Museum Secrets (2011–…): Season 3, Episode 15 - Inside the Palacio Real de Madrid - full transcript
(calm music)
- [Colm] Madrid, a city
of pride and passion,
and at its heart, a museum
with secrets dark and strange,
a lethal lost art,
a clock possessed by the devil,
(spirit howling)
and a subterranean quest
for the riches of Spain,
(suspenseful orchestral music)
secrets hidden in plain sight
inside Madrid's Palacio Real.
(mysterious music)
In Madrid, there is no
building more imposing
or more magnificent than this.
It's the Royal Palace, or
in Spanish, Palacio Real.
For centuries, it has been at the center
of Spain's political and social life,
from the Bourbon monarchs
through the dark years
of dictator Francisco Franco
(crowd cheering)
to its present incarnation
as a working palace
and extraordinary museum.
In what were once royal
ballrooms and bedrooms,
royal possessions are
now on public display.
A king wore this armor.
A queen told the time by this clock.
And a royal retainer
commissioned this fresco
to remind visitors of how
Spain achieved its power.
It shows Christopher
Columbus giving the planet
to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
Thanks to Columbus, conquistadors
had a new world to conquer
and treasure to send back
to Spain by the galleon load
to gild the ceilings of the palace.
(calm orchestral music)
Historian Marcos
Martinon-Torres specializes
in the era of the Spanish Empire.
(calm guitar music)
- One of the aspects I've been researching
is the material reason behind the splendor
and the power of Spain.
- [Colm] Marcos believes
that the foundation
of Spanish wealth was not silver or gold
but a third element, hidden
in plain sight in this room.
What it is and how it shaped
Spain's destiny is a museum secret.
(crystal chiming)
The investigation begins
in the Spanish town
of Almaden at the bottom of a mine shaft.
(suspenseful music)
Far beneath the ground,
Marcos navigates tunnels
dug hundreds of years ago.
The miners weren't
looking for silver or gold.
- So this is what the miners were after.
This is cinnabar,
this red rock that we
see here running in a vein.
Only here would you get such high amounts
of this precious red stone.
It was crushed to create
bright red pigments.
Some of those frescoes
we've seen at the Palacio Real
are actually made with this pigment.
And that's one of the reasons
that made cinnabar so special,
so appealing to different
cultures throughout time.
- [Colm] But it wasn't cinnabar's color
that shaped Spain's destiny.
16th century Spaniards learned
that it can be transformed.
- Somehow, they figured out
that by heating the cinnabar,
they could evaporate the sulfur.
They would be left
behind with tiny droplets
of what we now know was mercury,
this fascinating liquid metal.
- [Colm] Today we know that
mercury gives off toxic vapor,
which is why the Almaden
mine was closed in 2000.
- We now can explain
it in scientific terms.
But also in the 16th
century, people would see
that people would go mad and die
(man screaming)
after working with mercury.
- [Colm] 16th century alchemists
believed the risk was worth it.
Some thought mercury was
the fabled philosopher's stone
that could turn lead into gold,
while others discovered
the element's real magic.
Mercury can liberate precious
metals from low-grade ore,
and that would become the
lucrative solution to a problem.
- During the first few
centuries of Spanish expansion
into America, it seemed
relatively easy to just go there
and exploit the richest
gold and silver ores,
but very soon after the
Spanish start exploiting that,
they found that the richest veins,
the riches ores had been exhausted.
So they had poorer veins
that required more labor
to extract a smaller amount of silver.
- [Colm] In what is now Bolivia,
and what was then a Spanish colony,
there is a mountain
of low-grade silver ore.
Here, Spanish engineers
scaled up the alchemical process.
While natives were
forced to work in the mines
bringing silver ore to the surface,
mules plodded in circles on a stone patio
to mix seawater, silver ore, and mercury.
- It was through this
trampling that the mercury
would eventually amalgamate
with the silver so that it would
finally leave the silver
behind for you to collect.
- [Colm] Each kilogram of silver
required two kilograms of mercury
from the Almaden mine in Spain.
- 1/3 of all the mercury ever produced
across the world came from this mine.
There was a massive logistical enterprise
to send these massive
amounts of mercury to America.
- [Colm] Upping mercury production
came at a tragic human cost.
- Tremors, severe pains, lots of people
are reported as going
insane, and of course,
many of them as well would die prematurely.
- [Colm] In the Americas,
the problem was even more devastating.
(man coughing)
- The patio process was particularly toxic
because you generated a lot of vapor
and a lot of mercury compounds.
- [Colm] Historians estimate
that over several centuries,
eight million miners died
to produce precious metals
which would have a
value today of $30 trillion.
- Without the mercury, we wouldn't have had
the gold and silver that
made us rich back then.
It's very difficult to overestimate
the importance of mercury
to the history of Spain.
- [Colm] The element
that shaped Spain's destiny
is hidden in plain sight
in the Palacio Real's Hall of Mirrors.
- If you wanted to make a mirror,
until almost the 20th century,
you needed transparent glass
and then a reflective backing
which was made of mercury
combined with tin in an amalgam.
So when I look at this
mirror and see my face,
I'm seeing myself, of course,
but I'm also seeing mercury.
- [Colm] The mirror makers sealed the glass
to protect the royals
from toxic mercury vapor.
Eight million Spanish
subjects weren't so lucky.
(powerful orchestral music)
Next on Museum Secrets,
the lost art of the sword master.
(mysterious music)
The Palacio Real, the
Royal Palace of Spain,
stands in a city with a glorious past.
It attracts more than a
million visitors every year.
Today, two people from New York City
plan to do more than
take in the sights of Madrid.
Ramon Martinez and his wife,
Jeannette Acosta-Martinez,
are the world's foremost experts
in a unique style of fencing
that was practiced in
Spain three centuries ago.
(swords clanking)
They're trying to revive this
lost art and solve a mystery.
On this plaza, on a summer day in 1646,
17 swordsmen lined up
to accept the challenge
of a man named Don Miguel Perez de Mendoza.
And it would seem that Mendoza was a fool
because in fencing, to
defeat even one opponent
requires the utmost stamina.
To face three challengers
would be exhausting.
And as for defeating 17, that
would seem to be impossible.
Why did Mendoza challenge so many?
And how did he hope to survive?
Ramon may be in a unique
position to uncover these secrets
because he and Mendoza
have a few things in common,
starting with Mendoza's neighborhood.
- This was a very dangerous
area in the 17th century,
and anything can happen.
You had all kinds of violent people,
you cut throats in any corner.
You had other swordsmen.
You never know if
there was a rivalry or not.
This is put up or shut up
right here in this neighborhood.
- [Colm] To Ramon, these
mean streets are familiar.
