South America
The 7 Most Notorious Nazis Who Escaped to South America
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
History of Chocolate
The history of chocolate, and its creation from the beans of the cacao tree, can be traced to the ancient Maya, 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 confections of ...read more
Nazca Lines
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
How Did Thousands of Former Confederates End up in Brazil?
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
Machu Picchu
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
Chilean miners are rescued after 69 days underground
On October 13, 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
Falklands War ends
After suffering through six weeks of military defeats against Britain’s armed forces, Argentina surrenders to Great Britain, ending the Falklands War. The Falkland Islands, located about 300 miles off the southern tip of Argentina, had long been claimed by the British. British ...read more
Peruvian President Fujimori orders assault on Japanese ambassador’s home
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
First European explorer reaches Brazil
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
The eruption of Nevado del Ruiz
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 summit ...read more
Juan Perón elected in Argentina
Juan Domingo Perón, 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
Perón deposed in Argentina
After a decade of rule, Argentine President Juan Domingo Perón is deposed in a military coup. Perón, 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
Isabel Perón takes office as Argentine president
With Argentine President Juan Perón on his deathbed, Isabel Martinez de Perón, his wife and vice president, is sworn in as the leader of the South American country. President Isabel Perón, a former dancer and Perón's third wife, was the Western Hemisphere’s first female head of ...read more
Argentina invades Falklands
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
Chilean president Salvador Allende dies in coup
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
Vasco Núñez de Balboa
The 16th-century Spanish conquistador and explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa 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 the Pacific ...read more
Mysterious explosions in Colombia
Seven army ammunition trucks explode in Cali, Colombia, killing more than 1,000 people and injuring thousands more on August 7, 1956. The cause of the explosions remains a mystery. The previous day, 20 trucks fully loaded with dynamite departed the Colombian city of Buenaventura. ...read more
Hundreds are accidentally poisoned in Brazil
On September 18, 1987, cesium-137 is removed from an abandoned cancer-therapy machine in Brazil. Hundreds of people were eventually poisoned by radiation from the substance, highlighting the danger that even relatively small amounts of radiation can pose. In 1985, the ...read more
United States invades Grenada
President Ronald Reagan, citing the threat posed to American nationals on the Caribbean nation of Grenada by that nation’s Marxist regime, orders U.S. forces to invade and secure their safety. There were approximately 1,000 Americans in Grenada at the time, many of them students ...read more
United States calls situation in El Salvador a communist plot
The U.S. government releases a report detailing how the “insurgency in El Salvador has been progressively transformed into a textbook case of indirect armed aggression by communist powers.” The report was another step indicating that the new administration of Ronald Reagan was ...read more
U.S. Troops land in the Dominican Republic in attempt to forestall a “communist dictatorship”
In an effort to forestall what he claims will be a “communist dictatorship” in the Dominican Republic, President Lyndon B. Johnson sends more than 22,000 U.S. troops to the island nation. Johnson’s action provoked protests in Latin America and skepticism among many in the United ...read more
Sandinistas agree to free elections
At a meeting of the presidents of Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, Costa Rica and El Salvador, the leftist Sandinista government of Nicaragua agrees to free a number of political prisoners and hold free elections within a year; in return, Honduras promises to close bases being ...read more
Sandinistas are defeated in Nicaraguan elections
A year after agreeing to free elections, Nicaragua’s leftist Sandinista government loses at the polls. The elections brought an end to more than a decade of U.S. efforts to unseat the Sandinista government. The Sandinistas came to power when they overthrew long-time dictator ...read more
President Reagan orders troops into Honduras
As part of his continuing effort to put pressure on the leftist Sandinista government in Nicaragua, President Ronald Reagan orders over 3,000 U.S. troops to Honduras, claiming that Nicaraguan soldiers had crossed its borders. As with so many of the other actions taken against ...read more