Civil war, Franco and resistance
In July 1936 Barcelona was among the first cities to halt the military coup. Capital of an increasingly cornered Republic, it suffered fascist bombing in March 1938 that killed over a thousand people, and fell in January 1939.
The shelters
The city filled with air-raid shelters; the one in plaça del Diamant, Gràcia, is visited today as living memory. Gerda Taro's photograph of militia women training on Somorrostro beach belongs to those days.
The repression
Under Franco, Catalan institutions were abolished and Catalan banned from public life: the language survived in homes and clandestine press while the city kept quiet memory for forty years.
1977: a million in the streets
On September 11, 1977, over a million people filled Barcelona demanding autonomy: the restoration of the Generalitat came a month later. The first democratic municipal elections followed in 1979.