After Allied forces defeated Germany in World War II, Europe became a difficult place to be associated with Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich. Thousands of Nazi officers, high-ranking party members and collaborators—including many notorious war criminals—escaped across the Atlantic, ...read more
The history of chocolate can be traced to the ancient Mayans, and even earlier to the ancient Olmecs of southern Mexico. The word chocolate may conjure up images of sweet candy bars and luscious truffles, but the chocolate of today is little like the chocolate of the past. ...read more
The Nazca Lines are a collection of giant geoglyphs—designs or motifs etched into the ground—located in the Peruvian coastal plain about 250 miles (400 kilometers) south of Lima, Peru. Created by the ancient Nazca culture in South America, and depicting various plants, animals, ...read more
1. The Pyramid of the Sun Latin America’s answer to the Great Pyramid of Giza, the Pyramid of the Sun is located in the ancient city of Teotihuacan near Mexico City. Constructed around 200 A.D. by an enigmatic pre-Aztec civilization, the monument stands over 200 feet tall and is ...read more
In the years after the Civil War ended, thousands of defiant and disillusioned Confederates fled Reconstruction-era Dixie and headed even farther south to Latin America. Some settled in Mexico and Venezuela, but the lion’s share sailed for Brazil, a former Confederate ally and ...read more
Ground beef, processed corn, sweet or savory fillings, leaf or husk wrappers plus 9,000 years of social, cultural and religious history combine to wrap up one of Mexico and Central America’s greatest contributions to global cuisine. The word tamale comes, via the Spanish “tamal”, ...read more
Tucked away in the rocky countryside northwest of Cuzco, Peru, Machu Picchu is believed to have been a royal estate or sacred religious site for Inca leaders, whose civilization was virtually wiped out by Spanish invaders in the 16th century. For hundreds of years, until the ...read more
On this day in 2010, the last of 33 miners trapped nearly half a mile underground for more than two months at a caved-in mine in northern Chile, are rescued. The miners survived longer than anyone else trapped underground in recorded history. The miners’ ordeal began on August 5, ...read more
After suffering through six weeks of military defeats against Britain’s armed forces, Argentina surrenders to Great Britain, ending the Falkland Islands War. The Falkland Islands, located about 300 miles off the southern tip of Argentina, had long been claimed by the British. ...read more
In Lima, Peru, Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori orders a commando assault on the Japanese ambassador’s home, hoping to free 72 hostages held for more than four months by armed members of the Tupac Amaru leftist rebel movement. On December 16, 1996, 14 Tupac Amaru terrorists, ...read more
Spanish explorer Vicente Yanez Pinzon, who had commanded the Nina during Christopher Columbus’ first expedition to the New World, reaches the northeastern coast of Brazil during a voyage under his command. Pinzon’s journey produced the first recorded account of a European ...read more
Nevado del Ruiz, the highest active volcano in the Andes Mountains of Colombia, suffers a mild eruption that generates a series of lava flows and surges over the volcano’s broad ice-covered summit. Flowing mixtures of water, ice, pumice, and other rock debris poured off the ...read more
In Lima, Peru, 14 members of the Tupac Amaru leftist rebel movement, disguised as waiters and caterers, slip into the home of Japanese Ambassador Morihisa Aoki, where a reception honoring the birthday of the Japanese emperor was being held. The armed terrorists took 490 people ...read more
Juan Domingo Peron, the controversial former vice president of Argentina, is elected president. In 1943, as an army officer, he joined a military coup against Argentina’s ineffectual civilian government. Appointed secretary of labor, his influence grew and in 1944 he also became ...read more
After a decade of rule, Argentine President Juan Domingo Peron is deposed in a military coup. Peron, a demagogue who came to power in 1946 with the backing of the working classes, became increasingly authoritarian as Argentina’s economy declined in the early 1950s. His greatest ...read more
With Argentine President Juan Peron on his deathbed, Isabela Martinez de Peron, his wife and vice president, is sworn in as the leader of the South American country. President Isabela Peron, a former dancer and Peron’s third wife, was the Western Hemisphere’s first female head of ...read more
On April 2, 1982, Argentina invades the Falklands Islands, a British colony since 1892 and British possession since 1833. Argentine amphibious forces rapidly overcame the small garrison of British marines at the town of Stanley on East Falkland and the next day seized the ...read more
Chile’s armed forces stage a coup d’état against the government of President Salvador Allende, the first democratically elected Marxist leader in Latin America. Allende retreated with his supporters to La Moneda, the fortress-like presidential palace in Santiago, which was ...read more
The 16th-century Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa (1475-1519) helped establish the first stable settlement on the South American continent at Darién, on the coast of the Isthmus of Panama. In 1513, while leading an expedition in search of gold, he sighted ...read more
A power plant fire begins in Venezuela on this day in 1982. By the time it ended, the fire killed 128 people and injured hundreds more. Half the capital city of Caracas lost electrical power and 40,000 people had to be evacuated. The large Tacoa power plant on the outskirts of ...read more
On this day in 1971, an earthquake sets off a series of calamities—a landslide, flood and avalanche–that results in the destruction of the town of Chungar, Peru, and the death of 600 of its inhabitants. Chungar was a mining camp in the Andes Mountains, where workers and their ...read more
Seven army ammunition trucks explode in Cali, Colombia, killing more than 1,000 people and injuring thousands more on this day in 1956. The cause of the explosions remains a mystery. The previous day, 20 trucks fully loaded with dynamite departed the Colombian city of ...read more
A powerful hurricane slams into the Dominican Republic, killing more than 8,000 people, on this day in 1930. September is a prime month for hurricanes in the Caribbean, as storms that form off the African coast move west and are fueled by waters in the island region that have ...read more
Flooding and mudslides caused by extremely heavy rains on this day in 1999 kill thousands in Venezuela. Another 350,000 people, mostly the very poor, were left homeless from the terrible storm. In the Caracas metropolitan area, about 80 percent of the population was impoverished ...read more