American
intervention in the Caribbean and Central America continues.
Military dictators were supported by the USA during the Second
World War on the ground they were anti- Nazi, and after the
war, because they were anti-Communist:
In 1941, President Arias of Panama is deposed in a US-supported
coup.
In 1944, the dictator of El Salvador, Martinez, is overthrown,
but the new government itself is toppled by a counter-revolution
by Martinez's former chief of police. The United States immediately
recognizes the government of the new dictator. This move tarnishes
the so-called Good Neighbour policy of the United States in
the eyes of many Latin Americans.
In 1954, the elected president of Guatemala, Guzman, is overthrown
by the American CIA, Central Intelligence Agency. Guzman's "crime"
was introducing land reform which included seizing some unused
lands held by the US-based United Fruit company.
In 1959, Fidel Castro's forces topple the corrupt government
of the dictator Batista, and becomes president of Cuba. Initially
supported by the CIA, the American government was alarmed by
his success and attempt to eliminate him. The US imposes an
economic embargo against Cuban sugar, a major export. The blockade
is later made total. Faced with American opposition, Castro
accepts the help and support of the Soviet Union. Continued
Cuban-US tension leads to the CIA sponsored invasion of Cuba
in 1961, the Bay of Pigs. The invasion is defeated, a major
American humiliation.
In October 1962, the world is the on verge of the first mass
nuclear war. (Technically, the Second World War was the first--and
to date only--nuclear war.) Castro had given the Soviets permission
to station nuclear missile launchers in Cuba. The new American
president, John F. Kennedy, threatened to destroy the missiles
if they were not removed. The Soviet leader, Khrushchev, backed
down at the last moment and agreed to remove the missiles, but
Cuba remained under US blockade.
As mural painter Diego Rivera celebrated the heritage of Mexico
through visual images, the poet Octavio Paz, born in 1914, paid
homage to the rise of a new feeling of Mexican self confidence
during the middle part of the 20th century. Paz won the Nobel
Prize for Literature in 1990.
25
years ago / 50 years ago
/ 80 years ago / 125
years ago / 150 years ago
250 years ago / 400
years ago / 700 years ago
/ 1,200 years ago
1,500 years ago / 2,000
years ago / 4,000 years
ago / 10,000 years ago
