When Juan Diaz de Solis, a Spaniard, arrived in the Pampas the land was inhabited by nomadic Indians in 1515-16. The native Indians were nearly all slaughtered by the late 1800s. In 1819 the colonists won their independence from Spanish rule and a strong centralized government was put into effect. Argentina blossomed into a industrialized and modernized Latin American nation due to large-scale immigration of Germans, Italians, and Spanish. Many military coups took place until the election of Gen. Juan Peron as president. He and his wife, Eva Duarte, improved labor reforms. However they were restrictive in terms of freedom of the press, speech, and religion. They also created a national debt. A coup in 1955 ousted Peron but he later returned in 1973. After 10 months in office he died and his wife and the vice president, Isabel, replaced him as President of Argentina. She was the first woman to be the head of a nation in the Western hemisphere. A military junta, which ousted Mrs. Peron in 1976, was found guilty of murder and human rights abuses in 1985. Depressed economic conditions put pressure on the military government. In 1982 Argentine troops seized the British-held Falkland islands. These islands lie 250 miles off the Argentine coast. When England received word of Argentina's seizure of the Falklands, it engaged in fighting with Argentina. Several hundred people died because of the destruction of a British destroyer and the sinking of an Argentine cruiser. The British invaded the Argentine held Falkland islands in May 1982 and by June Argentina surrendered. Their president, Leopoldo Galtieri resigned shortly there after. Argentina became democratic again in 1983 under Raul Alfonsin's Radical Civic Union rule. The country has many financial difficulties but has asked loaning nations to agree to a repayment schedule with interest rates. @
