History Of Chile
The territory of Chile has been populated since at least 12,000 B.P. By the 16th century, Spanish conquistadors began to subdue and colonize the region of present-day Chile, and the territory became a colony from 1540 to 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. The country's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. The country was governed during most of its first 150 years of independent life by different forms of restricted government, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite.
Failure to address the economic and social disparities and increasing political awareness of the less-affluent population, as well as indirect intervention and economic funding to the main political groups by both the KGB and the CIA, as part of the Cold War, led to a political polarization under Socialist President Salvador Allende which in turn resulted in the 11 September 1973 coup and the military dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet, whose 17-year regime was responsible for numerous human rights violations and deep market-oriented economic reforms. In 1990, Chile made a peaceful transition to democracy.
Read more about History Of Chile: Early History (pre–1540), Spanish Conquest and Colonization (1540–1810), Independence (1810–1826), Parliamentary Era (1891–1925), Presidential Era (1925–1973), Pinochet Regime (1973–1990), Transition To Democracy (1990–present)
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“The history of progress is written in the blood of men and women who have dared to espouse an unpopular cause, as, for instance, the black man’s right to his body, or woman’s right to her soul.”
—Emma Goldman (1869–1940)
“The myth of independence from the mother is abandoned in mid- life as women learn new routes around the mother—both the mother without and the mother within. A mid-life daughter may reengage with a mother or put new controls on care and set limits to love. But whatever she does, her child’s history is never finished.”
—Terri Apter (20th century)