King of Spain

The Spanish Monarchy (In Spanish: Monarquía española) is the parliamentary monarchy of Spain. The King or Queen of Spain is the Head of state and the Commander-in-chief of the Royal Armed Forces. The Monarch's power is symbolic, because all royal acts must be countersigned by the Prime Minister of Spain or the President of the Congress of Deputies to be valid. The current King is Juan Carlos I, who is styled as "His Majesty."

His Majesty Juan Carlos I, King of Spain was born January 5, 1938 in Rome and is the reigning King of Spain. His name, when rarely anglicized, is John Charles Alphonse Victor Maria of Bourbon.

Juan Carlos I speaks fluent Spanish, English, French, Italian, Portuguese, and Catalan. On November 22, 1975, two days after the death of Francisco Franco, Juan Carlos was designated King. The new King of Spain successfully changed Spain to a democratic constitutional monarchy.

The official residence of the Spanish monarch is the Royal Palace of Madrid (Palacio Real de Madrid). However, the royal family resides at the Palacio de la Zarzuela on the outskirts of Madrid.

Juan Carlos' titles include of King of Jerusalem, as the successor to the royal family of Naples.The King of Spain is also a direct descendant of the United Kingdom's Queen Victoria through his grandmother Victoria Eugenie. The King of Spain is connected also to Louis XIV of France and the Emperor Charles V from the Habsburg dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1956, when Juan Carlos was 18, he reportedly shot and killed his younger brother, Infante Alfonso, in a gun-play accident after returning home from Mass.