Return to home Mexico is about 3 times the size of Texas.
(SSFC, 10/9/05, Par p.27)
Mexico has 31 states and one federal district. These include:
Aguascalientes; Baha California; Baha California Sur; Campeche;
Chiapas; Chihuahua; Coahuila; Colima; Durango; Guanajuato; Guerrero
(Chilpancingo); Hidalgo; Jalisco; Mexico; Michoacan; Morelos
(Cuernavaca); Nayarit; Nuevo Leon; Oaxaca; Puebla; Queretaro
(Queretaro); Quintana Roo; San Luis Potosi; Sinaloa; Sonora
(Hermosillo); Tabasco; Tamaulipas; Tlaxcala; Veracruz; Yucatan;
Zacatecas; and the Federal District (Mexico City).
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_of_Mexico)
Mexico Online: http://www.mexonline.com/history.htm
Travel Docs: http://www.traveldocs.com/mx/index.htm Native Mexican Indian Groups include:
 Maya; Tzeltal; Tzotzil
 Native Indians in Baha included the Cucapa, Kaliwi, Kumiai
and the Pai Pai. The Cochimi were part of the Kumiai.
 (SFC, 10/17/98, p.A16)
 An Aztec legend states that the hummingbird god told ancient
Aztecs to build their city at the spot where they find an eagle
eating a snake on a cactus. The site at Lake Texcoco met the
requirement and there Mexico City was found.
 (SFC, 5/17/97, p.E3)
The Aztecs spoke Nahuatl. By 2006 it was the native language of just
1.5 million Mexican Indians.
   (WSJ, 2/24/06, p.A1) 80Mil BC   Caverns at the Grutas de
Cacahuamilpa National Park south of Mexico City date to this time.
   (SFC,11/3/97, p.A10)
72Mil BCÂ Â Â A helmet-crested, duck-billed dinosaur
lived about this time in northeastern Mexico. In 2008 the species
was named Velafrons coahuilensis.
   (AP, 2/12/08)
66.038Mil BCÂ Â Â About this time a comet struck the
area of the Mexican Yucatan Peninsula and created a crater, known
today as Chicxulub, about 150-180 miles (200 km) in diameter. The
area at this time was covered by ocean. The asteroid was initially
believed to have been 6-12 miles (10 km) in diameter. It left a thin
layer of iridium in rock strata around the world. Evidence for this
was gathered by Luis Alvarez. The asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs,
about 80% of the world’s plants species and all animals bigger than
a cat. In 2002 it also was estimated to have wiped out 55-60% of the
plant-eating insects. A high oxygen level may have contributed to a
worldwide firestorm. In 1997 Walter Alvarez published "T. Rex and
the Crater of Doom," an account of this critical event. The impact
was estimated at 5 billion times greater than the atomic bombs of WW
II. In 2007 US and Czech researchers used computer simulations to
calculate that there was a 90 percent probability that the collision
of two asteroids in 160 Mil BC was the event that precipitated the
Chicxulub disaster. In 2008 new research using an osmium isotope
indicated that the responsible asteroid was about 2.5 miles wide. In
2013 scientists said this date was accurate to give or take 11,000
years.
   (SFC, 2/18/96, p.A3)(SFEC, 8/17/97, BR p.7)(NH,
9/97, p.85)(SFC, 2/25/02, p.A4)(WSJ, 3/2/04, p.B1)(Reuters,
9/5/07)(SFC, 4/12/08, p.A4)(SFC, 2/8/13, p.A1)
15Mil BCÂ Â Â The Baha Peninsula began separating from
the Mexican mainland.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T8)
10Mil BCÂ Â Â Oceanic spreading began a process of
mountain building in southern California, including formation of the
San Andreas Fault, migration of the Baja California peninsula away
from the mainland of Mexico, the loss of summer rainfall and the
diversification of species.
   (Fremontia, 4/2009, p.20)
50,000BCÂ Â Â In 2017 scientists in Mexico discovered
microbial life trapped in crystals in caves in Naica that dated to
about this time.
   (SSFC, 2/19/17, p.A2)
c38,000BCÂ Â Â In 2003 British scientists found
40,000-year-old human footprints in central Mexico, shattering
theories that mankind arrived in the Americas tens of thousands of
years later from Asia. The footprints were found in an abandoned
quarry close to the Cerro Toluquilla volcano and were subsequently
studied and dated by a multinational team of scientists.
   (AFP, 7/5/05)
29,000BCÂ Â Â Scientists in 2020 reported on artifacts
found in a mountain cave in the state of Zacatecas in north-central
Mexico. Limestone tools found at the site spanned from 31,000 to
12,500 years old, said archaeologist Ciprian Ardelean of Universidad
Autónoma de Zacatecas in Mexico, lead author of one of two studies
published in the journal Nature.
   (Reuters, 7/22/20)
c21000BCÂ Â Â Â The Popocatepetl volcano erupted
with a force equal to the 1980 eruption of Mt. St. Helens in
Washington.
   (SFEC, 5/16/99, Z1 p.8)
20000 BC-15000 BCÂ Â Â In 2019 archaeologists in Mexico
found the bones of about 60 mammoths at an airport under
construction just north of Mexico City, near human-built ’traps’.
The bones were found in sediment layers corresponding to 15,000 to
20,000 years ago.
   (AP, 5/22/20)
c11000BCÂ Â Â Scientists in 2001-2002 discovered
skeletons in caves along Mexico’s Yucatan coast that dated to about
this time.
   (SFC, 9/10/04, p.A2)
c11000BCÂ Â Â Peñon Woman, found in central Mexico in
1959, dated to this time. She shared many of the features found in
the Kennewick Man (1996) of Washington State.
   (Econ, 7/16/05, p.77)
11000BC-10000BCÂ Â Â In 2014 scientists reported on a
female skull, dating to about this time, found by divers at the Hoyo
Negro Yucatan cave. They described her as Palaeoamerican, part of a
small group whose remains do not resemble modern native Americans.
