María Eva Duarte de Perón - or Santa Evita to adoring fans - would have turned 100 years old today.
All but a brief falling star in world politics, she burst on the scene at the age of 24 when she met and enthralled the Argentine Secretary of Labour, Juan Domingo Perón in January 1944.
In 1945, they were married.
In 1946, he was elected President and she became First Lady of Argentina.
In 1947, she became an international star when she embarked on the "Rainbow Tour" to European heads of states.
In 1948, she founded the charitable Eva Perón Foundation and became its first president - and a national saint to the poor and destitute.
In 1950, she fell ill to cervical cancer.
In 1951, she voted, hospitalized, in the first Argentine presidential election open to women.
In 1952, she was dead at the age of 33.
She was descibed as talented, shrewd, dependable, a hard worker, but also cold, lacking all sex appeal, greedy. A most controversial figure even today - her biographies couldn't be more at odds with one another!
I remember I picked up two history books in about 1987 or 1988, at university, and read (despite my very limited Spanish) about the events of 17 October 1945, when Juan Perón was interned by the then President who feared Perón's rising popularity with the working masses and a crowd of around 300,000 people demonstrated in front of the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada in Plaza Mayor, Buenos Aires: One book gave credit to Eva for organizing the protests and uniting the crowd behind Juan - the other claimed the crowd was very ambiguous, favoring Juan but being much against Eva, who had no actual part in the protests.
What strikes me today is the fact that she was born only a hundred years ago! Not few people today live at 100 years or more - but Evita has been dead for almost 67 years! She was long history when I discovered the Lloyd Webber musical for myself in the mid '80s, and yet, in that brief period of fame, she made big imprint on Latin America.
Ever since her moment of fame, Latin American leaders have used their wives as would-be Evitas, where formerly politics was thoroughly a men-only affair. It is debatable if Evita had much of a hand in bringing women's suffrage to Argentina, but she surely did a lot to empower women. It is very much debatable if her initiatives to ease the plight of the poor was effective, smart, helpful, sustained, but she surely made social welfare a staple of politics in Argentina and elsewhere.
Anyway, here's a monument to Evita, even if it is only an unfinished pedastal. Cheers!
All but a brief falling star in world politics, she burst on the scene at the age of 24 when she met and enthralled the Argentine Secretary of Labour, Juan Domingo Perón in January 1944.
In 1945, they were married.
In 1946, he was elected President and she became First Lady of Argentina.
In 1947, she became an international star when she embarked on the "Rainbow Tour" to European heads of states.
In 1948, she founded the charitable Eva Perón Foundation and became its first president - and a national saint to the poor and destitute.
In 1950, she fell ill to cervical cancer.
In 1951, she voted, hospitalized, in the first Argentine presidential election open to women.
In 1952, she was dead at the age of 33.
She was descibed as talented, shrewd, dependable, a hard worker, but also cold, lacking all sex appeal, greedy. A most controversial figure even today - her biographies couldn't be more at odds with one another!
I remember I picked up two history books in about 1987 or 1988, at university, and read (despite my very limited Spanish) about the events of 17 October 1945, when Juan Perón was interned by the then President who feared Perón's rising popularity with the working masses and a crowd of around 300,000 people demonstrated in front of the presidential palace, the Casa Rosada in Plaza Mayor, Buenos Aires: One book gave credit to Eva for organizing the protests and uniting the crowd behind Juan - the other claimed the crowd was very ambiguous, favoring Juan but being much against Eva, who had no actual part in the protests.
What strikes me today is the fact that she was born only a hundred years ago! Not few people today live at 100 years or more - but Evita has been dead for almost 67 years! She was long history when I discovered the Lloyd Webber musical for myself in the mid '80s, and yet, in that brief period of fame, she made big imprint on Latin America.
Ever since her moment of fame, Latin American leaders have used their wives as would-be Evitas, where formerly politics was thoroughly a men-only affair. It is debatable if Evita had much of a hand in bringing women's suffrage to Argentina, but she surely did a lot to empower women. It is very much debatable if her initiatives to ease the plight of the poor was effective, smart, helpful, sustained, but she surely made social welfare a staple of politics in Argentina and elsewhere.
Anyway, here's a monument to Evita, even if it is only an unfinished pedastal. Cheers!
via International Skeptics Forum http://bit.ly/2LpriAH
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