Juan Perón

Biography

Juan Perón was born in Lobos, Buenos Aires Province, in 1895 and entered the military college in 1911. He rose through the army, studied mountain warfare in Italy in 1939 and served as a military attaché in Rome and Berlin, and as a colonel took a leading part in the 1943 coup staged by the United Officers' Group. Under the military government he was secretary of labour, minister of war and vice president, and won broad union support with labour reforms.

Forced to resign and arrested in October 1945, he was freed after a mass demonstration in the Plaza de Mayo on 17 October and won the February 1946 presidential election as the Labour Party candidate. With his wife Eva Duarte he expanded social rights, promoted industry, made university tuition free and extended the vote to women, building the movement known as Peronism; his government also purged opponents and controlled the press. He was re-elected in 1951.

A conflict with the Catholic Church led to the bombing of the Plaza de Mayo by rebel forces in June 1955 and to a coup in September that sent him into exile in Paraguay, Venezuela, Panama and Spain. He returned in June 1973 amid the Ezeiza massacre, was elected president for a third time, and died in office on 1 July 1974, succeeded by his wife and vice president Isabel Perón.