   (Econ, 5/17/14, p.75)
c7975BCÂ Â Â Humans lived in a cave near Oaxaca,
Mexico, named Guila Naquitz (White Cliff). Scattered remains of
tools, seeds and plants were found in 1966 by archeologist Kent
Flannery and some of the seeds were dated to this time. The squash
seeds showed signs of cultivation.
   (SFC, 5/9/97, p.A2)
c5100BCEÂ Â Â In 2001 evidence in Mexico was reported
for corn cultivation from sediments of this time.
   (SFC, 5/18/01, p.A7)
2700BCEÂ Â Â Domesticated maize in Mexico goes back to
this time.
   (SFEC, 4/18/99, Z1 p.2)
2500BCÂ Â Â In 2006 researchers reported a
4,500-year-old burial in Mexico that showed front teeth ground down
so they could be mounted with animal teeth. It was the oldest
example of dental work in the Americas.
   (SFC, 6/14/06, p.A2)
1600BCÂ Â Â The Paso de Amada site of Chiapas, Mexico,
was first settled about this time in the Soconusco region, which
extended down the Pacific coast into Guatemala. The town numbered
about 2,000 people, who were later dubbed the Mokaya (maize people).
   (Arch, 1/06, p.48)  Â
1600BC-1250BCÂ Â Â An earthen mound on the southern
Mexico-Guatemala border dated to this period and was considered part
of a chiefdom center of the Mokaya people.
   (Arch, 1/06, p.43)
1500BCÂ Â Â A court to play ulama was built about this
time in Chiapas, Mexico. Olmecs used latex balls for the game. The
Olmecs processed rubber using latex from rubber trees mixed with
juice from the morning glory vine. The rubber was used to make a
bouncy ball for their ball games.
   (SFC, 6/19/99, p.A9)(Econ, 4/24/04, p.81)
1500BC-1100BC Evidence found in 1998 revealed terraced farming for
corn back to this time in northeast Mexico on a hilltop overlooking
the Rio Casa Grandes.
   (SFC, 3/13/98, p.A11)
1400BC-400BCÂ Â Â The Olmecs, who called themselves Xi,
were the earliest known civilization of Mesoamerica. They influenced
the subsequent civilizations of the Maya and Aztec. They inhabited
the Gulf Coast region of what is now Mexico and Central America.
Their capital was San Lorenzo, near the present day city of
Veracruz. In 1968 Michael D. Coe authored “America’s First
Civilization: Discovering the Olmec.”  Â
  Â
   (WSJ, 1/16/96, p. A-16)(SFC, 8/2/05, p.A2)(WSJ,
5/11/06, p.D6)
1250BC-1150BCÂ Â Â This time frame is referred to as
the Initial Olmec Period of southern Mexico.
   (Arch, 1/06, p.42)
1200BCÂ Â Â The tradition of the Mokaya people at
coastal Chiapas and Guatemala came to a sudden end about this time.
This appeared to coincide with the rise of the Olmec people.
   (Arch, 1/06, p.43)
1200BC-400BCÂ Â Â The Olmecs built impressive cities
and established trade routes throughout Mesoamerica, that included
settlements at La Venta and Tres Zapotes.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1200BC-300BCEÂ Â Â Â Â Â The Olmec people
ruled southern Mexico and northern Central America.
   (WSJ, 7/2/96, p.A12)
1150BC-1000BCÂ Â Â This time frame is referred to as
the Early Olmec Period of southern Mexico.
   (Arch, 1/06, p.42)
1000BCÂ Â Â The settlement at Canton Corralito on the
southern Mexico-Guatemala border covered at least 60 acres by this
time and was believed to be a colony of the Gulf Olmec people. About
this time the nearby Coatan River began to rise and engulfed the
settlement.
   (Arch, 1/06, p.44)
900BCÂ Â Â Â Â Â In 2006 Mexican
archeologists discovered a stone block in Veracruz state inscribed
with 62 distinct signs that dated to about this time. The Cascajal
stone was attributed to the Olmecs, who civilization lasted from
about 1200BC-400BC.
   (SFC, 9/15/06, p.A3)
900BC-500BCÂ Â Â Â Â Â This time frame is
referred to as the Late Olmec Period of southern Mexico, which
featured pyramids for the first time in ceremonial centers. La
Venta, the 2nd major Olmec capital dates to this period.
   (Arch, 1/06, p.42, 49)
800BC-500BCÂ Â Â Â Â Â Zazacatla in
central Mexico covered less than one square mile between during this
period. Inhabitants of Zazacatla adopted Olmec styles when they
changed from a simple, egalitarian society to a more complex,
hierarchical one. Much of it was later covered by housing and
commercial development extending from Cuernavaca.
   (AP, 1/25/07)
600BCEÂ Â Â The great Olmec Ceremonial Center in
Tabasco, Mexico, was abandoned about this time.
   (RFH-MDHP, p.241)
c600BCEÂ Â Â The Zapotec city of Monte Alban was
founded in the Oaxaca valley.
   (SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A24)
c200BCEÂ Â Â Migrations began toward the area north of
Lake Texcoco where the urban center of Teotihuacan developed.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T8)
c100BCEÂ Â Â The area around Palenque was 1st occupied.
   (SSFC, 5/5/02, p.C5)
c0-1500Â Â Â Paintings were made on rock surfaces in
the central mountain ranges of the Baha Peninsula by unknown native
Indians. In 1997 Harry W. Crosby published "Cave Paintings of Baha
California."
   (WSJ, 3/5/98, p.A20)
100-150Â Â Â Archeologists in 1998 uncovered evidence
of a pre-Columbian civilization from under the Pyramid of the Moon
in Teotihuacan that was dated to this time. The skeleton of a man
was found by a team led by Saburo Sugiyama. The most important and
largest city of pre-Colombian central Mexico, the Nahuatl meaning of
Teotihuacan was "Where Men Become Gods" or "The City of Gods." Just
north of Mexico City, Teotihuacan was planned at about the beginning
of the Christian era and was sacked and burned by invading Toltecs
in 650.
