Spanish Civil War
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The Spanish civil war was fought from July 1936 to April 1939 between the republic, backed by trade unions, socialists and communists, and the national uprising led by generals including Francisco Franco. The trigger was the murder of the conservative politician Jose Calvo Sotelo after the assassination of a republican lieutenant by the Falange; the garrisons rose, and the rebels held a third of the country within days. Germany and Italy sent aircraft, tanks and troops, while the Soviet Union and Mexico supplied the republic and the international brigades arrived as volunteers; the bombing of Guernica in April 1937 by the German Condor Legion became the war's most famous atrocity and a subject for Picasso. The republic was divided between anarchists, communists and moderates, and the revolt in Barcelona in 1937 weakened it. The nationalists took the north, then crossed to Aragon and took Catalonia in 1938; Madrid, defended for three years, fell without a battle on 28 March 1939. Perhaps 500,000 people died, and Franco ruled until 1975. The war tested the weapons and tactics that would be used in the second world war and exposed the paralysis of the democracies. The war is often called the dress rehearsal for the second world war.