On April 1, 1939 the Spanish Civil War finally ended after three bloody years that had left the idea of post World War I European peace, such as it was, in tatters and only further destabilized a continent that had never really put the ghosts of the First World War behind it.
The Spanish Civil War had begun on July 17, 1936, when rebels in Spanish Morocco, calling themselves The Nationalists and led by Francisco Franco, initiated an insurgency designed to overthrow the Popular Front government of the Spanish Republic.