   (SFC, 10/22/98, p.C2)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T10)(HNQ,
4/24/99)(SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A22)
150-200ADÂ Â Â The Temple of Quetzalcoatl in
Teotihuacan (City of the Gods) was built near what later became
Mexico City. Quetzalcoatl was considered as the origin of all human
activities on earth, the creator of land and time and its divisions.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T9)(SSFC, 11/9/03, p.C7)
200-300Â Â Â Campeche (Mexico), from the 3rd century,
was the principal town of the Maya kingdom of Ah Kin Pech (place of
serpents and ticks).
   (SSFC, 1/25/09, p.E4)
200-650Â Â Â Yohualichan was a ceremonial site for the
Totonac Indians over this period. The town of Cuetzalan was later
established a few miles away.
   (SSFC, 5/5/02, p.C10)
300Â Â Â Â Â Â Mayans began building on
Cozumel Island off Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula about this time. The
town of San Gervasio was built and inhabited through 1650. Cozumel
covers 189 square miles, about the size of Lake Tahoe.
   (SSFC, 9/25/05, E4)
c350Â Â Â Â Â Â In Teotihuacan 3 men were
buried amid lavish goods. Their graves were discovered in 2002 in a
tomb at the top of the 5th of 7 layers of the Pyramid of the Moon
near Mexico City.
   (SFC, 11/22/02, p.J2)
431Â Â Â Â Â Â A great Mayan dynasty arose
at Palenque and soon began trading with communities hundreds of
miles away.
   (SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C10)
440-790Â Â Â Palenque flourished.
   (AM, 5/01, p.49)
500Â Â Â Â Â Â Teotihuacan people built a
60-foot pyramid about this time in what later became known as
Iztapalapa, Mexico. It was abandoned after about 300 years, when the
Teotihuacan culture collapsed. Archeologists began to unveil the
site in 2004.
   (AP, 4/6/06)
562Â Â Â Â Â Â Tikal in Guatemala was
conquered possibly by the Mayans of Calakmul city in Mexico.
Calakmul is one of the largest of Mayan cities with more than 6,000
structures. It was the capital of a widespread hegemony of Lowland
Maya kingdoms during the Late Classic (600-900).
   (AM, May/Jun 97 suppl. p.G)(Arch, 9/00, p.27)
600-900Â Â Â A three hundred year dynasty ruled over
Palenque. In the Pyramid of Inscriptions is the tomb of Pakal,
the greatest king of the dynasty.
   (SFC, 5/19/96, T-9)
615Â Â Â Â Â Â Pakal (12) became the Mayan
ruler of Palenque. His reign ended with his death in 683.
   (SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C10)(WSJ, 9/16/04, p.D12)
620Â Â Â Â Â Â The town of Cholula was
founded in central Mexico. It was later said to be the oldest
continuously occupied town in all of North America.
   (SSFC, 2/26/06, p.F10)
650-750Â Â Â The Teotihuacan culture began declining
and was almost abandoned by the end of this period.
   (SFC, 10/22/98, p.C2)
650-850Â Â Â Tepanapa, the first pyramid of the
Teotihuacan culture, was built in Cholula (Mexico). Over the next
800 years a nested series of 4 pyramids were constructed in Cholula.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T10)(HNQ, 4/24/99)(SSFC,
2/26/06, p.F10)
662Â Â Â Â Â Â By 2004 Simon Martin, Mayan
scholar, worked out an almost day-by-day account of events from this
year in the plain of Tabasco, Mexico.
   (Econ, 5/22/04, p.79)
683Â Â Â Â Â Â Pacal, Mayan ruler of
Palenque, died. His sarcophagus, found in 1952, has the intricately
carved lid later suggested to represent an extra-terrestrial
visitor.
   (SSFC, 5/5/02, p.C5)(WSJ, 9/16/04, p.A1)
c700Â Â Â Â Â Â The Zapotec city of Monte
Alban was abandoned.
   (SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A24)
c750Â Â Â Â Â Â Teotihuacan, the 1st major
urban center of Mesoamerica, fell about this time. It was burned,
deserted and its people scattered. It contained the Pyramid of the
Moon and the Pyramid of the Sun.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T8)
850Â Â Â Â Â Â The Chicanna temple in the
Mayan city of Calakmul was built about this time.
   (SSFC, 4/25/10, p.M1)
1000-1260Â Â Â The Popoloca Indians of Mexico's Puebla
state built the Ndachjian-Tehuacan temple complex during this
period. In 2018 archeological excavations found the first temple of
the Flayed Lord, Xipe Totec, depicted as a skinned human corpse, at
the complex. The Popolocas were later conquered by the Aztecs.
   (SFC, 1/4/19, p.A2) Â
1200Â Â Â Â Â Â In 2007 Mexican
archeologists discovered the ruins of an Aztec pyramid in the heart
of Mexico City that dated to about this time.
   (Reuters, 12/27/07)
1325Â Â Â Â Â Â The Aztecs founded
Tenochtitlan, later known as Mexico City, about this time.
   (www.utexas.edu/utpress/excerpts/expedmus.html)
1450Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico City an Aztec
cornerstone ceremony took place about this time intended to dedicate
a new layer of building. In 2005 archeologists found a child found
at the Templo Mayor ruins who was apparently killed as part of a
ceremony dedicated to the war god Huitzilopochtli.
   (AP, 7/23/05)
1466-1520Â Â Â Montezuma II, Aztec emperor. He amassed
great wealth through taxation in Mexico and Central America. He used
his wealth to build his capital at Tenochtitlan.
   (WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R8)
c1500s      Zapotec Indians founded
the town of San Antonino after Spaniards took over Ocotlan in
Oaxaca. The residents later came to be called Tonineros.
   (WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A1)
1502Â Â Â Â Â Â Ahuizotl, ruler of the
Aztecs, died and was cremated on a funeral pyre about this time at
the foot of the Templo Mayor pyramid. In 2007 Mexican archeologists
found underground chambers in Mexico City they believed to contain
his remains.
   (AP, 8/4/07)(AP, 6/17/10)
1502Â Â Â Â Â Â Moctezuma Xocoyotl
(Montezuma II), an Aztec prince, inherited the Aztec throne becoming
the 9th ruler of the Aztecs.
