The earliest recorded human presence in modern-day Argentina dates back to the Paleolithic period. The Inca Empire expanded to the northwest of the country in pre-Columbian times. The modern country has its roots in Spanish colonisation of the region during the 16th century. Argentina rose as the successor state of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, a Spanish overseas viceroyalty founded in 1776.
The Argentine Declaration of Independence on July 9 of 1816 and the Argentine War of Independence (1810–1825) were followed by an extended civil war that lasted until 1880, culminating in the country's reorganisation as a federation. The then sparsely populated country thereafter enjoyed relative peace and stability, with several subsequent mass waves of millions of European immigrants (mainly Italians and Spaniards) significantly influencing its culture and demography.
The National Autonomist Party dominated national politics in the period called the Conservative Republic, from 1880 until the 1916 elections. The Great Depression led to the first coup d'état in 1930 led by José Félix Uriburu, beginning the so-called "Infamous Decade" (1930–1943). After that coup, four more followed in 1943, 1955, 1962, and 1966.
Following the death of President Juan Perón in 1974, his widow and vice president, Isabel Perón, ascended to the presidency, before being overthrown in the final coup in 1976. The following military junta persecuted and murdered thousands of political critics, activists, and leftists in the Dirty War, a period of state terrorism and civil unrest that lasted until the election of Raúl Alfonsín as president in 1983.
Argentina is a regional power, and retains its historic status as a middle power in international affairs. A major non-NATO ally of the United States, Argentina is a developing country with the second-highest HDI (human development index) in Latin America after Chile. Its economy is the second-largest in South America, and it is a member of G-15 and G20.
Argentina is also a founding member of the United Nations, World Bank, World Trade Organization, Mercosur, Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the Organization of Ibero-American States.
Etymology
The description of the region by the word Argentina has been found on a Venetian map in 1536. The name Argentina derives from the Latin word argentum, meaning "silver". Early 16th century explorers around the Río de la Plata became aware of the abundance of silver in the region.
The name Argentina was probably first given by the Venetian and Genoese navigators, such as Giovanni Caboto. In Spanish and Portuguese, the words for 'silver' are respectively plata and prata and '(made) of silver' is plateado and prateado, although argento for 'silver' and argentado for 'covered in silver' exist in Spanish. Argentina was first associated with the silver mountains legend, widespread among the first European explorers of the La Plata Basin.
The first written use of the name in Spanish can be traced to La Argentina, a 1602 poem by Martín del Barco Centenera describing the region. Although "Argentina" was already in common usage by the 18th century, the country was formally named "Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata" by the Spanish Empire, and "United Provinces of the Río de la Plata" after independence.
The 1826 constitution included the first use of the name "Argentine Republic" in legal documents. The name "Argentine Confederation" was also commonly used and was formalised in the Argentine Constitution of 1853. In 1860 a presidential decree settled the country's name as "Argentine Republic", and that year's constitutional amendment ruled all the names since 1810 as legally valid.
In English, the country was traditionally called "the Argentine".
History
Pre-Columbian era
Evidence suggests that humans inhabited parts of what is now Argentina as early as 21,000 years ago. In 2015, fossilised bones of a large, extinct armoured mammal called Neosclerocalyptus were unearthed near Buenos Aires. These bones bore cut marks indicative of butchering with stone tools, implying human activity during the Last Glacial Maximum.
Further south, the Piedra Museo site in Santa Cruz Province has yielded human remains and artifacts dating back approximately 11,000 years. Discoveries at this site include spearheads associated with extinct megafauna such as Mylodon and Hippidion, highlighting the advanced hunting practices of early inhabitants.
Another significant site is the Cueva de las Manos (Cave of the Hands), also located in Santa Cruz. This cave features stencilled handprints and hunting scenes created between 7,300 BC and 700 AD, offering insights into the lives of early hunter-gatherer communities.
Until the period of European colonisation, Argentina was relatively sparsely populated by a wide number of diverse cultures with different social organisations, which can be divided into three main groups. The first group were basic hunters and food gatherers without the development of pottery, such as the Selkʼnam and Yaghan in the extreme south.
