Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
On 26 April 1937, the Basque town of Guernica (Gernika in Basque) was aerially bombed during the Spanish Civil War.It was carried out at the behest of Francisco Franco's rebel Nationalist faction by its allies, the Nazi German Luftwaffe's Condor Legion and the Fascist Italian Aviazione Legionaria, under the code name Operation Rügen.
World War II deaths by country World War II deaths by theater. World War II was the deadliest military conflict in history.An estimated total of 70–85 million deaths were caused by the conflict, representing about 3% of the estimated global population of 2.3 billion in 1940. [1]
Franco was initially disliked by Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who, during World War II, suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American declaration of war on Spain to overthrow Franco's regime. [175] Hitler may not have really wanted Spain to join the war, as he needed neutral harbours to import materials from countries in Latin America and elsewhere.
By the end of World War II, the Free French unit counted 273 certified victories, 37 non-certified victories, and 45 damaged aircraft with 869 fights and 42 dead. [39] On 31 May 1945, Normandie-Niemen squadrons were directed to Moscow by the Soviet authorities, who decided to allow them to return to France with their aircraft as a reward. [40]
The bombing of Barcelona was a series of airstrikes led by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany supporting the Franco-led Nationalist rebel army, which took place from 16 to 18 March 1938, during the Spanish Civil War. Up to 1,300 people were killed and at least 2,000 were wounded. [1] [2] [3]
The siege of Madrid was a two-and-a-half-year siege of the Republican-controlled Spanish capital city of Madrid by the Nationalist armies, under General Francisco Franco, during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939). The city, besieged from October 1936, fell to the Nationalist armies on 28 March 1939.
Franco ensured that Spain was neutral at the start of World War II but seriously contemplated joining the conflict as a German ally in the aftermath of the Fall of France in 1940. [2] He met Adolf Hitler on 23–24 October 1940 at Hendaye but was unable to gain promises that Spain would gain colonial territories from France in North Africa.
[11]: 21 [8]: 55 The generals' coup d'état failed, but the rebellious army, known as the Nationalists, controlled a large part of Spain; the Spanish Civil War had started. Franco, one of the coup's leaders, [19] and his Nationalist army won the Spanish Civil War in 1939. Franco ruled Spain for the next 36 years until his death in 1975. [19]