   (TL-MB, 1988, p.8)(ON, 10/00, p.1)(Econ, 9/26/09,
p.99)
1517Â Â Â Â Â Â Francisco Hernandez de
Cordoba, Spanish explorer, sailed from Cuba and discovered the Mayan
civilization in the Yucatan, southeast Mexico.
   (TL-MB, p.11)(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1518Â Â Â Â Â Â An Indian from the Gulf
coast reported to the royal court at Tenochtitlan the sighting large
vessels.
   (ON, 10/00, p.1)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 13, Spaniards under
conquistador Hernan Cortes (1485-1547) landed at Vera Cruz, Mexico
with 10 stallions, 5 mares and a foal. Smallpox was carried to
America in the party of Hernando Cortes.
   (SFC, 9/2/96, p.A3)(HN, 3/13/98)(SFC, 10/19/01,
p.A17)(SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 27, A truce was
arranged with Cortes when Mayan caciques brought food and gold as
well as 20 female slaves. Among these was a young woman from Jalisco
named Marina, who had been stolen from a noble family when small and
sold into slavery, where she learned the language of Yucatán. As a
bilingual translator from Aztec to Mayan, Marina played a major role
in the eventual conquest of Tenochtitlán.
   (http://www.athenapub.com/cortes1.htm)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 21, Hernan Cortes
landed at Veracruz, Mexico, on Holy Thursday.
  Â
(www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/1.html)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 24, Envoys of
Montezuma II attended the first Easter mass in Central America.
   (HN, 4/24/98)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr, Montezuma received a
message that white strangers had reappeared and attacked a Mayan
coastal village south of the Aztec border. Hundreds of Mayans were
killed and the strangers sailed north.
   (ON, 10/00, p.2)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug, Montezuma learned
that Cortez was marching toward Tenochtitlan with an army of 300
soldiers and 2000 non-Aztec Indians. Cortez was accompanied by
Malinche, his Indian mistress and interpreter.
   (ON, 10/00, p.2)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 5, In the 2nd Battle
of Tehuacingo, Mexico, Hernan Cortes faced the Tlascala Aztecs.
   (MC, 9/5/01)
1519 Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 8, The Aztec and
their leader, Moctezuma, welcomed Hernando Cortez and his 650
explorers to their capital at Tenochtitlan. Spanish adventurer
Hernando Cortez and his force of about 300 Spanish soldiers, 18
horses and thousands of Mexico's native inhabitants who had grown
resentful of Aztec rule marched unmolested into Tenochtitlán, the
capital city of the Aztec empire. The Aztec ruler Montezuma,
believing that Cortez could be the white-skinned deity Quetzalcoatl,
whose return had been foretold for centuries, greeted the arrival of
these strange visitors with courtesy--at least until it became clear
that the Spaniards were all too human and bent on conquest. Cortez
and his men, dazzled by the Aztec riches and horrified by the human
sacrifice central to their religion, began to systematically plunder
Tenochtitlán and tear down the bloody temples. Montezuma's warriors
attacked the Spaniards but with the aid of Indian allies, Spanish
reinforcements, superior weapons and disease, Cortez defeated an
empire of approximately 25 million people by August 13, 1521.
   (ATC, p.16)(SFC, 9/2/96, p.A3) (HNPD, 11/8/98)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 14, Cortez took
Montezuma hostage due to the killing of Spanish soldiers along the
Gulf Coast by Aztec warriors. The accused warriors were later burned
to death in front of Montezuma and the Aztec people.
   (ON, 10/00, p.3)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Domenico de Pineda,
Spanish navigator, explored the Gulf of Mexico.
   (TL-MB, 1988, p.11)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Cortez discovered a plot
by some Cholulans to assassinate him and ordered some 6,000 Cholulan
men executed.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T10)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Francisco de Montejo, a
captain under Cortez, set about subjugating the Maya.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Spanish soldiers in Mexico
learned that the shipwrecked sailor Gonzalo Guerrero had drifted
there in 1511. Guerrero married a Maya woman and raised the first
mestizo children.
   (Econ, 11/10/07,
p.102)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gonzalo_Guerrero)
1519Â Â Â Â Â Â Cortes found the court of
Moctezuma to have a ravenous appetite for turkeys. The gobblers,
later served for Thanksgiving, returned to North America only after
their Mexican ancestors had crossed the Atlantic twice, first to
Spain and then back from England.
   (Econ, 12/20/14, p.78)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr, Cortez left
Tenochtitlan to travel along the Gulf Coast.
   (ON, 10/00, p.5)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â May 16, In Tenochtitlan a
religious festival turned bloody when Spanish soldiers attacked a
frenzied crowd. Several weeks of street fighting followed.
   (ON, 10/00, p.5)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â May 20, Hernando Cortez
defeated Spanish troops sent to punish him in Mexico.
   (HN, 5/20/98)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 24, Montezuma, under
orders by Cortez to calm his people, was showered with "stones,
darts, arrows and sticks" from a jeering crowd.
   (ON, 10/00, p.5)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 29, Montezuma II was
murdered as Spanish conquistadors fled the Aztec capital of
Tenochtitlan during the night. Montezuma died from wounds inflicted
by his people. Conquistadors under Cortez plundered gold from
Aztecs.
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moctezuma_II)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 10, The explorer
Cortez was driven from Tenochtitlan, Mexico, by Aztec leader
Cuauhtemoc, and retreated to Tlaxcala.
   (HN, 7/10/98)
1520Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 14, Hernando Cortes
fought the Aztecs at the Battle of Otumba, Mexico.
   (MC, 7/14/02)
1521Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan, Cortez returned to
Tenochtitlan and destroyed the city. Thousands of Aztecs were
killed. The surviving children of Montezuma were sent to Spain and
were granted compensatory titles to the Spanish nobility.
   (ON, 10/00, p.5)
1521Â Â Â Â Â Â May 22, Spanish conqueror
Hernando Cortez began the siege of Tenochtitlan.
