Doña Manolita in Madrid, Spain

Few phenomena can reliably unite the notoriously fragmented population of Spain, but the obsession with El Gordo—the nation’s historic Christmas lottery—is unquestionably one of them. At the heart of this annual ritual of collective hope stands a single legendary shop in the capital, whose origins trace back to a remarkably ambitious young woman. In 1904, a 25-year-old woman named Manuela de Pablo opened a modest lottery stand on Madrid’s Calle San Bernardo. Known affectionately as Doña Manolita, she began selling ticket fractions primarily to students from the nearby university, embarking ...