Práxedes Mateo Sagasta (1825-1903) born on July 21, 1825 at Torrecilla de Cameros was a Spanish politician who was president of the government in eight occasions between 1870 and 1902. He was known for possessing an excellent oratorical talent.
Being a member of the progressive party while a student at the Engineering School of Madrid in 1848, he was the only one in the school who refused to sign a letter supporting Queen Isabel II. After his studies, he assumed an active role in government.
Sagasta served in the Spanish Corts between 1854-1857 and 1858-1863. In 1866 he self-exiles in France after a failed coup, returning to Spain in 1868 to take part in the provisional government which was created after the 1868 Spanish Revolution.
Sagasta was the Prime Minister of Spain during the Spanish-American War of 1898, and during the time which Spain lost its remaining colonies in the New World. Sagasta's political opponents saw his action as a betrayal of Spain and blamed him for the country's defeat in the war and the loss of its island territories after the Treaty of Paris of 1898.
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