   (SFC, 5/20/21, p.A4)
1521Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 13, Spanish conqueror
Hernando Cortez conquered the Mexican city of Tenochtitlan (Mexico
City) after an 85-day battle. Emp. Cuauhtemotzin was taken prisoner.
Cortez had an Indian mistress named La Malinche.
   (AP, 8/13/97)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(WSJ, 4/24/98,
p.A15)(SFC, 5/20/21, p.A4)
1521Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 31, Spanish conqueror
Cortez (1485-1547), having captured the city of Tenochtitlan,
Mexico, set it on fire. Nearly 100,000 people died in the siege and
some 100,000 more died afterwards of smallpox. In 2008 Buddy levy
authored “Conquistador: Hernan Cortes, King Montezuma, and the Last
Stand of the Aztecs.”
   (HN, 8/31/98)(WSJ, 7/10/08, p.A13)
1521Â Â Â Â Â Â Andres de Tapia, a Spanish
soldier who accompanied Cortes in the conquest of Mexico, counted
tens of thousands of skulls at what became known as the Huey
Tzompantli in Tenochtitlan, later Mexico City. Archeologist later
identified crania of women and children among the hundreds embedded
in the forbidding structure.
   (Reuters, 7/2/17)
1522Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 15, Emperor Charles
named Hernan Cortes governor of Mexico.
   (MC, 10/15/01)
1522Â Â Â Â Â Â Martin Cortes (d.1569),
son of Hernando Cortes, was born in Mexico to an Amerindian woman
named Malinche. Cortes also named a 3rd son Martin, who was born in
Spain. Both brothers were arrested in 1566 for purportedly fomenting
a rebellion against the Spanish crown.
   (SSFC, 7/11/04, p.M3)
1525Â Â Â Â Â Â City officials tried to
control the street vendors in Mexico City.
   (SFC, 9/7/96, p.A19)
1528Â Â Â Â Â Â The fortress of San Juan
de Ulua was built on a coral reef in Vera Cruz. It was later
estimated that half-million slaves died in the process.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1530Â Â Â Â Â Â The San Francisco Church
and monastery in Valladolid, Mexico, was begun.
   (SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C11)
1531Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 12, Legend held that a
dark-skinned Virgin Mary appeared to a peasant outside Mexico City
and left an imprint on his cactus-fiber poncho. The poncho became an
icon for the Virgin of Guadalupe. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, an
Indian peasant, had visions of the Virgin Mary. In 2002 Pope John
Paul II planned to canonize him. The Vatican’s main source was a
religious work that dated to 1666.
   (SFC, 2/1/99, p.A9)(WSJ, 2/27/02, p.A1)(WSJ,
4/17/02, p.A1)(AP, 7/30/02)
1531Â Â Â Â Â Â The Spaniards founded
Puebla, on the route from Vera Cruz to Mexico City, to house
demobilized conquistadors.
   (SFEC,11/9/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T8)
1531Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Queretaro was
designated the third city of New Spain.
   (SSFC, 1/27/08, p.E5)
1533Â Â Â Â Â Â Spaniards arrived at Zaci,
the capital of the Cupul Maya, in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula and
were pushed out.
   (SSFC, 6/29/08, p.E5)(http://tinyurl.com/4o62ox)
1535Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 17, Antonio Mendoza
was appointed first viceroy of New Spain.
   (HN, 4/17/98)
1535Â Â Â Â Â Â Emissaries of Cortez
discovered La Paz, in Baha, Mexico.
   (SSFC, 11/2/03, p.C10)
1536Â Â Â Â Â Â cJan, Spanish castaways
Don Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca with 3 companions reached the Pacific
Coast in northern Mexico under Indian escort and encountered Spanish
troops engaged as slave hunters.
   (ON, 10/03, p.5)
1536Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 6, Mexico began its
inquisition.
   (MC, 6/6/02)
1536Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 24, Spanish castaways
Don Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca with 3 companions arrived in Mexico
City under escort from Culiacan.
   (ON, 10/03, p.5)
1537Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug, Castaway Don Alvar
Nunez Cabeza de Vaca returned from Mexico to Spain where he wrote an
account of his 3,000 mile journey through North American and his
experiences with the Indians. These narratives were collected and
published in 1542 in Spain. They are now known as The Relation of
Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca. The narrative of Cabeza de Vaca is the
“first European book devoted completely to North America. In 2006
Paul Schneider authored “Brutal Journey: The True Story of the First
Crossing of North America.” Schneider used de Vaca’s original memoir
as well as an official report prepared by survivors of the Narvaez
expedition.
   (ON, 10/03, p.5)(SSFC, 6/11/06,
p.M3)(http://tinyurl.com/z36z9yk)
1540Â Â Â Â Â Â Spaniards settled
Campeche, Mexico. Montejo the Younger, the founder of Merida, gained
a foothold at Campeche.
   (SSFC, 5/4/03, p.D12)(SSFC, 1/25/09, p.E4)
1541Â Â Â Â Â Â The "Codex Mendoza" was an
Aztec pictorial manuscript of this time. It showed tribute received
by the Aztecs from people like the Mixtec with turquoise shields and
beads. It also showed 3 young people being stoned to death for
drunkenness.
   (NH, 4/97, p.24)(Arch, 1/05, p.29)
1541Â Â Â Â Â Â Morelia, the capital of
the Mexican state of Michoacan, was founded by the royal edict of
Antonio de Mendoza. It was originally named Valladolid after a city
in Spain. The name was changed in 1928 to honor the local village
priest and revolutionary hero Jose Maria Morelos.
   (Hem, Nov.'95, p.146)(SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C11)
1542Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 27, Juan Rodriguez
Cabrillo set out from the port of Navidad, Mexico, with 2 ships, the
San Salvador and the Victoria, to "discover the coast of New Spain."
Juan Rodriguez Cabrillo claimed California for Spain. [see Sep 28]
   (NPS-CNM, 4/1/97)(MC, 6/27/02)
1542Â Â Â Â Â Â Merida was founded by
Francisco de Montejo at the holy Maya city of T’Ho. Montejo was the
son of the captain under Cortez with the same name.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1542Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Catholic priest
Miguel de Palomares died and was buried inside Mexico City’s first
cathedral, near an altar. In 2016 engineers discovered a stone slab
thought to cover his tomb.
