Today is Sandinista Revolution Day, a public holiday in Nicaragua. This day commemorates the defeat of the Somoza dictatorship on this day in 1979.
In 1936, Anastasio Somoza García, the head of Nicaragua’s army deposed the elected President, Juan Bautista Sacasa (who was also Somoza’s uncle), and installed himself as President. This effectively established a hereditary dictatorship in the country for over 45 years, with two of Somoza’s sons serving as president after Somoza had been assassinated in 1956.
TheSomozas were heavily supported by the United States Government despite their human rights violations, graft, corruption and dictatorial excesses.
Not too far in the background of the Somoza rule was the Sandinista National Liberation Front. This was a socialist revolutionary group founded in 1962 and named after Augusto Sandino, a hero of the resistance to U.S. military occupation between 1927 and 1933.
Since their creation, the Sandinistas had steadily built their support base amongst workers, students and peasants. In the 1970s, the political aims spilt over into military attacks on the Nicaraguan government. And although the Somozas retaliated, the revolution was gaining momentum, exploding into direct confrontations between the Sandinistas and the Nicaraguan army in 1978.
On July 19th 1979, Sandinista soldiers defeated the National Guard and toppled Somoza, who fled to Paraguay where he was assassinated in 1980.
Today is the birthday, in 1947, of Brian May, guitarist, singer and songwriter with Queen who had the 1975 UK No.1 single ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ which returned to No.1 in 1991. Queen scored over 40 other UK Top 40 singles, and also scored the 1980 US No.1 single ‘Crazy Little Thing Called Love’. May had the solo 1992 UK No.5 single ‘Too Much Love Will Kill You’. May was made Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2005 for ‘services to the music industry and his charity work’. May earned a PhD in astrophysics from Imperial College, London, in 2007. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kijpcUv-b8M
Enjoyed today’s message.
Thanks for the laughs!