- I was born and raised
in The Bronx, New York.
More exact, I come from the South Bronx,
which is probably one of the most
dangerous areas in New York City.
When we're talking about 16th century
or 17th century Madrid as compared
to the South Bronx of the '60s and '70s,
I would say it was pretty much the same.
I started carrying a blade
when I was like seven years old,
not so much for being violent,
which is the last thing on Earth
that you would even look for,
but you'd use it as a tool,
as a method of self-defense,
and everybody had a blade.
- [Colm] In old Madrid, the
blade of choice was the rapier,
like the ones on display
in the Palacio Real.
- What you see here is a collection
of rapiers that were typical
of the mid 17th century.
These weapons are the
weapons of personal defense.
This would've been the Glock of its time,
light, lethal, extremely maneuverable.
- [Colm] Don Miguel Perez de
Mendoza owned such a weapon,
but so did each of his 17 challengers.
So why did Mendoza think he had an edge?
(suspenseful music)
Ramon believes the answer
in is Spain's National Library.
For over 30 years, Ramon
has studied rare documents
that have allowed him to recreate
Mendoza's uniquely
Spanish style of swordplay.
It was known simply as the
skill, but in Spanish, destreza.
- All fencing schools
are effective and deadly,
but what made this
unique was that it was not
based upon preconceived techniques.
It was founded upon a
profound understanding
of spatial relationships and movement.
Destreza made a
swordsman very cold blooded,
detached, his adversaries nothing more
than a geometric problem
that he has to solve.
- [Colm] As a well-known destreza master,
Mendoza couldn't walk through Madrid
without constant challenges from wannabes.
So he decided to prove once and for all
that he was the best.
- He asked King Philip IV permission
to post cartels throughout the kingdom
as an open challenge to any
swordsman who would face him.
So he was answered by 17 swordsmen,
and he faced 'em all in front of the king.
- [Colm] As for how
Mendoza fought that day,
Ramon and Jeanette hope to demonstrate
with a destreza master class.
(speaking in foreign language)
- We'll begin with a salute.
Destreza has actually nothing to do
with what most people are familiar with,
which is modern sport fencing.
One of the most blatant difference is
that modern sport fencing,
they note all the combat is linear.
They conduct all of that on a strip.
She follows me, maintaining the distance.
Destreza combat takes
place on an imaginary circle
that moves along the
ground with the combatants.
So I'm following her.
I'm being very careful
not to come too close
or too far away, but I
don't have to stay there.
I can switch directions,
now she has to follow me,
and she can do the same thing to me.
And the reality is, you want
to deceive your adversary.
You want to confuse him.
Don't be like a cat stalking a mouse
because I see some of you
doing this, you're stalking.
- Yeah. (students laugh)
- No, you have to be serene.
Avoid any tension, avoid any
excessive actions of the legs
because you will get tired very quickly.
And once you start to move, you're not...
- [Colm] An opponent's
body language is key.
- Take your time.
You have to gaze and
see not only the blade,
you have to see the positioning
of the person's shoulders,
the person's feet, how
he's holding his arm.
You are observing constantly
what the other person's doing.
It has to do with
cold-blooded determination
and being able to solve that problem,
which that person is a problem for you
because he's trying to kill you.
Okay, that's a problem that you don't want.
- [Colm] Ramon believes that Mendoza used
the same techniques when he faced
17 challengers, one by one.
- But he would've waited for the adversary
to initiate so that they would basically
give themselves away, their intention.
You see him in front of you,
when you go to reach to touch him?
He's gone, like a ghost.
- [Challenger] Oh, oh!
- [Colm] So while traditional
swashbuckling swordsmen
move fast and furiously,
destreza involves calculation
but far less exertion.
A traditional swordsman
may strike many times
while a destreza master
may only have to strike once.
- [Challenger] Oh, oh!
- [Colm] In the plaza where Mendoza fought,
Ramon and Jeanette can spar for hours
without breaking a sweat,
and so it seems did Mendoza himself
as he dispatched one
challenger after the other.
(sword whooshes) (challenger grunts)
And when Mendoza discovered
he was the last man standing,
Ramon believes he
knows what he was thinking.
- It was great, I wish I could keep going.
Bring on 17 more! (both laughing)
- [Colm] Beside each of
Mendoza's fallen challengers
was a lethal weapon, much
like the ones in the Palacio Real.
Even the finest rapier is no protection
against a master of destreza.
(calm flamenco guitar)
(eerie music)
Next on Museum Secrets, a
clock possessed by the devil.
(spirit howling)
(mysterious music)
This morning at the Palacio Real,
this curator can look forward to a long day
because his job is to wind the clocks.
(clocks chiming)
Here, there are 700 timepieces
dating from the 18th century.
The collection was started
by King Ferdinand VI
who is remembered for being indecisive
except in his love for his
wife, Maria, and for clocks.
- [Colm] Collecting clocks
became a royal obsession,
and curator Amelia Aranda
has the paper trail to prove it.
- [Colm] Making a clock for
a king was highly lucrative,
but for one young clockmaker,
it nearly became a
life-threatening experience.
(man screaming)
The reason why is a museum secret.
Our story begins in 1758
in Geneva, Switzerland,
where a young genius
named Pierre Jaquet-Droz
decided to create the world's
most advanced timepiece.
And it would do much more than tell time.
While restoring the clock,
curator Manuel Santolaya Sanchez
discovered the intricate mechanisms
that Droz crafted to
remember musical melodies.
(calm music)
(bells chiming)
(bird tweeting)
(flute whistling)
- [Colm] To refine the clock's logic,
he pioneered the mathematical formulas
we now call algorithms.
(clock ticking)
When the clock was finished, Droz loaded it
on a cart and traveled overland to Spain.
- [Colm] Droz hoped to
win a royal commission
from the influential monarch
that would make his name and his career.
But when he entered the palace,
King Ferdinand was not at home.
His much-loved wife had died suddenly,
and the king had retired to this gloomy
medieval castle to mourn.
As Droz prepared to unveil his creation,
he must've worried that the king
would be in no mood for clocks.
He waited nervously
for the king's reaction.
(flute whistles)
(king laughs)
- [Colm] But while the king was delighted,
his Catholic advisors were not.
(advisor whispering)
To them, the lifelike automata
could only be the work of the devil.
(spirit howling)
They ordered Droz to provide an explanation
or face the inquisition.
Droz was forced to open the mechanism
to prove it wasn't driven
by the devil's magic,
just wires and bellows and gears.
The churchmen agreed that Droz would escape
the inquisitor's scrutiny this time,
and the king agreed to purchase the clock
for a king's ransom.