  Â
(www.archaeology.org/news/4380-160414-mexico-spanish-priest)
1543Â Â Â Â Â Â May 24, The city of
Valladolid, Mexico, was founded in the Yucatan peninsula.
   (SSFC, 6/29/08,
p.E5)(www.valladolidyucatan.com/history.html)
1543Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep, The Spanish survivors
of the de Soto expedition reached Spanish settlements in Mexico.
   (ON, 4/01, p.5)
1543-1773Â Â Â The Palacio de los Capitanes in Antigua,
Guatemala, was the center for Spanish rule over Chiapas, Guatemala,
Honduras and Nicaragua during this period.
   (SFEM, 6/13/99, p.32)
1545Â Â Â Â Â Â Bishop Fray Bartolome de
las Casas championed the Indians in the area of Chiapas.
   (WSJ, 1/15/98, p.A1)
1546Â Â Â Â Â Â A coalition of eastern
Maya laid siege to Valladolid, in Mexico’s Yucatan peninsula.
Spanish conquistadores brutally crushed a major Mayan rebellion in
New Spain.
   (http://tinyurl.com/4o62ox)(TL-MB, 1988, p.17)
1547Â Â Â Â Â Â The Spaniards arrived at
Cuetzalan, an area inhabited by Nahua and Totonac Indians.
   (SSFC, 5/5/02, p.C10)
1547Â Â Â Â Â Â Hernando Cortes, the
conquistador who subdued Aztec king Montezuma and stole his wife,
died in Spain. His remains were brought to Mexico in 1836.
   (WSJ, 12/14/00, p.A8)
1553Â Â Â Â Â Â The National Autonomous
University of Mexico (UNAM) was founded as a royal, pontifical
university.
   (WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A1)
1555Â Â Â Â Â Â Fr. Bernardino de Sahagun
wrote down "The War of Conquest: The Aztec’s Own Story."
   (ON, 10/00, p.5)
1555Â Â Â Â Â Â In Ocotlan, Oaxaca, a
church was built.
   (WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A1)
1557Â Â Â Â Â Â The Spanish enslaved local
Indians around Guanajuato, Mexico, to work a silver mine. A major
vein was struck in 1768.
   (SSFC, 5/4/03, p.D7)
1561-1598Â Â Â In Merida the Cathedral de San Idelfonso
was constructed on the site of a Mayan temple by Spanish
conquistadors. It was designed as a stronghold in their struggle to
subdue the Maya.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1562Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 8, Diego Te, a Maya
man in the Yucatec town of Sotuta, testified that a year earlier he
had witnessed a village leader and another man cut the hearts from 2
boys and hand them to a shaman, who rubbed the hearts onto the
mouths of two Maya idols. The account was preserved in the Archivo
General de Indias in Seville, Spain.
   (AM, 7/05, p.43)
1562Â Â Â Â Â Â A Spanish priest wrote
that the well at Chichen Itza was a place where Mayas had made
offerings to their gods.
   (ON, 5/02, p.6)
1562Â Â Â Â Â Â In the Yucatan a campaign
to root out idolatry ended with the destruction of thousands of
ritual objects and most of the Maya books in existence. The campaign
was led by Franciscan leader Diego de Landa, who was later tried in
Spain for his excessive behavior and acquitted. He recorded the oral
traditions of the Maya in “An Account of the Things of the Yucatan”
before returning there in 1573 as Bishop of Yucatan.
   (AM, 7/05, p.44)
1564Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the monastery of
Tecpatan was founded in southern Chiapas state.
   (SSFC, 10/18/15, p.A5)
1565Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 8, Spanish Friar
Andres de Urdaneta arrived in Acapulco after sailing as far as
38 degrees North latitude to obtain favorable winds. 14 of the crew
died on the voyage from the Philippines. During the voyage he
sighted land believed to be the California coast. His route became
famous and trusted for sailing from Manila to Acapulco and became
known as the Manila galleon. In 1939 William Lytle Schurz authored
“The Manila Galleon.”Â
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andr%C3%A9s_de_Urdaneta)Â Â Â
(SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)(SFC, 2/7/15, p.D1)
1565Â Â Â Â Â Â The Iglesia de San Roque
was built in Campeche, Mexico.
   (SSFC, 1/25/09, p.E5)
1566Â Â Â Â Â Â Two sons of Cortes, both
named Martin Cortes, were arrested in Mexico for purportedly
fomenting a rebellion against the Spanish crown. In 2004 Anna Lanyon
authored “The New World of Martin Cortes.”
   (SSFC, 7/11/04, p.M3)
1567 Â Â Â Â Â Â The Metropolitan
Cathedral was begun in Mexico City. It took 250 years to complete.
   (Hem., 1/96, p.50)
1568Â Â Â Â Â Â Spanish conquistadors
first arrived at the valley of Tlaxcaltecas.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
1570Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican city of
Valladolid, later Morelia, was laid out.
   (SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C11)
1574Â Â Â Â Â Â An auto-da-fe (a public
announcement of sentence imposed on persons tried by the
Inquisition) took place in Mexico for the first time.
   (TL-MB, 1988, p.22)
1575-1649Â Â Â The construction of La Immaculada
Concepcion cathedral in Puebla.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T8)
1576Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the town of
Mineral de Pozos was founded as a mining town. In 1982 the Mexican
government declared it a national historic treasure.
   (SSFC, 11/30/08, p.E5)
1577Â Â Â Â Â Â Francisco Hernandez,
Spanish explorer traveling through Mexico’s highlands, noted the
many uses of the maguey (agave) plant. He cited it as a useful fuel,
a material for cloth and ropes, with sap used to make vinegar and
wine.
   (Arch, 9/02, p.32)
1585Â Â Â Â Â Â Archbishop of Mexico,
Pedro Moya de Contreras, dispatched Spanish captain Francisco Gali
to proceed to Manila from Acapulco, and "to reconnoiter down the
coast" on his return trip.
