"...Spanish Civil War Was 'The First Battle Of WWII" Topic

"Nearly 80 years ago, about 2,800 Americans volunteered to fight in the Spanish Civil War. The war began in July 1936, when Gen. Francisco Franco led a fascist military coup against the the country's newly elected democratic government. It lasted until Franco's victory in 1939.
Journalist Adam Hochschild tells Fresh Air's Terry Gross that "it was by far the largest number of Americans before or since who've ever joined somebody else's civil war."
Hochschild chronicles Americans' involvement in the war in his new book, Spain in Our Hearts. He says that the majority of Americans in Spain (including writer Ernest Hemingway, who reported on the conflict) were sympathetic to the Republican forces who fought against Franco's Nationalists…"
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Armand

I thought Japans invasion of China (or Japanese invasion of Manchuria) could be called the first battle of WWII.

The Spanish Civil War was one where no one was "right" and where only the extremes to the left and right were supported by the USSR or Germany and Italy.I suspect many of those who fought in the international brigades were there more as communists then as fighters for the rights of the Spanish.

Or you could say it was in Ethiopea since the war there started on 3 Oct 1935.

Japan invaded Manchuria on 18 September 1931.