Juan Carlos I of Spain Juan Carlos I of Spain Juan Carlos I (; Juan Carlos Alfonso Víctor María de Borbón y Borbón-Dos Sicilias, born 5 January 1938) is a former King of Spain, reigning from 1975 until his abdication in 2014. Juan Carlos is the grandson of Alfonso XIII, the last king of Spain before the abolition of the monarchy in 1931 and the subsequent declaration of the Second Spanish Republic. Juan Carlos was born in Rome, Italy, during his family's exile. "Generalísimo" Francisco Franco, the Spanish dictator who initiated the civil war by means of a coup d'état against the constitutional republic in
King Juan Carlos University preschool education, international relations, visual arts and dance, and criminology, among others. In 2007 Juan Velarde Fuertes, Iñaki Gabilondo, Luis del Olmo and Antonio Mingote were awarded honorary doctorates from King Juan Carlos University. In January 2008, Bernardo Kliksberg became the first foreigner to receive an honorary doctorate degree from the university along with Jaime Gil Aluja, José Antonio Pastor Ridruejo and Fernando Sánchez Calero. In 2011, honorary doctorates were awarded to Harald zur Hausen, Ramón Tamames and Peter Waldmann. In 2014 James A. Yorke, distinguished University Professor of Mathematics and Physics at the University of Maryland and recipient of