Labels:text | human face | person | letter OCR: ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ Peron, Eva Eva Peron "Our spiritual leader is gone!" were the words broadcast after the death of Eva Peron at age 33. The charismatic champion of the "descamisados" ("shirtless" poor) of Argentina, she outshone her husband, President Juan Peron, in popularity. The illegitimate daughter of a cook, "Evita" became Colonel Peron's mistress when she was a teenage singer and radio actress. After his arrest on a treason charge in 1945, "Senorita Radio" roused the unions to strike for his release; when he was freed, he married her. After he gained the presidency a year later, she became a powerful leader by his side. At times unscrupulous and ruthless with her enemies, Evita legalized divorce, won women the vote, and instigated reforms for labor and the poor. After Eva Peron, Argentine political leader, unofficially running the ministries of Health and 1919-52 Labor, she put herself up for vice president but backed down when the army objected - a defeat that signaled her political collapse. Though her life was short, she engineered a wave of social change. CHRONOLOGY