(clock ticking)
(clock chiming)
- [Colm] When Droz got
back home to Switzerland,
he turned his attention
from animated clocks
to the automata themselves,
creating mechanical
androids, and in an achievement
long ahead of its time, a
programmable mechanical hand
that could write a complete sentence.
(whimsical music)
It's probably a good thing that this wonder
was never seen by Spain's inquisitors
because if it had been, Pierre Jaquet-Droz
may have died before his time.
(fire crackling) (man screaming)
(lively flamenco guitar music)
Up next, the secret of the flamenco master.
(mysterious music)
(calm guitar music)
In the Palacio Real, one
gallery is devoted to music.
For centuries, Spain has been best known
for the sound of the guitar,
especially when the guitar
is in the hands of a master of flamenco.
(lively flamenco music)
On most evenings after the Palacio closes,
scores of tourists stroll just next door
to one of Madrid's
best-known flamenco clubs.
(lively flamenco music)
The rhythms are mesmerizing,
and the performers are intense.
But there are rarely any
local people in the audience.
Is this flamenco authentic?
Or is there a real flamenco
that tourists don't see?
These secrets are of personal interest
to a woman named Yinka Graves.
She was born in England,
but she's come to Madrid
to discover the real flamenco.
- I started taking flamenco lessons
just as a hobby, sort of once a week,
and I suppose flamenco,
maybe because of its complexity,
once you start getting into
it, it sort of takes over you.
- [Colm] Every day, Yinka
enters this inconspicuous building
and climbs the stairs to the famous
flamenco school called Amor de Dios.
(calm flamenco music)
The facility may look tired,
but the teachers aren't.
- Most of them are top flamenco dancers.
You know, this is the creme de la creme.
If you want to learn flamenco,
this is the best place to come to.
- [Colm] Here, there is little evidence
of the tourist image of flamenco,
except for some posters from the 1960s.
Then, Spain was a poor nation
ruled by dictator Francisco Franco.
He ordered Spanish gypsies known as gitanos
to make their traditions,
including flamenco,
more tourist friendly.
- That image of the flamenco dancer,
the castanets, the polka dot dresses
as something that would
sell Spain to the foreign world
was something that was
created during Franco's time.
- [Colm] At Yinka's school,
there are no castanets
and frilly dresses, only clapping hands
and an improvised song called a solea.
(singing in foreign language)
- This is almost like
the mother of flamenco.
This is the base, this is,
these songs used to speak
of a sort of suffering
and lament and so on.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Colm] The pain expressed in the solea
is rooted in history.
Since their caravans reached
Spain in the 15th century,
gitanos have been an oppressed minority,
ghettoized and persecuted.
They were forbidden to perform in public
until King Charles III passed
his leniency edict in 1783.
(calm music)
From then on, the gitanos
were free to perform
but allowed few other
ways to make a living.
Many still live in poverty.
(singing in foreign language)
When the gitano experience
is expressed in song,
Yinka's role is to translate
the feeling into movement.
For a person who's not a
gitano, this can be a challenge.
- It's difficult if you haven't
really been there with them.
You know, they've got that
sort of long history together
to really, you know,
yeah, sort of do it justice.
- [Colm] But when Yinka
speaks with the school's
elder gitano statesman, Enrique Pantoja,
he tells her that the key
to flamenco is not race
but something called duende.
- [Colm] Teachers encourage their students
to discover duende on their own.
- It's about you really finding
where you feel comfortable,
'cause ultimately flamenco's something
that you teach yourself
to a certain extent.
(lively flamenco music) (heels tapping)
- [Colm] To further Yinka's progress,
her teachers have
arranged an informal session
with a family of flamenco luminaries.
(singing in foreign language)
- That was amazing,
for one, and a real honor.
It was like, my gosh, I can't believe
that I'm here with these people.
They really are the people
who live it and have lived it
from the time that they were really young.
(singing in foreign language)
These are the masters, these are the people
who have the experience and so on,
and you're on the fringes of that.
Now, the lovely thing was that they,
you know, they opened their circle there.
But nevertheless, for me, that was really
imposing to a certain extent.
- [Colm] Yinka hangs back,
but then the sad solea changes
into a song of celebration.
- These are the songs that
you'll hear at gypsy weddings.
When people get together,
this is what they sing.
And you can see that in
the energy of the dancing.
It's really, really very
powerful and so much fun.
- [Colm] The family's duende has inspired
Yinka to find her own.
And as Enrique tells his students,
inspired flamenco is real flamenco,
(hands clapping) (feet stomping)
whether or not it's on
a tourist-friendly stage.
(upbeat music)
Up next, the secret of
surviving an Apache attack.
(mysterious music)
(stately orchestral music)
In the Hall of Armor, historical
technologist Andre Renier
is looking for a new challenge.
He has spent 10 years recreating armor
made of steel and discovering how
it would've performed on the battlefield.
(horse neighing) (hooves clomping)
But today, something much
less shiny has caught his eye.
- [Andre] What is this?
- This is a very special kind of shield.
It is called an adarga.
So it means, this is in Spanish
a word that comes Arabic,
from (speaks in foreign
language), it means leather.
They were only used in Spain
during the Islamic dynasties.
- [Colm] In the 15th century,
when Spaniards rebelled
against Islamic rule,
their Muslim adversaries,
the Moors, fended off
arrows, lances, and swords
with leather shields like this one.
(lively orchestral music)
- If an arrow or a lance goes inside,
passes the leather, when you take it out,
the leather will be
closed immediately again.
- So it's a self-healing...
- Yes. - Shield.
- [Colm] As Spain gained its independence,
shields and armor evolved.
Soldiers and horses,
sometimes even children,
were encased in shells of steel.
By the 16th century,
European soldiers started using muskets,
(musket fire explodes)
making the leather adarga obsolete.
Or was it?
Andre hopes to uncover this museum secret.
The story begins in Tucson, Arizona.
Today, it's an artistic enclave
where people of many cultures get along.
But in the 18th century,
that wasn't the case.
The Spanish built this fort
to protect their farms and settlers.
What they feared was the Apaches.
The Apaches were
buffalo hunters of the Plains.
Short of food, they resorted
to raiding Spanish towns.
(Apaches shouting) (suspenseful music)
When Spanish soldiers battled the Apaches,
they discovered that
European rules did not apply.
The Spaniards were trained
to charge in one direction,
while the Apaches rode circles around them.
Well-aimed arrows got
by the Spaniards' shields.
Against the Apaches,
heavy steel was a liability.
They needed a different approach.
(calm guitar music)
Back in Spain, the military
had a cavalry training exercise
called the (speaks in foreign
language) or the cane game.
