History from Latin America
7 verified stories set in Latin America.
A Drug Lord Smuggled 4 Hippos Into Colombia. Now There Are Hundreds.
In the 1980s, Pablo Escobar illegally imported 4 hippos to his private zoo. After his death they were left behind - and they never stopped breeding. Colombia now has the largest wild hippo population outside Africa.
An Earthquake Trapped a Lake Above a City. They Drained It With Shovels. ⛏️
In May 1960 the strongest earthquake ever recorded hit southern Chile. Landslides blocked the outflow of Riñihue Lake, and the water began rising behind the debris dam, with about 100,000 people living downstream along the San Pedro River toward Valdivia. Bulldozers bogged down in the mud, so soldiers and hundreds of workers dug with shovels, lowering the dam until the lake drained gradually. Chileans call it the Riñihuazo.
Their Ship Sank in Antarctic Ice. Then a Miracle Gunboat Arrived.
In February 1903, the Swedish South Polar Expedition was struck by catastrophe when their ship, the Antarctic, was crushed by pack ice in the Weddell Sea. Stranded thousands of miles from civilization, twenty-five men were fractured into three isolated groups across Snow Hill Island, Hope Bay, and Paulet Island. With zero communication and presumed lost by the world, they survived brutal polar winters in crude stone huts on a diet of penguins and seals. Defying the deadly ice, Lieutenant Commander Julián Irízar and the Argentine Navy steamed into the frozen seas aboard the thirty-year-old corvette ARA Uruguay. In an astonishing feat of polar navigation, they located every scattered outpost and brought all twenty-five men home alive.
A Former President Paddled Into an Unmapped River. It Nearly Killed Him.
after losing the 1912 election, Theodore Roosevelt joined the Brazilian explorer Colonel Cândido Rondon to follow the Rio da Dúvida - the River of Doubt - an unknown river deep in the Amazon basin. The heavy dugout canoes were unsuited to the constant rapids and were often lost, forcing the men to haul them overland and build new ones, while poor provisions left them on starvation rations. Malaria and fever struck almost everyone, one man drowned in the rapids, and Roosevelt's infected leg wound left the party fearing for his life each day. Rubber tappers helped them down the last stretch of the river. Of the 19 men who set out, 16 returned. The river was renamed Rio Roosevelt, but his health never fully recovered, and he died less than five years later.
A Battleship Came for the Rebels. Their Cannon Was Fake.
In November 1904, a new law made the smallpox vaccine mandatory in Brazil, and Rio de Janeiro exploded into a week of street battles - overturned streetcars, smashed lamps, barricades. When troops finally stormed the last rebel stronghold, its feared dynamite turned out to be wood wrapped in silver paper.
How Do You Build a Whole New Capital City in 41 Months? 🏗️
Brazil's capital had been Rio de Janeiro. President Juscelino Kubitschek's motto was "fifty years in five", and a brand-new capital was the cornerstone of his plan. Lúcio Costa won the contest for the master plan, Oscar Niemeyer designed most of the public buildings, and construction that began in February 1957 was finished 41 months later. Brasília became the capital in 1960.
A Pastry Chef's Complaint Helped Spark a Real War. Guess Where?
A French pastry chef said army officers looted his shop near Mexico City and demanded 60,000 pesos. France backed him, its navy blockaded Mexican ports in 1838, and the Pastry War cost General Santa Anna his leg - a leg that later got its own state funeral.