Modern Era · North America · Politics
1954
CIA overthrows Arbenz in Guatemala
June 27, 1954
Worried about United Fruit's banana plantations and land reform, the CIA helped engineer the overthrow of Guatemala's elected president Jacobo Arbenz. The coup ushered in four decades of military rule and civil war that killed perhaps two hundred thousand. A young Argentine named Che Guevara was in Guatemala City and radicalized.
In context
Also in 1954 (5 other events on record)
- Dien Bien Phu falls to the Viet Minh · Southeast Asia · War
- Brown v. Board decision · North America · Politics
- Algerian War of Independence begins · Africa · War
- First nuclear submarine launched · North America · Technology
- Bannister runs four-minute mile · Europe · Culture
Before and after in North America
Before and after in Politics
Era
Modern Era (1901–2000), one of 590 events from that era on Saeculum.
Sources