Francisco Franco was the general who led the Nationalist forces to victory in the Spanish Civil War and then ruled Spain as dictator for nearly four decades. Born in the naval town of Ferrol, he chose an army career and rose with remarkable speed, distinguishing himself in Spain's colonial wars in Morocco and becoming the youngest general in Europe.
When Spain's fragile republic descended into crisis in 1936, Franco joined a military revolt against the elected left-wing government, igniting a brutal civil war. With military aid from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and commanding the disciplined African army, he emerged as the supreme leader, the "Caudillo," of the Nationalist cause. After three years of savage fighting and atrocities on both sides, his forces triumphed in 1939.
Franco established an authoritarian, conservative, and deeply Catholic regime, crushing his defeated enemies with mass imprisonment and executions and suppressing regional identities and political dissent. Though sympathetic to the Axis, he shrewdly kept Spain out of the Second World War, preserving his rule.
During the Cold War his fierce anti-communism brought him acceptance and aid from the Western powers, and Spain slowly modernized and prospered in his later years even as it remained politically repressive. As he aged, Franco arranged for the monarchy to be restored after his death under Prince Juan Carlos. When he died in 1975, the young king instead guided Spain peacefully toward democracy.