The second group were advanced hunters and food gatherers, who included the Puelche, Querandí and Serranos in the centre-east; and the Tehuelche in the south, all of them conquered by the Mapuche spreading from Chile, and the Qom and Wichi in the north. The last group were farmers with pottery, such as the Charrúa, Minuane and Guaraní in the northeast, with slash and burn semisedentary existence; the advanced Diaguita sedentary trading culture in the northwest, which was conquered by the Inca Empire around 1480; the Tonocoté and Hênîa and Kâmîare in the country's centre, and the Huarpe in the centre-west, a culture that raised llama cattle and was strongly influenced by the Incas.
Colonial era
Europeans first arrived in the region with the 1502 voyage of Amerigo Vespucci. The Spanish navigators Juan Díaz de Solís and Sebastian Cabot visited the territory that is now Argentina in 1516 and 1526, respectively. In 1536 Pedro de Mendoza founded the small settlement of Buenos Aires, which was abandoned in 1541.
Further colonisation efforts came from Paraguay—establishing the Governorate of the Río de la Plata—Peru and Chile. Francisco de Aguirre founded Santiago del Estero in 1553. Londres was founded in 1558; Mendoza, in 1561; San Juan, in 1562; San Miguel de Tucumán, in 1565. Juan de Garay founded Santa Fe in 1573 and the same year Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera set up Córdoba. Garay went further south to re-found Buenos Aires in 1580. San Luis was established in 1596.
The Spanish Empire subordinated the economic potential of the Argentine territory to the immediate wealth of the silver and gold mines in Bolivia and Peru, and as such it became part of the Viceroyalty of Peru until the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata in 1776 with Buenos Aires as its capital.
Buenos Aires repelled two unsuccessful British invasions in 1806 and 1807. The ideas of the Age of Enlightenment and the example of the first Atlantic Revolutions generated criticism of the absolutist monarchy that ruled the country. As in the rest of Spanish America, the overthrow of Ferdinand VII during the Peninsular War created great concern.
Independence and civil wars
Beginning a process from which Argentina was to emerge as successor state to the Viceroyalty, the 1810 May Revolution replaced the viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros with the First Junta, a new government in Buenos Aires made up from locals. In the first clashes of the Independence War the Junta crushed a royalist counter-revolution in Córdoba, but failed to overcome those of the Banda Oriental, Upper Peru and Paraguay, which later became independent states.
The French-Argentine Hippolyte Bouchard then brought his fleet to wage war against Spain overseas and attacked Spanish California, Spanish Peru and Spanish Philippines. He secured the allegiance of escaped Filipinos in San Blas who defected from the Spanish to join the Argentine navy, due to common Argentine and Philippine grievances against Spanish colonisation.
Jose de San Martin's brother, Juan Fermín de San Martín, was already in the Philippines and drumming up revolutionary fervour prior to this.
At a later date, the Argentine sign of Inca origin, the Sun of May was adopted as a symbol by the Filipinos in the Philippine Revolution against Spain. He also secured the diplomatic recognition of Argentina from King Kamehameha I of the Kingdom of Hawaii. Historian Pacho O'Donnell affirms that Hawaii was the first state that recognised Argentina's independence. He was arrested in 1819 by Chilean patriots.
Revolutionaries split into two antagonist groups: the Centralists and the Federalists—a move that would define Argentina's first decades of independence. The Assembly of the Year XIII appointed Gervasio Antonio de Posadas as Argentina's first Supreme Director.
On 9 July 1816, the Congress of Tucumán formalised the Declaration of Independence, which is now celebrated as Independence Day, a national holiday. One year later General Martín Miguel de Güemes stopped royalists on the north. General José de San Martín joined Bernardo O'Higgins, and they led a combined army across the Andes and secured the independence of Chile; then it was sent by O'Higgins orders to the Spanish stronghold of Lima and proclaimed the independence of Peru. In 1819 Buenos Aires enacted a centralist constitution that was soon abrogated by federalists.
Some of the most important figures of Argentine independence made a proposal known as the Inca plan of 1816, which proposed that the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (modern-day Argentina) should be a monarchy, led by a descendant of the Inca. Juan Bautista Túpac Amaru (half-brother of Túpac Amaru II) was proposed as monarch.
Some examples of those who supported this proposal were Manuel Belgrano, José de San Martín and Martín Miguel de Güemes. The Congress of Tucumán finally decided to reject the Inca plan, creating instead a republican, centralist state.
The 1820 Battle of Cepeda, between the Centralists and the Federalists, resulted in the end of the Supreme Director rule. In 1826 Buenos Aires enacted another centralist constitution, with Bernardino Rivadavia being appointed as the first president of the country. The interior provinces soon rose against him, forced his resignation and discarded the constitution.
