The Spanish king reclaims his throne

The Spanish king reclaims his throne

In 1975, the death of General Francisco Franco was announced in Spain, bringing to an end 36 years of dictatorship.

Franco had already chosen his successor: Prince Juan Carlos, grandson of the last monarch, Alphonso XIII. This was the man who - Franco thought - would continue his authoritarian, anti-democratic and deeply conservative regime.

But Juan Carlos defied expectations. In the years that followed, he would lead Spain from a dictatorship to a democracy until, in 1977, the country held its first free elections for 41 years.

Jane Wilkinson tells the story using excerpts from the 1981 BBC and TVE documentary, Juan Carlos: King of Spain. This episode was made in collaboration with BBC Archives.

Eye-witness accounts brought to life by archive. Witness History is for those fascinated by the past. We take you to the events that have shaped our world through the eyes of the people who were there.

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(Photo: King Juan Carlos on his proclamation day as king. Credit: Jacques Pavlovsky/Sygma via Getty Images)

Episoder(2000)

Japanese Murders in Brazil

Japanese Murders in Brazil

When WW2 was over, a fanatical group of Japanese immigrants living in Brazil refused to believe that Japan had lost the war. They decided to punish their more prominent compatriots who accepted that Japan had lost. The extremists killed 23 people. Aiko Higuchi remembers the tragic day in February 1946 when her father became their first victim.Photo: Some members of Shindo Renmei (Tokuichi Hidaka is the first from the right) in picture taken by Masashigue Onishi in Tupã, state of São Paulo, Brazil, in the beginning of 1946, before the killings. Credit: Masashigue Onishi/Historical Museum of Japanese Immigration in Brazil

15 Nov 20189min

The Shah in Exile

The Shah in Exile

In November 1979, Iranian students seized the American embassy in Tehran after Washington agreed to allow the deposed Shah into the US for medical treatment. It would be more than a year before the US embassy hostages were released and the crisis irreparably damaged American-Iranian relations. Louise Hidalgo has been talking to diplomat Henry Precht, head of the Iran desk at the US state department during those tumultuous months who argued against letting the exiled Shah enter America.Picture: protestors in New York demonstrate against the admission of the Shah of Iran into a New York hospital (Credit: Michael Norcia/Sygma/Getty Images)

13 Nov 20189min

Jewish in Imperial Russia

Jewish in Imperial Russia

Pearl Unikow was a young woman who grew up in a segregated Jewish community in Russia before WW1. Her stories, recorded in Yiddish in the 1970s, provide a rare account of traditional Jewish life. Her granddaughter Lisa Cooper wrote a book based on those recordings. Dina Newman has been listening to the tapes and spoke to Lisa Cooper. Photo: Pearl Unikow (in the middle of the back row) with her cousins, circa 1920. Credit: family archive.

13 Nov 20188min

How The Brazilian Dictatorship Made My Father Disappear

How The Brazilian Dictatorship Made My Father Disappear

On a hot summer day in 1971, six armed men invaded the house of former Congressman Rubens Paiva in Rio de Janeiro. He was taken from his wife and children, never to be seen again. Paiva was one of the most famous Brazilians to disappear during the military dictatorship. His son, writer Marcelo Rubens Paiva, tells how his family coped with decades of lies, uncertainty and, finally, the truth.Photo: Rubens Paiva surrounded by his family (his son, Marcelo, is seated cross-legged). Credit: Family Archive

12 Nov 20188min

WW1: Revolution in Germany

WW1: Revolution in Germany

After four years of war Germany was on the verge of defeat. Its armies were exhausted and in retreat, its civilian population enduring hardship and hunger. As unrest grew at home, the German government and military struggled to maintain control. The German Kaiser was forced to abdicate. Germany became a republic. Hear first-hand accounts from the BBC archive of how the disastrous end to the First World War provoked revolution in Germany. Photo: Revolutionaries in a truck with machine guns in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, November 1918 (Photo by Culture Club/Getty Images)

8 Nov 20189min

Women Nurses during World War One

Women Nurses during World War One

During World War One, two British nurses set up a first aid station just a few hundred metres behind the trenches of the Western Front. Mairi Chisholm and Elsie Knocker became known as 'the Madonnas of Pervyse'. Mairi Chisholm spoke to the BBC in 1977, Lucy Burns has been listening to her story.(Photo: Mairi Chisholm (left) and Elsie Knocker. Courtesy of Dr Diane Atkinson, author of Elsie and Mairi Go To War)

7 Nov 20188min

African Troops during World War One

African Troops during World War One

At the start of World War One, British and German colonial forces went into battle in East Africa. Tens of thousands of African troops and up to a million porters were conscripted to fight and keep the armies supplied. Alex Last brings you very rare recordings of Kenyan veterans of the King's African Rifles, talking about their experiences of the war. The interviews were made in Kenya in the early 1980s by Gerald Rilling with the help of Paul Kiamba.Photo: Locally recruited troops under German command in Dar Es Salaam, Tanzania (then part of German East Africa), circa 1914. (Photo by Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

6 Nov 20188min

The Battle of Passchendaele

The Battle of Passchendaele

It was one of the defining battles of the First World War.Britain and its allies had ambitious plans to break through German lines - but they ended up mired in mud.Listen to the voices of soldiers who took part - from the BBC archive.Photo: Getty Images.

5 Nov 20188min

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