Short answers, pulled from the story.
Francisco Franco Bahamonde was a Spanish general and military dictator who led Spain from 1939 until his death in 1975. He led the Nationalist forces that overthrew the Second Spanish Republic during the Spanish Civil War, and the era from his victory to his death is known as Francoist Spain.
Francisco Franco was born on the 4th of December 1892 on the Calle Frutos Saavedra in Ferrol, Galicia. He came from a seafaring family that produced naval officers across six uninterrupted generations.
Franco rose to sole leadership after rivals died or were sidelined, including General José Sanjurjo, who died in a plane crash on the 20th of July 1936, and the imprisoned Falangist José Antonio Primo de Rivera. He was proclaimed Generalísimo and Jefe del Estado on the 1st of October 1936 in Burgos, helped by Hitler's decision that all German aid would go to him.
The White Terror refers to the mass executions of Republican and other enemies during and after the Spanish Civil War. Estimates of executions by the Franco regime run between 100,000 and 200,000 dead, and more than 35,000 people killed by the Nationalist side are still missing in mass graves.
Franco kept Spain out of World War II under a policy he called non-belligerence, though he supported the Axis and met Hitler at Hendaye on the 23rd of October 1940. His demands for Gibraltar, French North Africa, and large supplies of food and fuel proved too much for Hitler, and Spain depended on oil imports from the United States that would have been cut off if it joined the Axis.
Francisco Franco died in 1975 at the age of 82 and was entombed in the Valley of the Fallen. He had restored the monarchy in his final years and was succeeded by King Juan Carlos, who led the Spanish transition to democracy.