(horse neighs)
(rider shouts)
It's reminiscent of battles
that Spaniards fought
against the Muslim
dynasty centuries before.
(riders shouting)
Each trainee fends off
blows with a leather shield
modeled on the ancient Muslim adarga.
(riders shouting)
- The cane game was
an excellent training tool
to train soldiers because
going in a straight line
against an opponent
like a traditional joust
doesn't prepare you for real-world battle.
This requires you to turn the horse
while engaging your enemy.
- [Colm] As news of the
Apache wars reached Spain,
someone realized that the
cane game's adept maneuvers
and leather shields might have a place
on their New World battlefield.
(riders shouting) (hooves clomping)
In a museum in Toledo,
one hour south of Madrid,
Andre discovers evidence
of other leather shields
that look like smaller
versions of the Muslim adarga
made well after they
became obsolete in Spain.
- [Andre] Where did this object come from?
- [Colm] To find out how effective
these shields might have
been against the Apache,
Andre intends to recreate
an adarga and put it to a test.
- The original materials,
which would've been Arabian
or Northern African animal
hides simply are not available.
In this case, we used modern
vegetable-tanned leathers
and rawhides, which this
is actually just raw hide.
The rawhide has this stiff flexibility
that allows it to almost
become like cartilage.
- [Colm] But could it have
stopped an Apache arrow?
Andre has decided there
is only one way to find out.
- We're actually going
to have arrows fired at me
by Kember Sparr, he's gonna fire arrows
at me as I ride past.
(suspenseful music)
Yeah!
- [Colm] In multiple tests,
the adarga stops the arrow every time.
On the chaotic New World battlefield,
Andre thinks it would've
been particularly effective.
- Normally when you're on a horse,
the shield's only right here.
You can really, you can't move a whole lot.
You're kinda stuck.
With an adarga, you can
go completely over your back.
It is an amazing equestrian defense
because it doesn't weigh much.
It allows you the flexibility
to defend and stab,
defend, stab, stab over here.
And as I come at
them, if I'm low like this,
I came come right at them
and literally move my horse
away from the oncoming
arrows if I'm far enough away.
I can actually see the
arrow coming and just slide,
I just have to slide a little bit.
And really this is a really
amazing little weapon system.
- [Colm] The adarga would
remain in active service
until the early 19th century
when the Apaches acquired rifles.
Against Apache sharpshooters,
the adarga's revival was short lived.
Like all military technology,
it was destined to become obsolete.
(calm orchestral music)
Up next, the secret of a fascist's defeat.
(mysterious music)
For a few days every year,
the Royal Palace of Spain,
the Palacio Real, closes
its doors to the public
for state occasions.
This man is the king of Spain, Juan Carlos,
perhaps the world's friendliest
constitutional monarch.
- He's very tactile, he's very physical.
He will embrace people and touch them
and bring them in in a very unique way.
I've never seen any head of state do that.
- [Colm] Juan Carlos is
the genial monarch today,
but there was a time when
Spain had no king at all.
(crowd shouting)
In 1931, when republicans
declared a new democratic state,
Spain's king exiled himself
and his family to Italy.
Five years later, Spain was torn apart
by a devastating three-year civil war
(cannon fire exploding)
after which General
Francisco Franco seized power.
Through World War II
and for 30 years thereafter,
Franco ruled Spain like
an absolute monarch,
even though he wasn't one.
And yet, in the 21st century,
Spain has a hereditary king once more.
How has the Spanish
monarchy returned to power?
That is our museum secret.
Our story begins in Rome in 1948.
Juan Carlos was 10
years old, a prince in exile
with no prospects of becoming a real king.
And then his father sent him
to Spain to be Franco's ward.
- He justified this extraordinary decision
to hand his son over to the dictator
on the grounds that only if
Juan Carlos was educated
in Spain would he ever be a
viable candidate to the throne.
- [Colm] But Franco did not give
Juan Carlos any royal authority.
He kept all power for
himself while enforcing loyalty
and Catholic morality with an iron fist.
- This was clearly a
dictatorship which lacked
every fundamental political freedom.
Every form of organized
political opposition was banned.
We don't actually have a figure,
but certainly dozens of thousands of people
were executed for their political beliefs.
(woman sobbing)
- [Colm] Often dissenters were arrested
in the dead of night,
never to be seen again.
And those who asked questions
about them also disappeared.
(eerie music)
Even today, the fate of
many remains unknown,
including a man who opposed Franco's rule
and was abducted when his daughter, Bianca,
was just a little girl.
Her family created this memorial,
even though his body was never found.
Bianca hopes journalist Victor Lancina
can shed some light on her father's death.
- [Colm] As Juan Carlos grew to adulthood,
he could've spoken out on behalf
of those victimized by
Franco, but he didn't.
Instead, he took a military commission
and became the smiling face
of Franco's ruthless regime.
- Some of his most
controversial appearances
took place in the Royal Palace
on the balcony just outside here.
However, if you look carefully,
Don Juan Carlos always
seems distinctly uncomfortable.
We also know that he
became increasingly active
in seeking out Spaniards' opinions.
He would contact experts, journalists,
economists, and so on, and talk to them
in private about Spain's problems.
- [Colm] Franco's advisors
suspected Juan Carlos
might be plotting to
overthrow their leader.
Spies monitored his every move,
but never did he betray
a hint of disloyalty.
And so, an aging Franco announced
that Juan Carlos would
rule Spain after he was gone.
(crowd applauding)
- The last few people Franco spoke to
all received the same advice from him,
and the advice was, "Support the king."
- [Colm] When Franco died
on November 20th, 1975,
and was laid in state in the Palacio Real,
most Spaniards believed
that nothing would change
when Juan Carlos took power.
But in his first address as king,
he declared his intention to reject
Franco's authoritarian vision.
(crowd applauding)
- [Colm] The king enacted
decrees that set Spain
on a path towards democracy.
(crowd chanting)
- [Christopher] He was, in
fact, much less subservient
to Franco than was generally accepted.
- [Colm] But democracy
was not his only goal.
- Kings aren't like the rest of us.
A king has to think about the dynasty.
Dynastic continuity is ultimately
the be all and the
end all of his existence.
His approach to all of
this was quite utilitarian.
Don Juan Carlos realized that the only way
for the restoration to succeed
was to make the monarchy
compatible with democracy.
- [Colm] And that's why the
Spanish monarchy survives
and why the children of the Franco era
have the freedom to discover
what happened to their fathers.
- [Colm] At this place of execution
or in the gilded halls of the palace,
whenever light shines on the past,
the future appears a little less uncertain.
(lively orchestral music)
For every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken,
secrets of wealth and power
and of passionate inspiration
hidden in plain sight
inside the Palacio Real.
