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Spain, formally the Kingdom of Spain, is a country in southwestern Europe and north Africa. It is the largest country in Southern Europe and the fourth-most populous European Union member state. Spanning across the majority of the Iberian Peninsula, its territory also includes the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean, the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean Sea, and the autonomous cities of Ceuta and Melilla in Africa. Peninsular Spain is bordered to the north by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; to the east and south by the Mediterranean Sea and Gibraltar; and to the west by Portugal and the Atlantic Ocean. Spain's capital and largest city is Madrid, and other major urban areas include Barcelona, Valencia, and Zaragoza.

In early antiquity, the Iberian Peninsula was inhabited by Celts, Iberians, and other pre-Roman peoples. With the Roman conquest of the Iberian Peninsula, the province of Hispania was established. Following the Romanization and Christianization of Hispania, the fall of the Western Roman Empire ushered in the inward migration of tribes from Central Europe, including the Visigoths, who formed the Visigothic Kingdom centred on Toledo. In the early eighth century, most of the peninsula was invaded by the Umayyad Caliphate, and during early Islamic rule, Al-Andalus became a dominant peninsular power centred on Córdoba. Several Christian kingdoms emerged in Northern Iberia, chief among them Asturias, León, Castile, Aragon, Navarre, and Portugal; made an intermittent southward military expansion and repopulation, known as the Reconquista, repelling Islamic rule in Iberia, which culminated with the Christian seizure of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada in 1492. The dynastic union of the Crown of Castile and the Crown of Aragon in 1479 under the Catholic Monarchs is often considered the de facto unification of Spain as a nation-state. (Full article...)

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A sketch of Miranda
A sketch of Miranda

Sebastián Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez (March 28, 1750 – July 14, 1816), commonly known as Francisco de Miranda, was a Venezuelan revolutionary. Although his own plans for the independence of the Spanish American colonies failed, he is regarded as a forerunner of Simón Bolívar, who during the South American wars of independence successfully liberated a vast portion of South America. Miranda led a romantic and adventurous life. An idealist, he developed a visionary plan to liberate and unify all of Spanish America. His military initiatives failed in 1812, and he was handed over to his enemies, dying four years later in a Spanish prison dungeon. Within fourteen years of his death, most of Spanish America was independent.

Born and raised in Caracas, Miranda was the son of a wealthy merchant from the Canary Islands, a region of Spain. He traveled throughout Europe, becoming a social sensation and garnering support for the independence of Spanish America. He had made friends with many important leaders and political figures throughout Europe, such as British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger, and Catherine the Great of Russia, with whom supposedly he had an affair (most historians do not give much credence to the affair story). In the American Revolutionary War, he commanded Spanish troops aiding American insurgents in Florida and Mississippi. In the United States, he met George Washington, Thomas Paine, Alexander Hamilton, and Thomas Jefferson. He had a home in London, where he married a British lady and had two children. During this time he met Colonel William S. Smith secretary to John Adams's American Legation.

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8 August 2024 – 2017–2018 Spanish constitutional crisis
Former Catalan government president Carles Puigdemont returns to Barcelona, Spain, after seven years of "self-exile", defying an arrest warrant issued by the Supreme Court. Catalan regional police subsequently institute tight controls on traffic in and out of the city, as part of an attempt to arrest Puigdemont. (The New York Times) (Cadena SER)
Two Mossos d'Esquadra officers are arrested for allegedly collaborating on Puigdemont's escape, following his public appearance in Barcelona. (Antena 3)

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