History in brief
Before the arrival of European explorers, the area that makes up modern-day Argentina was sparsely populated by South American tribal groups. Colonised by Spain in the 16th century, Argentina became a subordinate part of the Viceroyalty of Peru. In 1776 defensive worries led to the formation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata—comprising modern Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay and Bolivia—with Buenos Aires as its capital. This opened Argentina to transatlantic trade and centred its political and economic life in the port city.
The Napoleonic invasion of Spain and British attacks on Buenos Aires ignited an independence movement in the early 19th century that culminated in a revolution in 1810 and a declaration of formal independence in 1816. The Spanish were not finally defeated until 1824. Governing the newly independent viceroyalty proved difficult, however. Paraguay, Bolivia and Uruguay were quickly lost, and violent struggle ensued between Unitarians, who wanted a strong central state with Buenos Aires as its capital, and Federalists, who favoured plenty of regional autonomy to keep the new capital from dominating the other provinces. A federalist constitution was adopted in 1853, but it took a further 27 years of civil strife before Buenos Aires was fully united with the rest of the country.
Foreign capital, natural resources and mass immigration from Europe drove rapid economic expansion in the late 19th century. But Argentina's economy, highly dependent on commodity exports, was vulnerable to the economic shocks that swept the world in the early decades of the 20th century and economic instability sparked political unrest. In 1930 the armed forces overthrew the liberal Radical Party government, ushering in more than a decade of Conservative rule and fraudulent elections.
In 1946 Juan Perón, a charismatic army colonel, was elected president. His programme of nationalisation and industrialisation ultimately failed to revive Argentina's economy, forcing Perón to resort to brute force to stay in power. His ouster in 1955 was followed by decades of economic instability and labour unrest. Military regimes and semi-representative civilian administrations traded power during the period.
The alternating governments failed to solve Argentina's problems and social agitation escalated in the late 1960s and early 1970s as the economy continued to careen wildly. Perón briefly returned as president in 1973 but died the following year, leaving his vice-president and third wife, Isabel, in charge. In 1976 she too was overthrown by yet another military junta, this time led by General Jorge Videla. In what became known as the “dirty war”, its agents tortured and killed thousands of political opponents over the ensuing years.
The economy collapsed completely in the early 1980s, when a catastrophic devaluation prompted capital flight. The military regime sought to distract a discontented public by invading the Falkland Islands in 1982, but was further discredited when Britain defeated the invasion. In 1983 the country returned to civilian rule.
Subsequent democratic governments have struggled to calm the turbulent economy. The 1990s seemed to offer a period of hope, as a currency peg and liberalisation programme brought low inflation and rapid growth. But lax fiscal policy continued, and a prolonged recession in the late 1990s forced the abandonment of the peg, which touched off the worst monetary crisis in a century. The government has faced a tough fight to restore political and economic stability.
(To follow recent developments in Argentina, see our backgrounders on Argentina's economy and Argentina's politics.)
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