On this date in 1972, politician and future president Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón was born in Madrid to Magdalena Pérez-Castejón and Pedro Sánchez Fernández. (He was actually born on Feb. 29, a date this software recognizes as March 1.) The family was well-off. His father managed the National Institute of the Performing Arts and Music and later owned an industrial packing company. His mother worked as a civil servant in Spain’s retirement system and later studied to become a lawyer.
When young, Sánchez became active in the Partido Socialista Obrero Español (PSOE) and gained fluency in English and French. He earned undergraduate and graduate degrees, worked as an adviser to the European Parliament and was chief of staff to the United Nations’ high representative in Bosnia-Herzegovina during the Kosovo War in 1999.
He joined the Madrid city council in 2004, worked as an economics lecturer at the Universidad Camilo José Celaor in 2008 and served two terms in the national Congress of Deputies. He was elected PSOE secretary-general in 2014.
Sánchez and Begoña Gómez, business outsourcing director for the Inmark Group, had married in 2006 at the Hipódromo de la Zarzuela racetrack in a ceremony officiated by PSOE leader Trinidad Jiménez. They have two daughters, Carlota (b. 2005) and Ainhoa (b. 2007).
Sánchez assumed the presidency in June 2018, succeeding Mariano Rajoy. The titles of prime minister and president are somewhat interchangeable in Spain. Sánchez and most of his Cabinet members declined to take the oath of office with religious symbols. Rajoy, a Catholic had put his right hand on the Constitution and his left hand on a bible.
El Mundo reported that Sánchez took his oath at the Zarzuela Palace on the Magna Carta “without the Bible and the cross that have been present at the swearing-in ceremonies of the six previous heads of government.”
He has served as head of government and his party since then, as of this writing in 2026. On the day before the 2023 election, he posted video of one of his favorite pastimes, downhill mountain biking, with Begoña.
PHOTO: Ministry of the Presidency, Government of Spain
