History Spain On This Day - March 1

1493: the caravel ‘La Pinta,’ one of the three ships which set sail on Christopher Columbus’s first voyage across the Atlantic, reaches port in Baiona, Pontevedra, with the first news of the discovery of the New World.

1903: the first edition of La Verdad newspaper is published.

1940: a new law is published in the Official State Bulletin, for the repression of communism, freemasonry, and other movements which foment ideas against ‘religion, the motherland and social harmony.’

1979: the UCD centre party led by Adolfo Suárez wins the first general election of post-Constitutional Spain.

2002: the peseta is officially withdrawn, and the euro becomes the only legal tender in Spain.

Noted births on this day include:

1105 Alfonso VII, King of Galicia, León and Castilla, crowned Emperor of Spain 1135

The Civil War pilot and inventor, Carlos de Haya González, the official pilot of General Franco, was born in Bilbao in 1902. Málaga’s regional university hospital is named after him.

The actor, Javier Bardem, was born in Las Palmas de Gran Canaria in 1969.