(lively orchestral music)
- [Colm] Madrid, a city
of pride and passion,
and at its heart, a museum
with secrets dark and strange,
a lethal lost art,
a clock possessed by the devil,
(spirit howling)
and a subterranean quest
for the riches of Spain,
(suspenseful orchestral music)
secrets hidden in plain sight
inside Madrid's Palacio Real.
(mysterious music)
In Madrid, there is no
building more imposing
or more magnificent than this.
It's the Royal Palace, or
in Spanish, Palacio Real.
For centuries, it has been at the center
of Spain's political and social life,
from the Bourbon monarchs
through the dark years
of dictator Francisco Franco
(crowd cheering)
to its present incarnation
as a working palace
and extraordinary museum.
In what were once royal
ballrooms and bedrooms,
royal possessions are
now on public display.
A king wore this armor.
A queen told the time by this clock.
And a royal retainer
commissioned this fresco
to remind visitors of how
Spain achieved its power.
It shows Christopher
Columbus giving the planet
to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella.
Thanks to Columbus, conquistadors
had a new world to conquer
and treasure to send back
to Spain by the galleon load
to gild the ceilings of the palace.
(calm orchestral music)
Historian Marcos
Martinon-Torres specializes
in the era of the Spanish Empire.
(calm guitar music)
- One of the aspects I've been researching
is the material reason behind the splendor
and the power of Spain.
- [Colm] Marcos believes
that the foundation
of Spanish wealth was not silver or gold
but a third element, hidden
in plain sight in this room.
What it is and how it shaped
Spain's destiny is a museum secret.
(crystal chiming)
The investigation begins
in the Spanish town
of Almaden at the bottom of a mine shaft.
(suspenseful music)
Far beneath the ground,
Marcos navigates tunnels
dug hundreds of years ago.
The miners weren't
looking for silver or gold.
- So this is what the miners were after.
This is cinnabar,
this red rock that we
see here running in a vein.
Only here would you get such high amounts
of this precious red stone.
It was crushed to create
bright red pigments.
Some of those frescoes
we've seen at the Palacio Real
are actually made with this pigment.
And that's one of the reasons
that made cinnabar so special,
so appealing to different
cultures throughout time.
- [Colm] But it wasn't cinnabar's color
that shaped Spain's destiny.
16th century Spaniards learned
that it can be transformed.
- Somehow, they figured out
that by heating the cinnabar,
they could evaporate the sulfur.
They would be left
behind with tiny droplets
of what we now know was mercury,
this fascinating liquid metal.
- [Colm] Today we know that
mercury gives off toxic vapor,
which is why the Almaden
mine was closed in 2000.
- We now can explain
it in scientific terms.
But also in the 16th
century, people would see
that people would go mad and die
(man screaming)
after working with mercury.
- [Colm] 16th century alchemists
believed the risk was worth it.
Some thought mercury was
the fabled philosopher's stone
that could turn lead into gold,
while others discovered
the element's real magic.
Mercury can liberate precious
metals from low-grade ore,
and that would become the
lucrative solution to a problem.
- During the first few
centuries of Spanish expansion
into America, it seemed
relatively easy to just go there
and exploit the richest
gold and silver ores,
but very soon after the
Spanish start exploiting that,
they found that the richest veins,
the riches ores had been exhausted.
So they had poorer veins
that required more labor
to extract a smaller amount of silver.
- [Colm] In what is now Bolivia,
and what was then a Spanish colony,
there is a mountain
of low-grade silver ore.
Here, Spanish engineers
scaled up the alchemical process.
While natives were
forced to work in the mines
bringing silver ore to the surface,
mules plodded in circles on a stone patio
to mix seawater, silver ore, and mercury.
- It was through this
trampling that the mercury
would eventually amalgamate
with the silver so that it would
finally leave the silver
behind for you to collect.
- [Colm] Each kilogram of silver
required two kilograms of mercury
from the Almaden mine in Spain.
- 1/3 of all the mercury ever produced
across the world came from this mine.
There was a massive logistical enterprise
to send these massive
amounts of mercury to America.
- [Colm] Upping mercury production
came at a tragic human cost.
- Tremors, severe pains, lots of people
are reported as going
insane, and of course,
many of them as well would die prematurely.
- [Colm] In the Americas,
the problem was even more devastating.
(man coughing)
- The patio process was particularly toxic
because you generated a lot of vapor
and a lot of mercury compounds.
- [Colm] Historians estimate
that over several centuries,
eight million miners died
to produce precious metals
which would have a
value today of $30 trillion.
- Without the mercury, we wouldn't have had
the gold and silver that
made us rich back then.
It's very difficult to overestimate
the importance of mercury
to the history of Spain.
- [Colm] The element
that shaped Spain's destiny
is hidden in plain sight
in the Palacio Real's Hall of Mirrors.
- If you wanted to make a mirror,
until almost the 20th century,
you needed transparent glass
and then a reflective backing
which was made of mercury
combined with tin in an amalgam.
So when I look at this
mirror and see my face,
I'm seeing myself, of course,
but I'm also seeing mercury.
- [Colm] The mirror makers sealed the glass
to protect the royals
from toxic mercury vapor.
Eight million Spanish
subjects weren't so lucky.
(powerful orchestral music)
Next on Museum Secrets,
the lost art of the sword master.
(mysterious music)
The Palacio Real, the
Royal Palace of Spain,
stands in a city with a glorious past.
It attracts more than a
million visitors every year.
Today, two people from New York City
plan to do more than
take in the sights of Madrid.
Ramon Martinez and his wife,
Jeannette Acosta-Martinez,
are the world's foremost experts
in a unique style of fencing
that was practiced in
Spain three centuries ago.
(swords clanking)
They're trying to revive this
lost art and solve a mystery.
On this plaza, on a summer day in 1646,
17 swordsmen lined up
to accept the challenge
of a man named Don Miguel Perez de Mendoza.
And it would seem that Mendoza was a fool
because in fencing, to
defeat even one opponent
requires the utmost stamina.
To face three challengers
would be exhausting.
And as for defeating 17, that
would seem to be impossible.
Why did Mendoza challenge so many?
And how did he hope to survive?
Ramon may be in a unique
position to uncover these secrets
because he and Mendoza
have a few things in common,
starting with Mendoza's neighborhood.
- This was a very dangerous
area in the 17th century,
and anything can happen.
You had all kinds of violent people,
you cut throats in any corner.
You had other swordsmen.
You never know if
there was a rivalry or not.
This is put up or shut up
right here in this neighborhood.
- [Colm] To Ramon, these
mean streets are familiar.
- I was born and raised
in The Bronx, New York.
