Born in
A Coruña,
Spain, son of Carlos Dato y Granados (himself the son of Carlos Dato
Camacho y
Marín and wife Cayetana Ruperta Granados y
García, de Vivancos e
Acosta) and wife Rosa Lorenza Iradier e Arce, of
Galician descent. He graduated in
Law at the
Complutense University in 1875. He opened his law office two years later. Elected to the Spanish parliament in 1883, he became Under-secretary for the Ministry of the Interior in 1892. He held the position of
Minister of the Interior and
Minister of Justice over the next fifteen years. In 1907, he ran for and won the position of
Mayor of Madrid. In 1910, he entered the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. In 1913 he became prime minister for the first time. In 1915, he left that position, but would return to it for a short while in 1917. He became the 230th
Minister for Foreign Affairs from 22 March 1918 to 9 November 1918. Then he moved to the post of
Minister of State and stayed there until 1920, when he led the government as prime minister again. Dato was a member of the
International Permanent Court in
The Hague (he became
vice-president in 1913), member of the
International Law Institute, administrator of the bank firm 'Banco Hipotecario' and president of the National Institute of Social Security, the Council of Public Instruction and the Academy of Jurisprudence and Legislation. ==Assassination==