Chile

Flag description: the square has a white five-pointed star in the center representing a guide to progress and honor; blue represents the sky; white represents the snow-covered Andes; red represents the blood shed for independence.

NAME: República de Chile

POPULATION: 16,300,000 (2007)

ETHNIC GROUPS: Mestizo (95%); Amerindian (3%); white (2%)

CAPITAL: Santiago (4,600,000)

LANGUAGES: Spanish (official)

RELIGION: Roman Catholic (70%); Protestant (15%); Other (15%)

LIFE EXPECTANCY: men (74); women (80)

FERTILITY RATE: 2.02 / 2.00

LITERACY: 96%

GOVERNMENT: Democratic republic

President: Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (2006 - )

Legislature: Bicameral Congreso Nacional

Judiciary: Corte Suprema

CONSTITUTION: 1980 (revised many times since)

MILITARY: 99,000 active troops

ECONOMY: copper (world’s largest producer), fish, grain, grapes, wine

MONEY: peso (Chilean peso; CLP) (530 / $1.00 US)

NATURAL RESOURCES: copper, timber, iron ore, nitrates, precious metals, molybdenum, hydropower

GEOGRAPHY: Highest peak: Nevado Ojos del Salado (6,880 m. / 22,572 ft)

Bordering countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Perú

2,650 miles of Pacific coast; width = 100-250 miles; Atacama Desert in north (hot, dry, in various places in desert it has never rained); glaciers in south (cold and damp); Punta Arenas (70,000, on southern peninsula tip) is world’s most southerly city

HISTORY:

31,000 B.C. Possible human remains at Monte Verde

11,000 B.C. definite human remains at Monte Verde

1000 Mapuche people

1400 Northern Chile included in Inca Empire

1520 Juan de Elcano (on Magellan’s ship) visited Tierra del Fuego for Spain (Tierra del Fuego is largest island in southern archipelago with mountains, channels, and high winds; western part of island belongs to Chile).

1533-1594 Alonso de Ercilla, conquistador and writer of Chilean epic poem.

1536 Diego de Almagro discovered Chile

1540 Pedro de Valdivia conquered Chile with 150 Spaniards and 1000 Mapuches

1541 Santiago founded

1553 Lautaro, leader of Araucanos captured and killed Valdivia.

1590 Ercilla finishes writing: La araucana, epic poem about Caupolicán, tragic Araucanian rebel leader.

1810 September 18: Cabildo electes junta to save Chile for Fernando VII, king of Spain

1817 José de San Martín marches Argentinian troops over Andes to help free Chile; major military feat in harsh winter to surprise royalists in Santiago.

José de San Martín and Bernardo O'Higgins (Chilean national hero) defeat Spanish royalist army at Chacabuco, Chile.

Criollos in Santiago, Chile, elect San Martín governor of Chile; he refuses all honors, and moves his army north.

1818 Final victory of independence at Maipú

1818-1823 O'Higgins dictator.

1836-1839 War with Perú.

1836-1843 Andrés Bello (great Venezuelan man of letters) stimulates cultural activity.

1842 National University founded with Bello as rector

1879-1883 War of the Pacific: Chile gains mineral deposits in Atacama Desert in north

1889-1957 Gabriela Mistral (Lucila Godoy Alcayaga), poet, Nobel Prize 1945

1904-1973 Pablo Neruda (Neftalí icardo Reyes Basoalto), poet , Nobel Prize, 1971

1939 Major earthquake in Chillán

1945 Nobel Prize for literature won by Gabriela Mistral

1958 Jorge Alessandri (conservative) president

1960 Earthquakes caused $200,000,000,000 in damages

1964 Eduardo Frei Montalvo elected president at head of the Demócrata Cristiano party

1970 Salvador Allende Gossens elected socialist president by Unidad Popular coalition

1971 Nobel Prize for literature for Pablo Neruda

1973 Sept. 11: Gen. Augusto Pinochet Ugarte led coup and killed Allende

1973-1990 Pinochet dictator

3,100 human rights violations under military rule as determined by Chilean humans rights groups

