and Ebro. After the defeat of the Republic in April 1939, Aragon and the rest of Spain was governed by the Francoist dictatorship. Especially during the 1960s, there were large migrations, with a depopulation of the rural areas, towards the industrial areas like the provincial capitals, other areas of Spain, and other European countries. In 1964, one of the so-called Development Poles was created in Zaragoza. In the 1970s, the old town of Mequinenza was demolished almost completely due to the construction of the Ribarroja reservoir. The inhabitants of Mequinenza had to leave their homes to move to the new town on the banks of the River Segre. Some left for more industrial areas such as Barcelona or Zaragoza or even abroad to continue working in mining industries. By the end of 1974 all of the population had already abandoned the Old Town of Mequinenza and was living in the new town. In the 1970s a period of transition as in the rest of the country was experienced, after the extinction of the previous regime, with the recovery of democratic normality and the creation of a new constitutional framework. It began to demand an own political autonomy, for the Aragonese historical territory; sentiment that was reflected in the historic manifestation of April 23, 1978 that brought together more than aragoneses through the streets of Zaragoza. Not having plebiscited, in the past, affirmatively a draft Statute of autonomy (second transitory provision of the constitution) and not making use of the difficult access to autonomy by Article 151 whose aggravated procedure required, apart from the initiative of the process autonomic follow the steps of article 143, which was ratified by three quarters of the municipalities of each of the affected provinces that represent at least the majority of the electoral census, and that this initiative was approved by referendum by the affirmative vote of the majority absolute of the electors of each province, Aragon acceded to the self-government by the slow way of article 143 obtaining lower competence top, and less self-management of resources, during more than 20 years. On August 10, 1982, Aragon's autonomy statute was approved by the Cortes Generales, signed by the then president of the Government, Leopoldo Calvo-Sotelo, and sanctioned by His Majesty Juan Carlos I of Spain. On May 7, 1992, a Special Commission of the Aragonese Corts, elaborated a reformed text that was approved by the