Francisco Franco
On the evening of September 26, 1940, American radio announcer and journalist William L. Shirer noted in his later famous Berlin Diary that the next day Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano would arrive there from Rome, adding that most people thought it was for the announcement that Francisco Franco’s Spain was entering the war on the side of the Axis. Read more
Francisco Franco
Spanish Legionaries charged into battle crying, “Long Live Death.” They sang of being “the Bridegrooms of Death” and proved they meant it with over 10,000 killed and 35,000 wounded. Read more
Francisco Franco
In most popular spy thrillers, secret agents are tall, handsome, virile, and irresistible to women. Whether their name is Dirk Pitt, Jack Ryan, or James Bond, all are hard-drinking, well-tailored ladies’ men. Read more
Francisco Franco
After years of social upheaval, political unrest, and violence, Spain erupted into all-out civil war on July 18, 1936, when General Francisco Franco led a junta of right-wing army officers in a revolt against the democratically elected government of the Spanish Republic. Read more
Francisco Franco
By Blaine Taylor
The Russian winter of 1941-1942 hit with terrible ferocity. Battling the deadly, numbing cold as well as the massive numbers of Red Army troops were soldiers from sunny Spain. Read more
Francisco Franco
Visitors to a certain part of Rome today may not even be aware that they are walking in an area that came about because of an architectural vision of Benito Mussolini, Italy’s infamous fascist dictator. Read more
Francisco Franco
On July 14, 1940, William Donovan stood on the pier fronting New York harbor and waited to board the Pan Am flying boat named the Lisbon Clipper for a flight that would take him to Portugal and then to London, his ultimate destination. Read more
Francisco Franco
Twenty-four hours earlier, Grazzi had hosted a gala reception for Metaxas and Greece’s figurehead king, George II, at the Italian consulate following a performance of Giacomo Puccini’s opera, Madame Butterfly. Read more
Francisco Franco
Just after midnight on September 3, 1939, a stylish young former socialite from Boston, Massachusetts, made her way toward London aboard the Harwich boat train after crossing the English Channel. Read more
Francisco Franco
After his heady series of victories in the spring and early summer of 1940, Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler was in for a frustrating six months. Read more
Francisco Franco
It was around noon, June 19, 1940, when a small caravan of cars set out from Antibes in southern France en route to the Spanish border. Read more
Francisco Franco
On June 24, 1937, German Minister of War Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg issued a directive marked Top Secret with only four copies to be made, the first for himself and the other three for the heads of the armed forces of the Third Reich. Read more
Francisco Franco
On a bright spring day in 1944, a Luftwaffe Focke-Wulf 190 fighter encountered a formation of U.S. Read more
Francisco Franco
“I’ve been old in all my ranks,” said Henri Philippe Pétain, created Marshal of France on December 8, 1918, at age 62. Read more
Francisco Franco
In August 1942, with Operation Barbarossa at its height, the invader in coal shuttle helmet and field gray uniform crawled on his elbows through brush up the hillock, pistol in his right hand. Read more
Francisco Franco
When the United States entered World War II in December 1941, the nation’s most famous writer, a man who had built his reputation on gritty and intense novels about wars, soldiers, and “grace under pressure,” was nowhere to be seen—at least not on the home front. Read more
Francisco Franco
After assuming dictatorial powers in Italy, Benito Mussolini remained a popular figure with the Italian people – for a time. Read more
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