- Alejandro Finisterre
Alexandre Campos Ramírez (
May 6 1919 –February 9 2007 ) (known as Alexandre de Fisterra) was apoet ,inventor (possibly oftable football among other things) and editor.He was born in
Fisterra (Galicia) in 1919. When his father'sshoemaking business failed, the director of his school made Finisterre pay his tuition by correcting thehomework of lower grades. Later he became a construction worker and worked in a print shop.Finisterre was injured during
fascist bombings ofMadrid in theSpanish civil war . In hospital he saw many children injured and unable to play football. This was his inspiration for foosball, which was born from the concept oftable tennis . Alejandro credits his friend Francisco Javier Altuna, a Basquecarpenter , for making the first foosball game following Finisterre's directions. Although the invention waspatent ed in 1937, Finisterre had to escape to France from the fascist coup d'état, and he lost the patent papers in a storm.After he allegedly invented
foosball (Lucien Rosengart claims to have done so as well) he fledFrancisco Franco 's Spain toLatin America . His leftish ideology, however, would lead him to problems inGuatemala , where he was kidnapped whenCarlos Castillo Armas took over the country, and he was sent by airplane to Madrid. During that flight Alejandro threatened the pilot by telling him that he had explosives (one of the firstaircraft hijacking s).Later in
Mexico , he became an editor. He died in Zamora on theFebruary 9 ,2007 .
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