   (SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1586Â Â Â Â Â Â Spanish Captain Francisco
Gali died in Manila and Pedro de Unamuno took command of his 2 ships
to return to Acapulco. He stopped in Macao where his ships were
confiscated by the Portuguese. He obtained a loan from Father Martin
Ignacio de Loyola, the nephew of the founder of the Jesuit order,
and purchased a small ship to return to Acapulco with 2 priests, a
few soldiers, and a crew of Luzon Indians.
   (SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1586Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the Mina El Eden
(Eden Mine) opened in Zacateca. It yielded a bounty of silver, gold,
iron and zinc for over 3 centuries.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T3)
1587Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 22, Captain Pedro de
Unamuno entered the port of Acapulco.
   (SFC,10/17/97, p.A25)
1593Â Â Â Â Â Â In Puebla, Mexico, the
Convent de La Concepcion was built. It was later turned into the
Hotel Camino Real Puebla.
   (SSFC, 1/27/08, p.E5)
1593Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Capt. Don
Francisco de Urdiqola started the first vineyard in the valley of
Tlaxcaltecas at his El Rosario Hacienda.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
1593-1817Â Â Â The period of the Spanish Inquisition in
Mexico.
   (SFC, 9/18/96, p.A1)
1596Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 8, Luis de Carabajal,
1st Jewish author in America, was executed in Mexico. The nephew of
Luis Carvajal, a Jewish convert to Catholicism and governor of the
province of Nuevo Leon, was accused of relapsing into Judaism. He
was tried by Spanish Inquisitors and under torture gave out 116
names of other Judaizers that included his mother and 23 sisters.
They were eventually strangled with iron collars and burned to
death. A 1997 opera by Myron Fink was composed based on his story.
Monterey, Mexico was founded by conquistador Don Luis de Carvajal.
He fell in love the wrong man’s daughter and was later denounced to
the Mexican Inquisition because of his Jewish heritage.
   (SFC, 8/16/96, p.A19)(SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)(WSJ,
2/25/97, p.A20)(MC, 12/8/01)
1596Â Â Â Â Â Â The Casa de los Azulejos
or House of Tiles (a.k.a. Sanborn's) was constructed. It is an
ornate mansion with hand-painted blue and white tiles.
   (Hem., 1/96, p.50)
1597Â Â Â Â Â Â King Philip II issued a
land grant to Don Lorenzo Garcia to start the first official winery
for the new world at the San Lorenzo Hacienda.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
c1600-1700Â Â Â Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz was a lyric
poet of this period. She entered the convent and assembled a 4,000
volume library and wrote poems along with secular and religious
plays. The chamber opera "With Blood, With Ink" was later based on
her life.
   (WSJ, 4/14/00, p.W2)
1602Â Â Â Â Â Â May, Sebastian Vizcaino, a
Basque merchant, led 4 small ships north from Acapulco, Mexico, to
chart the coast of California.
   (SFC, 11/13/02, p.A8)
1614Â Â Â Â Â Â Japan sent samurai
Hasekura Tsunenaga to Europe via Acapulco to to request the right to
trade directly with New Spain (Mexico).
   (Econ, 11/15/14, SR p.8)
1616Â Â Â Â Â Â The Fuerte de San Diego
was built to protect the port of Acapulco, Mexico, from Dutch and
English pirates.
   (SSFC, 11/2/03, p.C6)
1618Â Â Â Â Â Â In Merida the Iglesia de
Jesus was built by Jesuits.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
Â
1621Â Â Â Â Â Â Agustina Ruiz of Quertaro
was tried for claiming sexual intercourse with saints. She was sent
to a convent by the Inquisition for 3 years of fasting and penance.
   (SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1624Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 15, The people of
Mexico rioted upon hearing that their churches were to be closed.
   (HN, 1/15/99)
1624Â Â Â Â Â Â The town of San Antonino
petitioned for and was granted independence from the town of
Ocotlan.
   (WSJ, 4/13/99, p.A1)
1631Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 14, The ship Our Lady
of Juncal set sail from the Gulf coast port of Veracruz, as part of
a 19-ship fleet bearing described only as "a valuable shipment of
the goods obtained by the king's ministers to feed the Spanish
empire." Most of the fleet never made it.
   (AP, 2/17/09)
1636Â Â Â Â Â Â A city wall was built
around Veracruz.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1660Â Â Â Â Â Â The Palacio Clavijero was
built as a Jesuit temple in Valladolid (later Morelia), Mexico.
   (SSFC, 5/22/05, p.E6)
1666Â Â Â Â Â Â In Cholula the chapel
Nuestra de los Remedios was built atop a Teotihuacan pyramid.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T10)
1667Â Â Â Â Â Â The San Ignacio Loyola
Church at Parras de la Fuente was built.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
1668Â Â Â Â Â Â A fortified wall was
completed at Campeche, Mexico, to ward off pirate attacks.
   (SSFC, 1/25/09, p.E4)
1683Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 29, A small armada
sailed from the Mexican mainland across the Sea of Cortez to the
Baha Peninsula. Hostile natives had forced them back to the mainland
on a first landing and a storm forced them back on a 2nd attempt.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)(WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A9)
1683Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 6, The small armada
from the Mexican mainland landed on their 3rd attempt at crossing to
the Baha peninsula and settled at the mouth of a river that they
named San Bruno. The site was abandoned after 2 years. Spanish
settlement on the Baha was later described by Father James Donald
Francez in "The Lost Treasures of Baha California."
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)(WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A9)
1690Â Â Â Â Â Â In Puebla the ornate
Capilla del Rosario, Chapel of the Rosary, was consecrated.
   (SFEC,11/9/97, p.T5)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T8)
1695Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 17, Sor Juana Ines de
la Cruz (b.~1648), Mexican nun and poet, died of plague.
