It is the birthday of Juan Carlos I, who was born on the 5th of January in 1938 and reigned as the King of Spain from 1975 to 2014. The Spanish dictator, Francisco Franco, chose Juan Carlos, the grandson of King Alfonso XIII, to be the next head of state in 1969, expecting him to continue his authoritarian regime. However, Juan Carlos introduced reforms to dismantle it, beginning the Spanish transition to democracy, which led to the approval of the Spanish Constitution, in a referendum in 1978, re-establishing a constitutional monarchy. In 1981, a coup attempted to revert Spain to Francoist government in the King's name but it was prevented with Juan Carlos playing a major role in that. Juan Carlos served as the president of the Ibero-American
