Year Spanish Civil War and ALBA World
1936
February Popular Front wins national elections and Manuel Azaña appointed president of Spain. Attempted coup d’état in Japan by the radical ultranationalist Kōdōha faction of the Imperial Japanese Army.
March The right wing Falange Party banned. In violation of the Treaty of Versailles, Germany occupies the Rhineland.Hoover Dam opens.
March to May Street riots; strikes; Political assassinations in parts of Spain. Peter and the Wolf debuts at the Nezlobin Theater in Moscow.Arabs revolt across Palestine.

The Santa Fe railroad inaugurates the all-Pullman Super Chief passenger train between Chicago, Illinois and Los Angeles, California.
July Military uprisings in Spanish Morocco and parts of mainland Spain.The government dissolves the regular army. July 19th, Franco takes command of the army in Morocco.

Workers Olympics open in Barcelona to protest games in Nazi Germany but cancelled because of military rebellion.

Hitler and Mussolini agree to aid the Nationalists.

German and Italian planes airlift Franco’s army to the Spanish mainland.

 June 1936: German Boxer Max Schmeling knocks out Joe Louis for heavyweight championship.Golden Gate Bridge opens in San Francisco.

Summer Olympics open in Berlin.
August Rebels murder poet Federico García Lorca in Grenada.Stalin agrees to provide aid to Republican Spain Beginning of the first Moscow purge trials.
September A military junta names Franco as head of state and commander in chief of the armed forces of Spain. First meeting of non-intervention committee in London. Major powers formally agree to support neither side of Spanish Civil War, a policy ignored by Italy, Germany, and Soviet Union.
October Comintern calls for international volunteers to defend the Republic.First shipment of aid from the Soviet Union arrives for the Republicans.
November Germany and Italy recognize Franco as head of Spain’s government.Anarchist leader Buenaventura Durruti killed in action on Madrid front. Franklin D. Roosevelt wins landslide reelection for a second term.The first edition of Life is published.
December On December 26, first contingent of U.S. volunteers leave New York City for Spain.
1937
January U.S. Congress extends Neutrality Acts, barring U.S. involvement in foreign wars to the Civil War in Spain. State Department stamps U.S. passports ‘Not Valid for Travel in Spain.’First unit of American Medical Bureau to aid Spanish democracy, led by Dr. Edward Barsky, sails for Spain.
February Nationalists start a major offensive against Madrid.Italian troops take Málaga for Franco side.

U.S Volunteers name themselves the Abraham Lincoln Battalion and serve as part of the Fifteenth International Brigade.

U.S. volunteers see first action in

The League of Nations Non-Intervention Committee bans foreign nationals from fighting in the Spanish Civil War.

 A sit-down strike ends when General Motors recognizes the United Automobile Workers Union.
March Battle of Guadalajara. Italian Expeditionary Force fighting with Franco is defeated. US Army gets 1st B-17.New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia denounces Hitler as a menace to world peace.
April Guernica destroyed by aerial bombing by German air group, The Condor Legion. The Kamikaze arrives at Croydon Airport in London – it is the first Japanese-built aircraft to fly to Europe.
May Government troops in Barcelona attempt to expel anarchists from main telephone building, provoking street-fighting between anarchists and the non-orthodox Marxist POUM on one side and Communists on the other. Violence crushes POUM opposition; POUM leader Andreu Nin imprisoned, tortured and murdered. German airship Hindenburg explodes in New Jersey.Neville Chamberlain becomes British Prime Minister.

U.S. Congress expands neutrality laws in effort to avoid foreign entanglements.
June Nationalists occupy the strategic city of Bilbao in the Basque country. Wallis Simpson and the former Edward VIII of the United Kingdom marry.
July U.S. volunteers form a second battalion called the George Washington Battalion.Captain Oliver Law is appointed commander of the Lincoln Battalion, first African American to lead American troops in battle. He is killed in action at Brunete that month.

Spanish Bishops endorse Franco.

 Picasso’s Guernica exhibited at Paris World’s Fair.Sino-Japanese War: Battle of Lugou Bridge – Japanese forces invade China. Seen as the beginning of World War II in Asia.

American Aviator Amelia Earhart disappears in the Pacific.
August Decimated in Battle of Brunete, two U.S. battalions are merged into the Lincoln-Washington Battalion commanded by Hans Amlie. The volunteers move into the Aragon region and capture the city of Quinto, August 27. Soviet Union commences one of the largest campaigns of the Great Purge.
September U.S. volunteers continue the Aragon offensive and help to capture Belchite, September 6.A third North American unit is formed, including Canadians, the Mackenzie-Papineau (Mac-Paps) Battalion, commanded by Captain Bob Thompson.

The Vatican recognizes Franco’s regime.
October Fifteenth Brigade continues Aragon offensive at Fuentes Del Ebro. Commissar Joe Dallet killed in action. President Franklin D. Roosevelt presents ‘quarantine speech,’ warning of an epidemic of lawlessness around the world. Editorial reactions were mixed.
November Italian-German Axis Announced.
December Battle of Teruel begins. American Medical Bureau provides front line hospitals.
Air raids on Barcelona.First returning U.S. volunteers form the Veterans of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade (VALB) in New York.		 Italy withdraws from the League of Nations.
Japanese forces bomb and occupy Nanking, causing large civilian casualties.Japan bombs U.S. gunboat in China, but apologized for the act.
1938
January Fifteenth Brigade joins battles around Teruel. Oil is discovered in Saudi Arabia.Léon Blum forms new cabinet in France.

Congress narrowly defeats proposed constitutional amendment requiring a popular referendum before a future declaration of war.
March Paul Robeson visits Republican Spain and performs for soldiers.Franco launches offensive in Aragon.

Saturation air raid of Barcelona.

Fifteenth Brigade, under intense pressure, begin ‘Great Retreats’ and sustain heavy causalties.

 Germany annexes Austria into the Third Reich.
April Republican Spain split in two by the Nationalists.
May Franco declares that Republicans must unconditionally surrender.
June France closes border with Spain. Joe Louis knock out Max Schmeling, regains heavyweight title.Action Comics #1 is published; this is the first publication featuring Superman.

Hollywood releases blockade about the war in Spain.
July Fifteenth Brigade participates in Ebro offensive and remains in action until September. Mauthausen concentration camp reopened.Howard Hughes sets a new record by completing a 91 hour airplane flight around the world.
August Nationalists stop Republican offensive.
September Premier Juan Negrin announces withdrawal of all foreign soldiers from the Republic’s armies, hoping to pressure Franco, hoping to pressure Franco to do the same for German and Italian volunteers. Franco ignores the gesture. Munich Conference provides for German occupation of portions of Czechoslovakia. German troops march into Sudetenland.For first time US adopts minimum wage.
October International Brigade begins to leave Spain. Orson Welles’s radio adaptation of The War of the Worlds is broadcast, causing panic among listeners.
November Kristallnacht: Jewish synagogues and businesses destroyed throughout Germany
Japan announces ‘a new order’ for east Asia.
December Nearly all U.S. volunteers are home. President Franklin D. Roosevelt secretly attempts to arrange shipment of airplanes to Spain via France, but the French government rejects the private overture.
1939
January Barcelona falls to Franco.Lincoln veterans hold public rallies urging Washington to lift embargo on arms for Spain. The Hewlett-Packard Company is founded.
February Franco’s troops take Catalonia.Britain and France recognize the legitimacy of Franco’s government. Sit-down strikes are outlawed by the Supreme Court of the United States.
March Madrid surrenders to Franco. Germany occupies Czechoslovakia.
April Franco declares end of the war