Federico Garcia Lorca Timeline

1898	Born in Fuentevaqueros in Granada in Spain. He was the eldest of two brothers and two sisters. The first years of his life were spent on the family farm. Lorca always claimed that a serious illness at two moths old left him unable to speak until he was three and unable to walk until he as four.
1909	His family move to the city of Granada.
1914	Lorca begins to study law at the University of Granada.
1919-1928	Lorca begins his stay at the Residence of Students in Madrid. He begins a close friendship with the Surrealist painter Salvador Dali.
1920	Stages his first play ‘The Butterfly’s Evil Spell’ – a Surrealist play about the love lives of insects.
1921	Publishes his first book of poems.
1927	Exhibits his drawings in the Dalmau Gallery in Barcelona.
1929-1930	Travels to New York and writes further plays – gives a famous speech in Havana (Cuba) explaining the concept of Duende, which loosely translates as passion and power although it literally means elf.
1932	Lorca begins writing Blood Wedding after having read a newspaper account of a bride in a remote village in Almeria who, on her wedding day, eloped with her cousin, whom she had always loved. The bride’s sister and her husband pursued the lovers and the husband shot the bride’s lover and the sister tried to strangle the bride. Blood Wedding is the first play in the series of which The House of Bernarda Alba is the third.
1933	Blood Wedding premiers in Madrid
1936	Lorca takes part in a demonstration in support of the Popular Front, a Socialist movement.
June 19^th	‘The House of Bernarda Alba’ completed
July 13^th	Fearing the outbreak of violence Lorca returns for safety to his native Granada
August 16^th	Lorca is arrested by the Fascists and taken to the Civil Government Headquarters
August 19^th	He is shot before sunrise by members of the paramilitary ‘Black Squad’ at Fuente Grande in the hills 9km from Granada. A schoolmaster, two bull fighters and two thieves were shot with him. His body has never been found.