Under Pinochet dictatorship: four-person Junta composed of heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Police constituted the government

1975 Movimiento de Unidad Nacional (MUN) established by junta as political party

1988 Oct. 5: Plebiscite on Pinochet as President/Dictator until 1997: Voters reject Pinochet and call for return to democracy

1989 Dec. 13: Patricio Aylwin elected President in free election (55% vote)

1990 Aylwin assumes presidency

1994 Mar. 11: Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle (Christian Democrat) elected president

1998 Hernán Castellano promotes novel Calducho o la serpiente de calle Ahumada on tour of the Chile and the Cono Sur.

2000 Ricardo Lagos, President, Partido Demócrata Cristiano

2006 Verónica Michelle Bachelet Jeria (Socialist Party of Chile; served previously as Health Minister and Defense Minister under President Ricardo Lagos; she is a separated mother of three and she calls herself an agnostic; she speaks Spanish, English, German, Portuguese, French, and Russian)

2007 Major earthquake (7.7) hits northern Chile near Antofagasta; it was felt as far away as the capital, Santiago, and São Paulo, Brazil.

GOVERNMENT: Constitutional democracy: presidency, legislature, judicial

EXECUTIVE CABINET:

Minister of Interior

Minister of Foreign Relations (Relaciones Exteriores)

Education

Transportation

Economy

Natinal Resources (Bienes Nacionales)

General Secretary of the Government

PARTIES and GROUPS:

La Alianza Democrática (political pact of 14 democratic parties: leader: Aylwin)

Christian Democrats (leader: Gabriel Valdés; Genaro Arriagado, leader of Command for Norht; Patricio Aylwin, spokesman for Command for No; Sergio Molina, head of Committee for Free Elections)

National Party: Partido de Renovación Nacional: Sergio Onofre Jarpa, president (fascist)

Chilean Mineworkers Union (leader: Rodolfo Seguel)

Cardinal Juan Francisco Fresno, Roman Catholic Church

Partido Socialista, president, Clodomiro Almeyda (exile 1973-87)

Partido Comunista (vice-president, Volodia Teitelboim)

MIR (Movimiento Izquierdista Revolucionario; extreme left-wing revolutionary movement)

INTELLIGENTSIA:

Alonso de Ercilla (1533-1595, Spain), La Araucana (epic poem, 1588)

Eduardo Barrios (1884-1963), early twentieth-century costumbrista novelist

Ricardo Rojas (), mid-twentieth century neo-realist novelist

Vicente Huidobro (1893-1948), poet (Creationism)

Pablo Neruda (1903-1973) , poet, La residencia en la tierra (1933) (Vanguardism)

Ariel Dorfman (1942 -), novelist, La última canción de Manuel Sendero (1987) (Magical Realism)

Volodia Teitelboin, essayist, vice-president of Communist Party, Neruda (1984) (Social Realist)

Fernando Alegría (1918 - ), novelist, Historia de la novela latinoamericana (Neo-Realism)

Isabel Allende (1942 - ), novelist, La casa de los espíritus (1985) (Pseudo Magical Realism)

Enrique Lihn (1929-1989), poet: Diario de muerte (1989)

Gonzalo Rojas, poet (contemporary)

Nicanor Parra (1914 - ), poet, Antipoemas (1953)

Antonio Skármeta (1940 - ), essayist, novelist: El cartero de Neruda (1985)

Humberto Díaz Casanueva , diplomat

Jorge Edwards (1931 - ), novelist, essayist, El convidado de piedra (1982) (Magical Realism)

Pedro Lastra (b. 1933 - ), poet, Y éramos inmortales (1967) (Generación de 1950)

Federico Schopf, essayist

José Donoso (1924 – 1996), novelist, El obsceno pájaro de la noche (1967) (Magical Realism)

Hernán Castellano Girón (b.1937) , poet, Los crepúsculos (1984) (Surrealist)

Ricardo Lagos (1938 - ), head of Political Science Institute at U. Chile until 1973; lawyer 1983-88 (Socialist)

Raúl Zurita (b. 1952 - ), poet, Anteparaíso (1984)