Italian-Spanish royalty, the son of the exiled Don Juan and after the death of Dictator Francisco Franco, Spain’s first King since 1931. Juan Carlos was educated in Europe and reestablished the Spanish monarchy in 1975 when he was sworn in as King on 11/22/1975.
His royal ancestor, Carlos IV, a Bourbon, earned everlasting ignominy for surrendering Spain to Napoleon in 1808. His paternal grandfather, King Alfonso XIII, fled Spain in 1931 when the Republicans took over the government. Alfonso was stripped of his citizenship, his property was seized and he lived in exile. The Republic fell in 1939 and Franco installed himself as Spain’s strongman. He did not want to share power with the Bourbons, keeping them in exile. In 1941, shortly before his death, Alfonso XIII abdicated in favor of his son, Juan Carlos’s father, Don Juan. After Juan Carlos’ birth, his parents first moved to Switzerland and then to Portugal. He was ten years old when he first went to Spain in 1948. That year, Don Juan met with Franco at sea, in international waters, to broker the fate of his young son. Both agreed Juan Carlos should become king and that he should be schooled on Spanish soil. Franco insisted that he attend Spanish military academies. Juan Carlos’ life became highly structured and each night he would talk for hours on the telephone with his father as Don Juan quizzed him about the day’s activities, listening for hints of Franco’s influence. There is no doubt that walking the difficult tightrope of diplomacy between Dictator Franco and his democratic father honed Juan Carlos’ perfection of charm and calculation which accounts for his popular and successful reign. Juan Carlos spent his youth studying at special schools where he was tutored privately and looked after by guardians who reported back either to Don Juan or to Franco, depending on their loyalties. A lackluster student, he was good at sports and affable.
His younger brother, Alfonso, was a cadet with him. In 1956, when the brothers were visiting their parents in Portugal, the boys were playing with a gun and it went off. Alfonso was hit in the head and died immediately. Juan Carlos remained silent and withdrawn for month afterward and never speaks publicly about the incident. He attended a university in Madrid for two years.
In 1962, at 24, he married the German-Greek Princess Sofia of Greece. Both are direct descendants of the British Queen Victoria and Kaiser Wilhelm II. They had three children; Elena born in 1963, Cristina in 1965, and Felipe, who will inherit the throne, in January 1968.
When the Fascist dictator Franco died in 1975, the way was open for a Bourbon restoration. Juan Carlos assumed the throne on 11/11/1975. He is credited for insuring that the transition to democracy was carried out without bloodshed. It was at a time when Spain was a backward and isolated nation that had been ruled for nearly forty yeas by a regime that exercised rigid censorship laws, outlawed birth control and disallowed political parties. At the time of his coronation, he was mocked as a dim-witted military puppet, and it was assumed he wouldn’t last long. In truth, Juan Carlos speaks several languages and has a pedigree better than the Queen of England. He is a direct descendant of Louis XIV, from one of the longest-reigning dynasties, the Bourbons.
He sails his own boat and has a collection of motorcycles. He is a popular King and has a democratically elected government. He is formally limited by Spain’s constitution to largely symbolic public functions, ratifying laws, calling elections, accrediting ambassadors. He hold daily private audiences with politicians, businessmen, journalists, academics, and military officers at his residence, the Palacio de la Zarzuela, just outside of Madrid.
On the night of 2/23/1981 gun wielding Civil Guard officers stormed in and took over the entire government. Hours later Juan Carlos appeared on TV persuasively calling for the defense of democracy and the attempt to overthrow the government failed. The King had effectively ended the era of military intervention in Spanish politics. With Spain’s political structure being reorganized, his influence increased.
By 1992, Spain had emerged on the world scene from a third-world standard to Europe’s cultural capital. Barcelona hosted the 1992 Summer Olympics and Expo ’92 in Seville hosted scores of visiting students on the 500th anniversary of the discovery of America.
Juan Carlos is a popular monarch who waits in lines, pays income tax, operates a ham radio, is an accomplished sailor and an avid motorcyclist. He once picked up a stranded motorist and gave him a ride to a nearby gas station on the back of his Harley-Davidson. His Spanish identification card lists his profession as “employee of the state.” He declines living in the traditional residence of Spain’s monarchs in favor of a modest hunting lodge.
He abdicated on 18th June 2014 in favour of his son Felipe.

Link to Wikipedia biography