Prime Minister of Spain from 1982 to 1996, Felipe González Márquez (born 1942) helped lead Spain into the European community of nations.

Birth and Childhood

Felipe González Márquez was born on March 5, 1942, in Seville, the largest city in western Andalusia in the south of Spain. His father, Felipe González Helguera, bought and sold cattle and owned a small dairy in a lower-middle-class district of Seville. His mother, Juana Márquez, was, in her son's words, "the driving force of the family."

The particular period of Spanish history in which González grew up had a decisive influence on what were later to be his ideological beliefs. Between 1936 and 1939 Spain had suffered an horrific civil war, resulting from a military rising that overthrew the reformist government elected to power in February 1936. Under the ultraconservative regime established by General Francisco Franco...