1943 Military Coup

In 1943, a military coup in Argentina led by Pedro Pablo Ramirez Machuca overthrew the current conservative government that had won the presidency from electoral fraud in the first place. Pedro Pablo Ramirez Machuca was president until 1944, when Edelmiro Farrell became president until 1946. In 1946, Juan Domingo Peron became president. He had intense nationalist principles and created many social programs for poor laborers—an ideology christened “Peronism” (or Peronismo in Spanish and Peron’s political party was dubbed Peronista, see http://www.elsitioperonista.com.ar/).

Peron also separated Argentina from the rest of the world politically and economically, and his implementation of censorship only helped this isolation. During his rule, the economy went into a downward spiral with the peso losing much of its value. This was because Peron squandered excess money left from high exports during both World Wars and subsidized economic growth. Though he was overthrown in 1955 by the Revolucion Libertadora (“Liberty Revolution”) coup, Peron came back from exile in Spain in 1973 to be elected again with a stand-in president running in his place, as law prohibited him to run in the election.

Juan Peron died in 1974 leaving his third wife, Isabel Peron (the legendary Eva Peron was his second wife) the presidential office, only for her to be overthrown in 1976. 

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