-
The birth of a dictator
Francisco Franco was born at half past twelve in the morning of December 4, 1892 at number 108 (now 136) of María Street, located in the historic center of the city of Ferrol, in the province of La Coruña. -
Beginnings in the Army
When he was 12 years old, together with his brother Nicolás and his cousin Pacón, he entered a naval preparation school run by a lieutenant commander with the hope of later joining the Navy. -
Franco goes to war
A prestige built largely on his performances in the so-called Moroccan War, which Franco joined in 1912, when he was barely 19 years old. -
First days
On February 17, 1912, he arrived in Melilla in the company of Camilo Alonso Vega, a classmate, and his cousin Pacón assigned to the 68th Africa Regiment commanded by his former colonel of the Villalba Infantry Academy. His first assignments in Africa were routine operations; among others, establishing contact between different fortified posts (blockhouses) or the protection of the Banu Ifrur mines. -
A big step
On October 12, 1913, he received the First Class Military Merit Cross for his victory in a combat on the previous September 22, and on February 1, 1914, he was promoted to captain for his courage in the battle of Beni Salem (Tetouan). -
To the limit
In 1916, in the taking of El Biutz, between Ceuta and Tangier, he was wounded in the lower abdomen, a serious wound that could have caused his death and that kept him hospitalized in Ceuta for several months —his parents, now separated, traveled to Ceuta to assist you in your convalescence -
The coup d'état
The coup d'état in Spain in July 1936 was a military uprising directed against the Government of the Second Republic that emerged from the elections in February of that year. Its partial failure led to a civil war and, defeated the Republic, to the establishment of a dictatorship in Spain that was in force until the death of the dictator. -
Meeting with the Fuhrer
On October 23, 1940, Francisco Franco and Adolf Hitler met in Hendaye, in order to try to resolve disagreements over the Spanish conditions for their entry into the war on the side of the Axis powers. -
Saving the economy
Spain was characterized in the 1960s by the strong growth of its economy, which was called the ''Spanish economic miracle”. During that decade, Spain grew at a rate of 7%. The roots of this economic expansion would have to be found in the 1950s. The autarkic model imposed by Franco had placed Spain on the verge of bankruptcy. During that decade, even with the reticence and opposition of the Falangist sectors of the Regime and Franco himself, there was a slow liberalization of the economy. -
The dead of the dictator
November 20, 1975 is the official date of Francisco Franco's death. Some historians believe that Franco was artificially kept alive to withdraw life support at dawn on this date, precisely to make it coincide with the anniversary of Primo de Rivera's death.