More exact, I come from the South Bronx,
which is probably one of the most
dangerous areas in New York City.
When we're talking about 16th century
or 17th century Madrid as compared
to the South Bronx of the '60s and '70s,
I would say it was pretty much the same.
I started carrying a blade
when I was like seven years old,
not so much for being violent,
which is the last thing on Earth
that you would even look for,
but you'd use it as a tool,
as a method of self-defense,
and everybody had a blade.
- [Colm] In old Madrid, the
blade of choice was the rapier,
like the ones on display
in the Palacio Real.
- What you see here is a collection
of rapiers that were typical
of the mid 17th century.
These weapons are the
weapons of personal defense.
This would've been the Glock of its time,
light, lethal, extremely maneuverable.
- [Colm] Don Miguel Perez de
Mendoza owned such a weapon,
but so did each of his 17 challengers.
So why did Mendoza think he had an edge?
(suspenseful music)
Ramon believes the answer
in is Spain's National Library.
For over 30 years, Ramon
has studied rare documents
that have allowed him to recreate
Mendoza's uniquely
Spanish style of swordplay.
It was known simply as the
skill, but in Spanish, destreza.
- All fencing schools
are effective and deadly,
but what made this
unique was that it was not
based upon preconceived techniques.
It was founded upon a
profound understanding
of spatial relationships and movement.
Destreza made a
swordsman very cold blooded,
detached, his adversaries nothing more
than a geometric problem
that he has to solve.
- [Colm] As a well-known destreza master,
Mendoza couldn't walk through Madrid
without constant challenges from wannabes.
So he decided to prove once and for all
that he was the best.
- He asked King Philip IV permission
to post cartels throughout the kingdom
as an open challenge to any
swordsman who would face him.
So he was answered by 17 swordsmen,
and he faced 'em all in front of the king.
- [Colm] As for how
Mendoza fought that day,
Ramon and Jeanette hope to demonstrate
with a destreza master class.
(speaking in foreign language)
- We'll begin with a salute.
Destreza has actually nothing to do
with what most people are familiar with,
which is modern sport fencing.
One of the most blatant difference is
that modern sport fencing,
they note all the combat is linear.
They conduct all of that on a strip.
She follows me, maintaining the distance.
Destreza combat takes
place on an imaginary circle
that moves along the
ground with the combatants.
So I'm following her.
I'm being very careful
not to come too close
or too far away, but I
don't have to stay there.
I can switch directions,
now she has to follow me,
and she can do the same thing to me.
And the reality is, you want
to deceive your adversary.
You want to confuse him.
Don't be like a cat stalking a mouse
because I see some of you
doing this, you're stalking.
- Yeah. (students laugh)
- No, you have to be serene.
Avoid any tension, avoid any
excessive actions of the legs
because you will get tired very quickly.
And once you start to move, you're not...
- [Colm] An opponent's
body language is key.
- Take your time.
You have to gaze and
see not only the blade,
you have to see the positioning
of the person's shoulders,
the person's feet, how
he's holding his arm.
You are observing constantly
what the other person's doing.
It has to do with
cold-blooded determination
and being able to solve that problem,
which that person is a problem for you
because he's trying to kill you.
Okay, that's a problem that you don't want.
- [Colm] Ramon believes that Mendoza used
the same techniques when he faced
17 challengers, one by one.
- But he would've waited for the adversary
to initiate so that they would basically
give themselves away, their intention.
You see him in front of you,
when you go to reach to touch him?
He's gone, like a ghost.
- [Challenger] Oh, oh!
- [Colm] So while traditional
swashbuckling swordsmen
move fast and furiously,
destreza involves calculation
but far less exertion.
A traditional swordsman
may strike many times
while a destreza master
may only have to strike once.
- [Challenger] Oh, oh!
- [Colm] In the plaza where Mendoza fought,
Ramon and Jeanette can spar for hours
without breaking a sweat,
and so it seems did Mendoza himself
as he dispatched one
challenger after the other.
(sword whooshes) (challenger grunts)
And when Mendoza discovered
he was the last man standing,
Ramon believes he
knows what he was thinking.
- It was great, I wish I could keep going.
Bring on 17 more! (both laughing)
- [Colm] Beside each of
Mendoza's fallen challengers
was a lethal weapon, much
like the ones in the Palacio Real.
Even the finest rapier is no protection
against a master of destreza.
(calm flamenco guitar)
(eerie music)
Next on Museum Secrets, a
clock possessed by the devil.
(spirit howling)
(mysterious music)
This morning at the Palacio Real,
this curator can look forward to a long day
because his job is to wind the clocks.
(clocks chiming)
Here, there are 700 timepieces
dating from the 18th century.
The collection was started
by King Ferdinand VI
who is remembered for being indecisive
except in his love for his
wife, Maria, and for clocks.
- [Colm] Collecting clocks
became a royal obsession,
and curator Amelia Aranda
has the paper trail to prove it.
- [Colm] Making a clock for
a king was highly lucrative,
but for one young clockmaker,
it nearly became a
life-threatening experience.
(man screaming)
The reason why is a museum secret.
Our story begins in 1758
in Geneva, Switzerland,
where a young genius
named Pierre Jaquet-Droz
decided to create the world's
most advanced timepiece.
And it would do much more than tell time.
While restoring the clock,
curator Manuel Santolaya Sanchez
discovered the intricate mechanisms
that Droz crafted to
remember musical melodies.
(calm music)
(bells chiming)
(bird tweeting)
(flute whistling)
- [Colm] To refine the clock's logic,
he pioneered the mathematical formulas
we now call algorithms.
(clock ticking)
When the clock was finished, Droz loaded it
on a cart and traveled overland to Spain.
- [Colm] Droz hoped to
win a royal commission
from the influential monarch
that would make his name and his career.
But when he entered the palace,
King Ferdinand was not at home.
His much-loved wife had died suddenly,
and the king had retired to this gloomy
medieval castle to mourn.
As Droz prepared to unveil his creation,
he must've worried that the king
would be in no mood for clocks.
He waited nervously
for the king's reaction.
(flute whistles)
(king laughs)
- [Colm] But while the king was delighted,
his Catholic advisors were not.
(advisor whispering)
To them, the lifelike automata
could only be the work of the devil.
(spirit howling)
They ordered Droz to provide an explanation
or face the inquisition.
Droz was forced to open the mechanism
to prove it wasn't driven
by the devil's magic,
just wires and bellows and gears.
The churchmen agreed that Droz would escape
the inquisitor's scrutiny this time,
and the king agreed to purchase the clock
for a king's ransom.
