Skip to content
VitrineRoyal Houses of Europe
Sign in

Carlos Zurita, Duke of Soria

b. 1943

Born
9 Oct 1943, Antequera
Country of birth
Spain

Living person. The family sees only the name, dates and photo; everything else stays private unless they choose to share it.

facts
4
sources
1
images and files
0

Facts and their sources

Tap a fact to see where it comes from.

A life in time

  1. Born · Antequera

    Birth, Antequera

  2. Child born: Alfonso Juan Carlos Zurita

    Birth

  3. Child born: María Zurita y Borbón

    Birth

What was it like?

The world around Antequera, 1943: who ruled, who else was alive, how people lived. This is general history, not a record about the family, and every item shows where it comes from.

Carlos was born around the same time as John Lennon, Pelé, and Bruce Lee.

Born around the same time

  • John Lennon

    1940 · British musician (1940–1980)

  • Pelé

    1940 · Brazilian footballer (1940–2022)

  • Bruce Lee

    1940 · Hong Kong–American martial artist and actor (1940–1973)

  • Muhammad Ali

    1942 · American boxer (1942–2016)

  • Joe Biden

    1942 · 46th President of the United States (2021–2025)

  • Stephen Hawking

    1942 · British theoretical physicist, cosmologist and author (1942–2018)

Fashion

Painted Stocking Seams

Women who could not afford real stockings sometimes painted a line down the back of their legs with eyeliner to simulate a seam.

Recycled Post-War Fashion

During the post-Civil War shortages, families often recycled old fabrics into clothing using patterns from French magazines or popular movies.

Music
Around 1936–1939

Accordion as a wartime companion

The accordion was a ubiquitous rural instrument during the Spanish Civil War, used in trenches to play popular dances and tangos as a way to cope with boredom and fear.

Christmas music and nativity traditions

Christmas celebrations featured midnight masses where people sang villancicos, and homes were decorated with elaborate nativity scenes called nacimientos instead of Christmas trees. Children received their gifts on January 6th, the feast of the Epiphany, brought by the Three Kings.

Getting around

Regional train speeds in Malaga

Until the tracks were dismantled in 1965, the steam and later diesel train between Malaga and Coin covered 38 kilometers in approximately one hour and 45 minutes.

Moving livestock by train across Spain

Transhumant shepherds moved thousands of sheep by train between Babia and Cáceres, a 430-kilometer journey that took two days by rail, whereas moving them on foot would take much longer.

Daily life

Child labor and limited schooling access

Poorer girls often worked as domestic servants for as little as one peseta a month plus food, while others stayed home to embroider or care for younger siblings instead of attending school. Schooling was frequently interrupted by teacher changes or seasonal farm work, with some children walking over two hours to attend.

Daily chores and crowded home life

Cooking was done over wood or straw fires in small kitchens, and many children had to leave school as early as age seven to help with farm work, such as sifting straw or guarding cattle. Domestic life was often crowded, with multiple generations and up to eleven people sharing small stone houses.

Food

Desperate sources of protein

Food shortages were so severe that some people resorted to eating animals like cats, donkeys, or dogs, which were passed off as rabbit or lamb.

Creative substitutions for scarce food

Ordinary families survived by using culinary imagination to simulate scarce items, such as making omelets without eggs using bread and onions.

Prices and wages
Around 1938–1938

Black market prices in 1938

During the scarcity of 1938, officially priced goods were unavailable; a dozen eggs officially cost 17.50 pesetas but sold for 110 on the black market.

Around 1938–1938

Cooking oil prices in 1938

In 1938, a liter of cooking oil with an official price of 3 pesetas could reach 100 pesetas on the black market.

Work

Precarious life for rural day laborers

Agricultural laborers in rural Spain typically earned only 3.5 pesetas a day and could often only find work for half the year. In some cases, these laborers slept in barns and stables with livestock when working in the fields.

Around 1931–1939

Women's endless home-based work

Many women worked at home as seamstresses or ironers, often converting their houses into workshops to avoid neglecting family duties. This work was typically done at a piece-rate, leading to endless working days for very low pay.

News and letters
Around 1939–1939

Interned mail carriers in refugee camps

In refugee camps around 1939, interned former Spanish postal workers volunteered to act as mail carriers to distribute letters to their fellow refugees. Refugees often experienced great impatience waiting for the carrier, as receiving a letter might take three to four days on average.

Around 1938–1938

Submarine mail defied military blockades

In August 1938, a submarine successfully transported two sacks of mail through a military blockade to an island. The project was incredibly profitable, generating over 11 million pesetas despite a stamp sales value of 690,000 pesetas.

During their lifetime

  1. 1950

    Tourism industry boom 1950-1970

    The annual number of tourists visiting Spain skyrocketed from less than half a million in 1950 to over 20 million by 1970.

  2. 1960

    Massive labor emigration to Europe 1960-1975

    Between 1960 and 1975, approximately three million Spaniards emigrated to European countries like Germany, France, and Switzerland to seek work.

  3. 1960

    Massive rural-to-urban migration in 1960s

    In the 1960s, approximately 3.1 million Spaniards moved from rural areas to industrial urban centers like Madrid and Barcelona.

  4. 1966

    Growth of household consumer goods in 1966

    By 1966, the rise in living standards meant that 36 percent of households owned a washing machine, 32 percent a television, and 12 percent a car.

Family

Spouses

Children

Ancestors and children

Open the full tree

Four generations back to the right, the children to the left. The number beside a child counts the generations of descendants known after them.