Spanish Civil War: Generalissimo Francisco Franco conquers Madrid after a three-year siege.

The Spanish Civil War was fought from 1936 to 1939 between the Republicans and the Nationalists. Republicans were loyal to the left-leaning Popular Front government of the Second Spanish Republic and included socialists, anarchists, communists and separatists. The opposing Nationalists who established the Spanish State were an alliance of fascist Falangists, monarchists, conservatives, and traditionalists supported by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy and led by a military junta among whom General Francisco Franco quickly achieved a preponderant role. Due to the international political climate at the time, the war was variously viewed as class struggle, a religious struggle, or a struggle between dictatorship and republican democracy, between revolution and counterrevolution, or between fascism and communism. The Nationalists won the war, which ended in early 1939, and ruled Spain until Franco's death in November 1975.

Generalissimo, also generalissimus, is a military rank of the highest degree, superior to field marshal and other five-star ranks in the states where they are used.

Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish general and dictator who led the Nationalist forces in overthrowing the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War and thereafter ruled over Spain from 1939 to 1975, assuming the title Caudillo. This period in Spanish history, from the Nationalist victory to Franco's death, is commonly known as Francoist Spain or as the Francoist dictatorship.

Madrid is the capital and most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), second only to Berlin, Germany, and its metropolitan area is the second-largest in the EU. The municipality covers 604.3 km² (233.3 sq mi) geographical area. Madrid lies on the River Manzanares in the central part of the Iberian Peninsula at about 650 m (2,130 ft) above mean sea level. The capital city of both Spain and the surrounding autonomous community of Madrid, it is also the political, economic, and cultural centre of the country.