(clock ticking)
(clock chiming)
- [Colm] When Droz got
back home to Switzerland,
he turned his attention
from animated clocks
to the automata themselves,
creating mechanical
androids, and in an achievement
long ahead of its time, a
programmable mechanical hand
that could write a complete sentence.
(whimsical music)
It's probably a good thing that this wonder
was never seen by Spain's inquisitors
because if it had been, Pierre Jaquet-Droz
may have died before his time.
(fire crackling) (man screaming)
(lively flamenco guitar music)
Up next, the secret of the flamenco master.
(mysterious music)
(calm guitar music)
In the Palacio Real, one
gallery is devoted to music.
For centuries, Spain has been best known
for the sound of the guitar,
especially when the guitar
is in the hands of a master of flamenco.
(lively flamenco music)
On most evenings after the Palacio closes,
scores of tourists stroll just next door
to one of Madrid's
best-known flamenco clubs.
(lively flamenco music)
The rhythms are mesmerizing,
and the performers are intense.
But there are rarely any
local people in the audience.
Is this flamenco authentic?
Or is there a real flamenco
that tourists don't see?
These secrets are of personal interest
to a woman named Yinka Graves.
She was born in England,
but she's come to Madrid
to discover the real flamenco.
- I started taking flamenco lessons
just as a hobby, sort of once a week,
and I suppose flamenco,
maybe because of its complexity,
once you start getting into
it, it sort of takes over you.
- [Colm] Every day, Yinka
enters this inconspicuous building
and climbs the stairs to the famous
flamenco school called Amor de Dios.
(calm flamenco music)
The facility may look tired,
but the teachers aren't.
- Most of them are top flamenco dancers.
You know, this is the creme de la creme.
If you want to learn flamenco,
this is the best place to come to.
- [Colm] Here, there is little evidence
of the tourist image of flamenco,
except for some posters from the 1960s.
Then, Spain was a poor nation
ruled by dictator Francisco Franco.
He ordered Spanish gypsies known as gitanos
to make their traditions,
including flamenco,
more tourist friendly.
- That image of the flamenco dancer,
the castanets, the polka dot dresses
as something that would
sell Spain to the foreign world
was something that was
created during Franco's time.
- [Colm] At Yinka's school,
there are no castanets
and frilly dresses, only clapping hands
and an improvised song called a solea.
(singing in foreign language)
- This is almost like
the mother of flamenco.
This is the base, this is,
these songs used to speak
of a sort of suffering
and lament and so on.
(singing in foreign language)
- [Colm] The pain expressed in the solea
is rooted in history.
Since their caravans reached
Spain in the 15th century,
gitanos have been an oppressed minority,
ghettoized and persecuted.
They were forbidden to perform in public
until King Charles III passed
his leniency edict in 1783.
(calm music)
From then on, the gitanos
were free to perform
but allowed few other
ways to make a living.
Many still live in poverty.
(singing in foreign language)
When the gitano experience
is expressed in song,
Yinka's role is to translate
the feeling into movement.
For a person who's not a
gitano, this can be a challenge.
- It's difficult if you haven't
really been there with them.
You know, they've got that
sort of long history together
to really, you know,
yeah, sort of do it justice.
- [Colm] But when Yinka
speaks with the school's
elder gitano statesman, Enrique Pantoja,
he tells her that the key
to flamenco is not race
but something called duende.
- [Colm] Teachers encourage their students
to discover duende on their own.
- It's about you really finding
where you feel comfortable,
'cause ultimately flamenco's something
that you teach yourself
to a certain extent.
(lively flamenco music) (heels tapping)
- [Colm] To further Yinka's progress,
her teachers have
arranged an informal session
with a family of flamenco luminaries.
(singing in foreign language)
- That was amazing,
for one, and a real honor.
It was like, my gosh, I can't believe
that I'm here with these people.
They really are the people
who live it and have lived it
from the time that they were really young.
(singing in foreign language)
These are the masters, these are the people
who have the experience and so on,
and you're on the fringes of that.
Now, the lovely thing was that they,
you know, they opened their circle there.
But nevertheless, for me, that was really
imposing to a certain extent.
- [Colm] Yinka hangs back,
but then the sad solea changes
into a song of celebration.
- These are the songs that
you'll hear at gypsy weddings.
When people get together,
this is what they sing.
And you can see that in
the energy of the dancing.
It's really, really very
powerful and so much fun.
- [Colm] The family's duende has inspired
Yinka to find her own.
And as Enrique tells his students,
inspired flamenco is real flamenco,
(hands clapping) (feet stomping)
whether or not it's on
a tourist-friendly stage.
(upbeat music)
Up next, the secret of
surviving an Apache attack.
(mysterious music)
(stately orchestral music)
In the Hall of Armor, historical
technologist Andre Renier
is looking for a new challenge.
He has spent 10 years recreating armor
made of steel and discovering how
it would've performed on the battlefield.
(horse neighing) (hooves clomping)
But today, something much
less shiny has caught his eye.
- [Andre] What is this?
- This is a very special kind of shield.
It is called an adarga.
So it means, this is in Spanish
a word that comes Arabic,
from (speaks in foreign
language), it means leather.
They were only used in Spain
during the Islamic dynasties.
- [Colm] In the 15th century,
when Spaniards rebelled
against Islamic rule,
their Muslim adversaries,
the Moors, fended off
arrows, lances, and swords
with leather shields like this one.
(lively orchestral music)
- If an arrow or a lance goes inside,
passes the leather, when you take it out,
the leather will be
closed immediately again.
- So it's a self-healing...
- Yes. - Shield.
- [Colm] As Spain gained its independence,
shields and armor evolved.
Soldiers and horses,
sometimes even children,
were encased in shells of steel.
By the 16th century,
European soldiers started using muskets,
(musket fire explodes)
making the leather adarga obsolete.
Or was it?
Andre hopes to uncover this museum secret.
The story begins in Tucson, Arizona.
Today, it's an artistic enclave
where people of many cultures get along.
But in the 18th century,
that wasn't the case.
The Spanish built this fort
to protect their farms and settlers.
What they feared was the Apaches.
The Apaches were
buffalo hunters of the Plains.
Short of food, they resorted
to raiding Spanish towns.
(Apaches shouting) (suspenseful music)
When Spanish soldiers battled the Apaches,
they discovered that
European rules did not apply.
The Spaniards were trained
to charge in one direction,
while the Apaches rode circles around them.
Well-aimed arrows got
by the Spaniards' shields.
Against the Apaches,
heavy steel was a liability.
They needed a different approach.
(calm guitar music)
Back in Spain, the military
had a cavalry training exercise
called the (speaks in foreign
language) or the cane game.
(horse neighs)
(rider shouts)
It's reminiscent of battles
that Spaniards fought
against the Muslim
dynasty centuries before.
