Franco was briefly elevated to Chief of Army Staff before the 1936 election moved the leftist Popular Front into power, relegating him to the Canary Islands. Franco joined the July 1936 military coup, which, after failing to take Spain, sparked the Spanish Civil War.
Francisco Franco, general and leader of the Nationalist forces that overthrew the Spanish democratic republic in the Spanish Civil War (1936–39); thereafter he was the head of the government of Spain until 1973 and head of state until his death in 1975. Learn more about Franco in this article.
Aside from giving Franco’s victims some measure of accountability and reminding the younger generations of the historic sacrifices that made democracy possible, it is a powerful wake-up call ...
50 Years After Franco’s Death, Spain Confronts Its Dark Past - TIME
Franco's military career set the stage for his involvement in the political upheaval of the 1930s, culminating in his leadership of the Nationalist forces during the Spanish Civil War.
Francisco Franco Bahamonde (1892–1975) was a Spanish military leader and dictator who ruled Spain from 1939 until he died in 1975.
Spain's former dictator, General Francisco Franco, pictured with Prince Juan Carlos de Bourbon in Madrid on . AFP Fifty years after the death of Francisco Franco, Spain remains deeply ...
Franco's mixture of promises and delays led Hitler to call Franco the "Latin charlatan." Despite ongoing sales of raw materials to Germany and logistical support for U-boats, Franco gradually began to distance his regime from the Axis in 1942.