of damning or saving itself". He called for "the greatest respect for...human dignity, for the integrity of man and for his liberty." Primo de Rivera called for what he called "organic democracy". Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera was executed in Alicante in 1936. After World War II, being one of few surviving fascist regimes in Europe, Spain was politically and economically isolated and was kept out of the United Nations until 1955, when it became strategically important for U.S. president Eisenhower to establish a military presence in the Iberian peninsula. This opening to Spain was aided by Franco's opposition to communism. In the 1960s, more than a decade later than other western European countries, Spain began to enjoy economic growth and gradually transformed into a modern industrial economy with a thriving tourism sector. Growth continued well into the 1970s, with Franco's government going to great lengths to shield the Spanish people from the effects of the oil crisis. Upon the death of the dictator General Franco in November 1975, his personally-designated heir Prince Juan Carlos assumed the position of king and head of state. With the approval of the Spanish Constitution of 1978 and the arrival of democracy, some regions — Basque Country, Navarra— were given complete financial autonomy, and many — Basque Country, Catalonia, Galicia and Andalusia— were given some political autonomy, which was then soon extended to all Spanish regions, resulting in a quite decentralized territorial organization in Western Europe. Remaining dysfunctionalities, such as unlimited financial strain on contributor regions such as Catalonia make their people aim for a more equilibrated system, such as those enjoyed in Germany, where finantial contribution to the whole can never exceed 4% of a Land's GDP. In the Basque Country pro-peace Basque and Spanish nationalisms coexist with radical nationalism supportive of the terrorist group ETA, which remains one of the biggest problems faced by Spanish citizens. Adolfo Suárez González, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo Bustelo, after an attempted coup d'état in 1981, Felipe González Márquez (when Spain joined NATO and European Union), José María Aznar López and José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero have been prime ministers of Spain.

21st century

On March 11, 2004, a series of bombs exploded in commuter trains in Madrid, Spain. These resulted in 191 people dead and 1,460 wounded. It also had a significant effect on the upcoming elections in Spain, due in part to the ruling government's insistence that the ETA was the prime suspect in the bombings, even as the evidence of Muslim extremist terrorism rapidly emerged from the police investigation and the international press. see the 11 March 2004 Madrid train bombings article for more information :See also: List of Spanish monarchs, Kings of Spain family tree

Politics

Main article: Politics of Spain Politics of Spain.]] Spain is a constitutional monarchy, with a hereditary monarch and a bicameral parliament, the Cortes Generales or National Assembly. The executive branch consists of a Council of Ministers presided over by the President of Government (comparable to a prime minister), proposed by the monarch and elected by the National Assembly following legislative elections. The legislative branch is made up of the Congress of Deputies (Congreso de los Diputados) with 350 members, elected by popular vote on block lists by proportional representation to serve four-year terms, and a Senate or Senado with 259 seats of which 208 are directly elected by popular vote and the other 51 appointed by the regional legislatures to also serve four-year terms. Spain is, at present, what is called a State of Autonomies, formally unitary but, in fact, functioning as a Federation of Autonomous Communities, each one with different powers (for instance, some have their own educational and health systems, others do not) and laws. There are some differences within this system, since power has been devolved from the centre to the periphery asymmetrically, with some autonomous governments (especially those dominated by nationalist parties) seeking a more federalist—or even confederate—kind of relationship with Spain, now the Central Government is dealing with autonomous governments for the transfer of more autonomy. This novel system of asymmetrical devolution has been described as a coconstitutionalism and has similarities to the devolution process adopted by the United Kingdom since 1997. The terrorist group, ETA (Basque Homeland and Freedom), is attempting to achieve Basque independence through violent means, including bombings and killings of politicians and police. Although the Basque Autonomous government does not condone any kind of violence, their different approaches to the separatist movement are a source of tension between the federal and Basque governments. On 17 May 2005, all the parties in the Congress of Deputies, except the PP, passed the Central Government's motion of beginning peace talks with the ETA with no political concessions and only if it gives up all its weapons. PSOE, CiU, ERC, PNV, IU-ICV, CC and the mixed group -BNG, CHA, EA y NB- supported it with a total of 192 votes, while the 147 PP parliamentaris objected. On February 20th 2005, Spain became the first country to allow its people to vote on the European Union constitution that was signed in October 2004. The rules states that if any country rejects the constitution then the constitution will be declared void. The final result was very strongly in affirmation of the constitution, making Spain the first country to approve the constitution via referendum (Hungary, Lithuania and Slovenia approved it before Spain, but they did not hold referenda).

Administrative divisions

Administratively, Spain is divided into 50 provinces, grouped into 17 autonomous communities and 2 autonomous cities with high degree of autonomy.

Autonomous communities

autonomous communities Main article: Autonomous communities of Spain Spain consists of 17 autonomous communities (comunidades autónomas) and 2 autonomous cities (ciudades autónomas; Ceuta and Melilla).
- Andalusia (Andalucía)
- Aragon (Aragón)
- Principality of Asturias (Principáu d'Asturies in Asturian/Principado de Asturias in Spanish)
- Balearic Islands (Illes Balears in Catalan / Islas Baleares in Spanish)
- Basque Country (Euskadi in Basque/País Vasco in Spanish)
- Canary Islands (Islas Canarias)
- Cantabria
- Castile-La Mancha (Castilla-La Mancha)
- Castile and Leon (Castilla y León in Spanish)
- Catalonia (Catalunya in Catalan/Cataluña in Spanish/ Catalunha in Aranese)
- Extremadura
- Galicia (Galicia or Galiza in Galician)
- La Rioja
- Madrid
- Murcia
- Navarre (Nafarroa in Basque/Navarra in Spanish)
- Land of Valencia (Comunitat Valenciana in Valencian /Comunidad Valenciana in Spanish, as official denominations).

Provinces

Main article: Provinces of Spain The Spanish kingdom is also divided into 50 provinces (provincias). Autonomous communities group provinces (for instance, Extremadura is made of two provinces: Cáceres and Badajoz). The autonomous communities of Asturias, the Balearic Islands, Cantabria, La Rioja, Navarre, Murcia, and Madrid (the nation's capital) are each composed of a single province. Traditionally, provinces are usually subdivided into historic regions or comarcas (main article: Comarcas of Spain).

Places of sovereignty

There are also five enclaves (plazas de soberanía) on and off the African coast: the cities of Ceuta and Melilla are administered as autonomous cities, an intermediate status between cities and communities; the islands of the Islas Chafarinas, Peñón de Alhucemas, and Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera are under direct Spanish administration. The Canary islands, Ceuta and Melilla, although not officially historic communities, enjoy a special status.

Geography

Main article: Geography of Spain Geography of Spain Mainland Spain is dominated by high plateaus and mountain ranges such as the Pyrenees or the Sierra Nevada. Running from these heights are several major rivers such as the Tajo, the Ebro, the Duero, the Guadiana and the