Once upon a time, adjoining an independent nation that was undergoing a serious internal political rift (socialists versus hard-line, reactionary conservatives), there was a semi-autonomous region that was home to its own, internal independence movement.
As the forces of hard-line conservatism sought to consolidate their control over their country, their military leader made the decision to single out an important area of civilian settlement within the autonomous region for bombing. But lacking the military force to accomplish that on his own, the military leader appealed to a much larger, supporting power, with bigger and better weapons. The larger military power was interested in testing the effects of new bombs on civilian populations and readily agreed.
Over the course of one Monday market day, April 26, 1937, the Basque town of Guernica was flattened, in the name of taking out a bridge and an arms factory that, ironically were spared. Somewhere between 300 and 1600 people were killed; no one bothered to get an accurate count. Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy both provided the air power and the bombs to eliminate the town.
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