Centralists and Federalists resumed the civil war; the latter prevailed and formed the Argentine Confederation in 1831, led by Juan Manuel de Rosas. During his regime he faced a French blockade (1838–1840), the War of the Confederation (1836–1839), and an Anglo-French blockade (1845–1850), but remained undefeated and prevented further loss of national territory.
His trade restriction policies angered the interior provinces and in 1852 Justo José de Urquiza, another powerful caudillo, beat him out of power. As the new president of the Confederation, Urquiza enacted the liberal and federal 1853 Constitution. Buenos Aires seceded but was forced back into the Confederation after being defeated in the 1859 Battle of Cepeda.
Rise of the modern nation
Overpowering Urquiza in the 1861 Battle of Pavón, Bartolomé Mitre secured Buenos Aires' predominance and was elected as the first president of the reunified country. He was followed by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and Nicolás Avellaneda; these three presidencies set up the basis of the modern Argentine State.
Starting with Julio Argentino Roca in 1880, ten consecutive federal governments emphasised liberal economic policies. The massive wave of European immigration they promoted—second only to the United States'—led to a near-reinvention of Argentine society and economy that by 1908 had placed the country as the seventh wealthiest developed nation in the world.
Driven by this immigration wave and decreasing mortality, the Argentine population grew fivefold and the economy 15-fold: from 1870 to 1910, Argentina's wheat exports went from 100,000 to 2,500,000 t (110,000 to 2,760,000 short tons) per year, while frozen beef exports increased from 25,000 to 365,000 t (28,000 to 402,000 short tons) per year, placing Argentina as one of the world's top five exporters.
Its railway mileage rose from 503 to 31,104 km (313 to 19,327 mi). Fostered by a new public, compulsory, free and secular education system, literacy quickly increased from 22% to 65%, a level higher than most Latin American nations would reach fifty years later. Real GDP grew so fast that despite the huge immigration influx, per capita income between 1862 and 1920 went from 67% of developed country levels, to 100%:
In 1865, Argentina was one of the top 25 nations by per capita income. By 1908, it had surpassed Denmark, Canada and the Netherlands to reach 7th place—behind Switzerland, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom and Belgium. Argentina's per capita income was 70% higher than Italy's, 90% higher than Spain's, 180% higher than Japan's and 400% higher than Brazil's.
Despite these unique achievements, the country was slow to meet its original goals of industrialisation: after the steep development of capital-intensive local industries in the 1920s, a significant part of the manufacturing sector remained labour-intensive in the 1930s.
Between 1878 and 1884, the so-called Conquest of the Desert occurred, with the purpose of tripling the Argentine territory by means of the constant confrontations between natives and Criollos in the border, and the appropriation of the indigenous territories. The first conquest consisted of a series of military incursions into the Pampa and Patagonian territories dominated by the indigenous peoples, distributing them among the members of the Sociedad Rural Argentina, financiers of the expeditions.
The conquest of Chaco lasted up to the end of the century, since its full ownership of the national economic system only took place when the mere extraction of wood and tannin was replaced by the production of cotton. The Argentine government considered indigenous people as inferior beings, without the same rights as Criollos and Europeans.
In 1912, President Roque Sáenz Peña enacted universal and secret male suffrage, which allowed Hipólito Yrigoyen, leader of the Radical Civic Union (or UCR), to win the 1916 election. He enacted social and economic reforms and extended assistance to small farms and businesses. Argentina stayed neutral during World War I. The second administration of Yrigoyen faced an economic crisis, precipitated by the Great Depression.
In 1930, Yrigoyen was ousted from power by the military led by José Félix Uriburu. Although Argentina remained among the fifteen richest countries until mid-century, this coup d'état marked the start of the steady economic and social decline that pushed the country back into underdevelopment.
Uriburu ruled for two years; then Agustín Pedro Justo was elected in a fraudulent election and signed a controversial treaty with the United Kingdom. Argentina stayed neutral during World War II, a decision that had full British support but was rejected by the United States after the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1943 a military coup d'état led by General Arturo Rawson toppled the constitutional government of Ramón Castillo.
Under pressure from the United States, Argentina declared war on the Axis Powers on 27 March 1945, roughly a month before the end of World War II in Europe.
