Calle de Almagro

Before it bore a conquistador’s name, this street had two others. First it was the Paseo del Huevo, with no record of the reason for that nickname. Then it was called calle del General Winthuysen, until the current sign was set in honor of Diego de Almagro, a partner of Francisco Pizarro in the conquest of Peru. The alliance ended in open war over Cuzco; Almagro was defeated, captured, and executed. The calle de Almagro crosses the neighborhood that also takes its name, from the plaza de Alonso Martínez to the glorieta de Rubén Darío. In the nineteenth century the area was still gardens and brickworks on the edge of Madrid, and it filled with mansions that the nobility raised toward the paseo de la Castellana, many now turned into embassies. At number 26 the Center for Historical Studies was installed in 1920.