(riders shouting)
Each trainee fends off
blows with a leather shield
modeled on the ancient Muslim adarga.
(riders shouting)
- The cane game was
an excellent training tool
to train soldiers because
going in a straight line
against an opponent
like a traditional joust
doesn't prepare you for real-world battle.
This requires you to turn the horse
while engaging your enemy.
- [Colm] As news of the
Apache wars reached Spain,
someone realized that the
cane game's adept maneuvers
and leather shields might have a place
on their New World battlefield.
(riders shouting) (hooves clomping)
In a museum in Toledo,
one hour south of Madrid,
Andre discovers evidence
of other leather shields
that look like smaller
versions of the Muslim adarga
made well after they
became obsolete in Spain.
- [Andre] Where did this object come from?
- [Colm] To find out how effective
these shields might have
been against the Apache,
Andre intends to recreate
an adarga and put it to a test.
- The original materials,
which would've been Arabian
or Northern African animal
hides simply are not available.
In this case, we used modern
vegetable-tanned leathers
and rawhides, which this
is actually just raw hide.
The rawhide has this stiff flexibility
that allows it to almost
become like cartilage.
- [Colm] But could it have
stopped an Apache arrow?
Andre has decided there
is only one way to find out.
- We're actually going
to have arrows fired at me
by Kember Sparr, he's gonna fire arrows
at me as I ride past.
(suspenseful music)
Yeah!
- [Colm] In multiple tests,
the adarga stops the arrow every time.
On the chaotic New World battlefield,
Andre thinks it would've
been particularly effective.
- Normally when you're on a horse,
the shield's only right here.
You can really, you can't move a whole lot.
You're kinda stuck.
With an adarga, you can
go completely over your back.
It is an amazing equestrian defense
because it doesn't weigh much.
It allows you the flexibility
to defend and stab,
defend, stab, stab over here.
And as I come at
them, if I'm low like this,
I came come right at them
and literally move my horse
away from the oncoming
arrows if I'm far enough away.
I can actually see the
arrow coming and just slide,
I just have to slide a little bit.
And really this is a really
amazing little weapon system.
- [Colm] The adarga would
remain in active service
until the early 19th century
when the Apaches acquired rifles.
Against Apache sharpshooters,
the adarga's revival was short lived.
Like all military technology,
it was destined to become obsolete.
(calm orchestral music)
Up next, the secret of a fascist's defeat.
(mysterious music)
For a few days every year,
the Royal Palace of Spain,
the Palacio Real, closes
its doors to the public
for state occasions.
This man is the king of Spain, Juan Carlos,
perhaps the world's friendliest
constitutional monarch.
- He's very tactile, he's very physical.
He will embrace people and touch them
and bring them in in a very unique way.
I've never seen any head of state do that.
- [Colm] Juan Carlos is
the genial monarch today,
but there was a time when
Spain had no king at all.
(crowd shouting)
In 1931, when republicans
declared a new democratic state,
Spain's king exiled himself
and his family to Italy.
Five years later, Spain was torn apart
by a devastating three-year civil war
(cannon fire exploding)
after which General
Francisco Franco seized power.
Through World War II
and for 30 years thereafter,
Franco ruled Spain like
an absolute monarch,
even though he wasn't one.
And yet, in the 21st century,
Spain has a hereditary king once more.
How has the Spanish
monarchy returned to power?
That is our museum secret.
Our story begins in Rome in 1948.
Juan Carlos was 10
years old, a prince in exile
with no prospects of becoming a real king.
And then his father sent him
to Spain to be Franco's ward.
- He justified this extraordinary decision
to hand his son over to the dictator
on the grounds that only if
Juan Carlos was educated
in Spain would he ever be a
viable candidate to the throne.
- [Colm] But Franco did not give
Juan Carlos any royal authority.
He kept all power for
himself while enforcing loyalty
and Catholic morality with an iron fist.
- This was clearly a
dictatorship which lacked
every fundamental political freedom.
Every form of organized
political opposition was banned.
We don't actually have a figure,
but certainly dozens of thousands of people
were executed for their political beliefs.
(woman sobbing)
- [Colm] Often dissenters were arrested
in the dead of night,
never to be seen again.
And those who asked questions
about them also disappeared.
(eerie music)
Even today, the fate of
many remains unknown,
including a man who opposed Franco's rule
and was abducted when his daughter, Bianca,
was just a little girl.
Her family created this memorial,
even though his body was never found.
Bianca hopes journalist Victor Lancina
can shed some light on her father's death.
- [Colm] As Juan Carlos grew to adulthood,
he could've spoken out on behalf
of those victimized by
Franco, but he didn't.
Instead, he took a military commission
and became the smiling face
of Franco's ruthless regime.
- Some of his most
controversial appearances
took place in the Royal Palace
on the balcony just outside here.
However, if you look carefully,
Don Juan Carlos always
seems distinctly uncomfortable.
We also know that he
became increasingly active
in seeking out Spaniards' opinions.
He would contact experts, journalists,
economists, and so on, and talk to them
in private about Spain's problems.
- [Colm] Franco's advisors
suspected Juan Carlos
might be plotting to
overthrow their leader.
Spies monitored his every move,
but never did he betray
a hint of disloyalty.
And so, an aging Franco announced
that Juan Carlos would
rule Spain after he was gone.
(crowd applauding)
- The last few people Franco spoke to
all received the same advice from him,
and the advice was, "Support the king."
- [Colm] When Franco died
on November 20th, 1975,
and was laid in state in the Palacio Real,
most Spaniards believed
that nothing would change
when Juan Carlos took power.
But in his first address as king,
he declared his intention to reject
Franco's authoritarian vision.
(crowd applauding)
- [Colm] The king enacted
decrees that set Spain
on a path towards democracy.
(crowd chanting)
- [Christopher] He was, in
fact, much less subservient
to Franco than was generally accepted.
- [Colm] But democracy
was not his only goal.
- Kings aren't like the rest of us.
A king has to think about the dynasty.
Dynastic continuity is ultimately
the be all and the
end all of his existence.
His approach to all of
this was quite utilitarian.
Don Juan Carlos realized that the only way
for the restoration to succeed
was to make the monarchy
compatible with democracy.
- [Colm] And that's why the
Spanish monarchy survives
and why the children of the Franco era
have the freedom to discover
what happened to their fathers.
- [Colm] At this place of execution
or in the gilded halls of the palace,
whenever light shines on the past,
the future appears a little less uncertain.
(lively orchestral music)
For every mystery we reveal,
far more must remain unspoken,
secrets of wealth and power
and of passionate inspiration
hidden in plain sight
inside the Palacio Real.
(lively orchestral music)