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The revolution revealed the country as one of the major proxy war battlegrounds of the Cold War. The initial overthrow of the Somoza dictatorial regime in 1978–79 cost many lives, and the Contra War of the 1980s took tens of thousands more and was the subject of fierce international debate.
The war left approximately 50,000 dead and 150,000 Nicaraguans in exile. The five-member junta entered the Nicaraguan capital the next day and assumed power, reiterating its pledge to work for political pluralism, a mixed economic system, and a nonaligned foreign policy.
Beginning of the Cold War; Anastasio Somoza García: Costa Rican Civil War (1948) Costa Rica Calderón Forces People's Vanguard Party Nicaragua: National Liberation Movement Ulatistas: Defeat. Teodoro Picado Michalski toppled, José Figueres Ferrer becomes President of Costa Rica; Víctor Manuel Román: Invasion of Costa Rica (1955) Calderón ...
In 1941, during World War II, Nicaragua declared war on Germany. Somoza sent no troops to the battlefronts, but used the crisis to seize attractive properties held by German-Nicaraguans, the best known of which was the Montelimar estate. (Today it operates as a privately owned luxury resort and casino. [59])
In 1912, during the Banana Wars period, the U.S. occupied Nicaragua as a means of protecting American business interests and protecting the rights that Nicaragua granted to the United States to construct a canal there. [57] At the same time, the United States and Mexican governments competed for political influence in Central America.
The US government knew that the Nicaraguans had been exhausted from the war, which had cost 30,865 lives, and that voters usually vote the incumbents out during economic decline. By the late 1980s Nicaragua's internal conditions had changed so radically that the US approach to the 1990 elections differed greatly from 1984.
During this period, their father became president of Nicaragua, and served from 1937 to 1947, and again from 1950 into 1956. He and older brother Luis Somoza Debayle both attended St. Leo College Prep (Florida) and La Salle Military Academy on Long Island.
Anastasio Somoza García (1 February 1896 – 29 September 1956) was the leader of Nicaragua from 1936 until his assassination in 1956. He was officially the 21st President of Nicaragua from 1 January 1937 to 1 May 1947 and from 21 May 1950 until his assassination on 29 September 1956, ruling for the rest of the time as an unelected military dictator. [1]