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
Juan Carlos I of Spain the honorary presidency. He later apologised for the hunting trip. Juan Carlos was married in Athens on 14 May 1962, to Princess Sophia of Greece and Denmark, daughter of King Paul of Greece, first in a Roman Catholic ceremony at the Church of St. Denis, followed by a Greek Orthodox ceremony at the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens. She converted from her Greek Orthodox religion to Roman Catholicism. They have two daughters and one son: Juan Carlos is also the alleged illegitimate father of Alberto Sola, born in Barcelona in 1956, of María A. L. A, born in Catalonia in 1964,