The area of present Argentina was sparsely populated until it was colonized by Europeans. The indigenous people known as Diaguita lived in northwestern Argentina on the edge of the expanding Inca Empire; the Guaraní lived farther east.
Europeans arrived in 1502. Spain established a permanent colony on the site of Buenos Aires in 1580, and the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776. In 1806 and 1807 The British Empire invaded the Viceroyalty, but the creole population managed to repel the invasions. On May 25, 1810, after the confirmation of the rumors about the overthrowing of King Ferdinand VII by Napoleon, the most prominent citizens of Buenos Aires took advantage of the situation and created the First Government Junta. Independence from Spain was declared on July 9, 1816. Centralist and federationist groups were in conflict, until national unity was established and the constitution promulgated in 1853.
Foreign investment and immigration from Europe aided the introduction of modern agricultural techniques and integration of Argentina into the world economy in the late 19th century. In the 1880s the "Conquest of the Desert" subdued or exterminated the remaining indigenous tribes throughout Patagonia.
From 1880 to 1930 Argentina became one of the six wealthiest nations in the world. Conservative forces dominated Argentine politics until 1916, when their traditional rivals, the Radicals, won control of the government. The military forced Hipólito Yrigoyen from power in 1930 leading to another decade of Conservative rule.
Political change led to the presidency of Juan Perón in 1946, who aimed at empowering the working class and greatly expanded the number of unionised workers. The Revolución Libertadora of 1955 deposed him.
In the 1950s and 1960s, military and civilian administrations traded power. When military governments failed to revive the economy and suppress escalating terrorism in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the way was open for Perón's return to the presidency in 1973, with his third wife, María Estela Isabel Martínez de Perón, as Vice President. During this period, extremists on the left and right carried out terrorist acts with a frequency that threatened public order.
Perón died in 1974. His wife succeeded him in office, but a military coup removed her from office in 1976, and the armed forces formally exercised power through a junta in charge of the self-appointed National Reorganisation Process, until 1983. The armed forces repressed opposition using harsh illegal measures (the "Dirty War"); thousands of dissidents were "disappeared", while the SIDE cooperated with DINA and other South American intelligence agencies, and allegedly with the CIA in Operation Condor. Many of the military leaders that took part in the Dirty War were trained in the U.S. financed School of the Americas, among them Argentine dictators Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola.
Economic problems, charges of corruption, public revulsion in the face of human rights abuses and, finally, the country's 1982 defeat in the Falklands War discredited the Argentine military regime.
Democracy was restored in 1983. Raúl Alfonsín's Radical government took steps intending to account for the "disappeared", establishing civilian control of the armed forces and consolidating democratic institutions. Failure to resolve endemic economic problems and an inability to maintain public confidence caused his early departure.
President Carlos Menem imposed peso-dollar fixed exchange rate in 1991 to stop hyperinflation, and adopted far-reaching market-based policies, dismantling protectionist barriers and business regulations, and implementing a privatisation program. These reforms contributed to significant increases in investment and growth with stable prices through most of the 1990s.
The Menem and de la Rúa administrations faced diminished competitiveness of exports, massive imports which damaged national industry and reduced employment, chronic fiscal and trade deficits, and the contagion of several economic crises. The Asian financial crisis in 1998 precipitated an outflow of capital that mushroomed into a recession, which led to a total freezing of the bank accounts (the corralito), and culminated in a financial panic in November 2001. The next month, amidst bloody riots, President de la Rúa resigned.
In 2 weeks, several new presidents followed in quick succession with finally Eduardo Duhalde appointed interim President of Argentina by the Legislative Assembly on 2 January 2002. Argentina defaulted on its international debt obligations. The peso's almost 12-year-old linkage to the US dollar was abandoned, resulting in massive currency depreciation and inflation, in turn triggering a spike in unemployment and poverty. In the worst crisis ever and for first time in modern history, a military coup was not an option and democracy shows to be in his strongest moment.
With a more competitive exchange, the country started implementing new policies based on re-industrialization, import substitution, increased exports, consistent fiscal surplus, and high exchange rate. By the end of 2002, the economy began to become stabilized. In 2003, Néstor Kirchner became elected president. During Kirchner's presidency Argentina restructured its defaulted debt with a steep discount (about 70%) on most bonds, renegotiated contracts with utilities and nationalized previously privatized industries.
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Argentina
