Paseo de Eduardo Dato

Before it bore the name of a prime minister riddled with bullets, this avenue was called Paseo del Cisne. It opened around 1852 in what was then the outskirts, and that first name came from a marble fountain topped by a swan. After the civil war, the street came to remember Eduardo Dato e Iradier. Born in A Coruña in 1856, Dato was a lawyer and one of the leading figures of the Conservative party. He served as prime minister three times between 1913 and 1921, and his name became tied to Spain’s first social legislation: the workplace accident law and the law regulating the work of women and children, both from 1900. The end came on March 8, 1921. Dato was heading home in his official car when, crossing the Plaza de la Independencia, a motorcycle with a sidecar pulled level with him and three anarchists emptied their magazines into the car. A plaque in the square today marks the exact spot of the assassination.