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Manuel Azaña Díaz was the President of the Second Spanish Republic. He was born in Alcalá de Henares, Madrid, and at 10 years old he was an orphan and stayed with his grandma.
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He studied law in Zaragoza, and two years later got a Doctorate in the Central University of Madrid with a study about the responsibility of multitudes. -
He entered the reformist party in 1913, and worked in the Ateneo of Madrid for six years. He was attacked because of his anticlericalism, and he was accused of secularism.
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Manuel Azaña founded his own party (Acción Republicana), and with this party he participated in the Republican Alliance in 1930. -
His biography, Sir Juan Valera's Life (Vida de Don Juan Valera), made him win the National Literature prize. -
In this pact, the Republican parties had a meeting in San Sebastián to decide how to end Alfonso XIII's monarchy and start the Second Republic. -
The former leader of the government, Niceto Alcalá Zamora, resigned from his position and Azaña took his place. He tried to modernise Spain by starting reforms on the army, education and many more. -
He was voted to be War Minister in the Provisional government of the Second Republic. -
He retired from his position of leader due to the destabilization of his government because of the opposition of the Church and military sectors. -
Azaña joined his party with Marcelino Domingo's radical socialists and the ORGA (Organización Republicana Gallega Autónoma) to create the Izquierda Republicana. -
He was in the middle of the coalition of the Frente Popular that won the elections of february that year, and in May he replaced Alcalá Zamora as president. -
He was very well known for his speeches, and this is one of the most famous ones, in which he talked about Peace, Pity and Forgiveness (all starting with P in Spanish, that's the reason for the name). -
He retired, and due to losing the Civil War, his figure was demonized during the Franquismo. He was accused of not being able to control the situation, saying that if he had done something, the Civil War could've been avoided.