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.

For nine minutes every day, we take you back in time and all over the world, to examine wars, coups, scientific discoveries, cultural moments and much more.

Recent episodes explore everything from the death of Adolf Hitler, the first spacewalk and the making of the movie Jaws, to celebrity tortoise Lonesome George, the Kobe earthquake and the invention of superglue.

We look at the lives of some of the most famous leaders, artists, scientists and personalities in history, including: Eva Peron – Argentina’s Evita; President Ronald Reagan and his famous ‘tear down this wall’ speech; Thomas Keneally on why he wrote Schindler’s List; and Jacques Derrida, France’s ‘rock star’ philosopher.

You can learn all about fascinating and surprising stories, such as the civil rights swimming protest; the disastrous D-Day rehearsal; and the death of one of the world’s oldest languages.

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

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