40 years after - how punks changed Spain

Homosexuality in Spain was only decriminalised in 1979. Spanish women had long been subject to a patrician curfew, which made most streets and bars an entirely male domain by 9pm. The country’s Civil Guard could detain anyone whose clothes, hair, or face gave them the flimsiest pretext under the prevailing law of “dangerousness and social rehabilitation”. The country was still being effectively run by soldiers and priests when a ragged lineup of young punks staged a free concert at Madrid Polytechnic on 9 February 1980, and everything changed, for the better. Forty years later, that night is remembered as the event that launched La Movida Madrileña, a countercultural eruption in the city during the country’s volatile “transition” to democracy. The Guardian describes how it happened and what it meant.