Overview
- Francisco Franco died on November 20, 1975, with Prime Minister Carlos Arias Navarro announcing the news on Spanish television that morning.
- Franco’s final public appearance on October 1, 1975, showed a visibly weakened leader delivering a Plaza de Oriente speech that blamed a supposed masonic leftist conspiracy.
- Five executions carried out on September 29, 1975, after contested courts‑martial drew pleas for clemency from Pope Paul VI and triggered attacks on Spanish missions, ambassador withdrawals by 16 European countries and Canada, and an EEC freeze on accession talks.
- The same October 1 gave its name to GRAPO, whose gunmen killed four police officers in Madrid that day, underscoring the late‑Franco surge of political violence.
- New research in the Tecnos volume Terrorismo y represión uses unpublished sources to examine both state repression and groups like ETA, FRAP and GRAPO, while current government commemoration plans face criticism in the Basque Country for omitting ETA.