November 15, 1936: 1,800 militiamen from the anarchist Durruti Column entered Madrid to fight the fascists. Madrid was the first large city in the world to be subjected to a fascist attack as a prelude to WWII. By November 18th, only 700 of the 1800 anarchist militiamen were still fighting. Many had died and others had deserted because of hunger and sleep deprivation. Durruti persuaded some to return to their positions, but was himself mortally wounded on November 20, 1936. Over 200,000 people attended his funeral in Barcelona.

Durruti was a member of the anarchosyndicalist CNT labor union and the Iberian Anarchist Federation (FAI). In 1920, along with several Basque anarchists, he formed the paramilitary group Los Justicieros, who unsuccessfully tried to assassinate the king. After this, he went to Barcelona, to help organize workers with the CNT. There he formed one of Spain’s most famous affinity groups, Los Solidarios.
In 1923, the group assassinated Cardinal Juan Soldevilla y Romero, as a reprisal for the killing of an anarcho-syndicalist union activist Salvador Seguí. After this, Durruti went in hiding in South America, where he robbed banks to raise money for the cause. He returned to Spain in the 1930s, where he formed the Durruti Column, which won numerous battles during the Civil War.

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