   (SSFC, 9/3/06,
p.M3)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sor_Juana)
1697Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 19, Settlers from
Mexico sailed across the Sea of Cortez to build a new settlement.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)
1697Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 25, Settlers from
Mexico founded the town of Loreto in honor of the Virgin Nuestra
Senoro de Loreto, on the Baha Peninsula. It served as the capital of
Baha California for the next 132 years.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)
1697Â Â Â Â Â Â Padre Juan Maria
Salvatierra established Baja's first mission at Lareto.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T1)
1699Â Â Â Â Â Â Jesuits established a 2nd
Baha outpost, Mission San Francisco de San Javier, in the Sierra
Gigante mountains.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T1)
1699Â Â Â Â Â Â The King of Spain, due to
its competition, banned the production of wine in the Americas,
except for that made by the church. The ban lasted to 1810.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
1700Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep, In Mexico Juan
Bautista and Jacinto de los Angeles informed Spanish authorities of
an Indian religious ceremony and were killed by fellow Indians.
Christian officials decapitated and quartered 15 men and staked
their body parts by the roadside as a warning. In 2002 Bautista and
Angeles were beatified by Pope John Paul II.
   (AP, 7/30/02)
1701Â Â Â Â Â Â Padre Juan de Ugarte
brought seeds and seedlings from Mexico City for the Baha outpost,
Mission San Francisco de San Javier.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T1)
1712Â Â Â Â Â Â Maria de Ortiz Espejo was
convicted by the Inquisition of telling women that hummingbirds and
earthquakes could help them get pregnant. She got off with a
warning.
   (SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1720Â Â Â Â Â Â The last major eruption of
the Popocatepetl volcano outside Mexico City.
   (SFC, 7/3/97, p.C5)
1724Â Â Â Â Â Â Jesuit padre Jaime Bravo
set up a visiting mission in the southern Baja peninsula for the
nomadic Guaicura Indians.
   (SSFC, 11/4/01, p.T12)
1729-1742Â Â Â The building of the Cathedral at
Zacateca. It has been called the "Parthenon of the Mexican Baroque."
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T3)
1730Â Â Â Â Â Â Jesuits founded San Jose
del Cabo in Baha, Ca.
   (SSFC, 2/6/05, p.F8)
1731Â Â Â Â Â Â Luis Berrueco, Mexican
painter, painted “The Martyrs of Gorkum,” a detailed work depicting
the 1572 martyrdom of 19 Catholics in Gorinchem, Netherlands, during
the Dutch war for independence.
   (SFC, 3/5/11, p.E2)(http://tinyurl.com/5s8wnz2)
1734Â Â Â Â Â Â Father Nicholas Tamaral
attempted to enforce a ban polygamy among the Pericu Indians in Baha
California. The Pericu beat him in return and apparently burned him
alive.
   (SSFC, 2/6/05, p.F8)
1740s      Antonio de Solis, a
Spanish priest, found the ruins of Palenque while planting a field.
   (SSFC, 5/5/02, p.C5)
1743Â Â Â Â Â Â La Cathedral de Nuestra
Senora de la Asuncion in Veracruz was dedicated.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1744Â Â Â Â Â Â The cathedral in Morelia
was completed.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T11)
1747Â Â Â Â Â Â The Iglesia de Nuestra
Senora de la Paz was built in Todos Santos on the southern Baja
peninsula.
   (SSFC, 11/4/01, p.T12)
1748-1758Â Â Â Santa Prisca church in Taxco was built
by the wealthy miner Jose de la Borda. It has twin towers of pink
stone and an adjacent tiled dome.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T6)
1750Â Â Â Â Â Â The border town of
Guerrero was founded. It became Guerrero Viejo in 1953 after a new
dam and flood covered the old town and residents moved to the new
Guerrero Nuevo.
   (SFC, 6/4/98, p.C16)
1750-1860Â Â Â The Hacienda Tabi developed as a sugar
plantation in the Yucatan. The family of Carlos Peon Machado owned
it for some 40 years and sold it in 1893.
   (Arch, 1/05, p.43)
1751Â Â Â Â Â Â The mission of St.
Gertrude the Great was initiated and called "La Piedad" by Father
Fernando Consag.
   (WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A9)
1752Â Â Â Â Â Â The first Mission at the
town of Loreto on the Baha Peninsula was completed. Father George
Retz moved north from Mission St. Ignatius, where he had studied the
Cochimi language, and formally established "La Piedad" as the
mission of St. Gertrude the Great.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)
1753Â Â Â Â Â Â May 8, Miguel Hidalgo y
Castilla, the father of Mexican independence, was born.
   (HN, 5/8/98)(MC, 5/8/02)
1755Â Â Â Â Â Â The Holy Inquisition began
using the dungeon at the fortress of San Juan de Ulua in Veracruz.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1756Â Â Â Â Â Â In Queretaro, Mexico, a
palatial home was built and later converted into the hotel
Casa de la Marquesa.
   (SSFC, 1/27/08, p.E5)
1757Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mission of San Javier
was completed in San Javier on the Baha Peninsula.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)
c1758Â Â Â Â Â Â In Taxco the Santa Prisca
Cathedral was built in thanks by Don Jose de la Borda, who made his
fortune there.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T6)
1758Â Â Â Â Â Â Jesuits rebuilt their 1699
Mission San Francisco de San Javier in the Sierra Gigante mountains.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T1)
1759-1788Â Â Â Charles III ruled as King of Spain.
After a plague killed thousands in Alamos, Mexico, Charles III
ordered homes to be rebuilt with mutual walls to prevent ramshackle
structures by squatters.
   (WUD, 1994, p.249)
1760Â Â Â Â Â Â Juan Ruiz of Mexico
painted "Christ Consoled by Angels."
   (WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A16)
1760Â Â Â Â Â Â The Valenciana mine near
Guanajuato was discovered.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T10)
1760-1777Â Â Â Juan Bautista de Anza (1736-1787) served
as the commanding officer at Tupac.
   (SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1764Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Ignacio de
Jerusalem composed "Matins for Our Lady of Guadalupe." It was first
performed the Mexico City Cathedral.
   (SFC, 6/24/97, p.B3)
1767Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 25, Mexican Indians
rioted as Jesuit priests were ordered home. Spain expelled the
Jesuits from Mexico and their work was taken over by the Dominican
Fathers.
   (WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A9)(HN, 6/25/98)(Econ, 6/1/13,
p.80)
1768Â Â Â Â Â Â In Guanajuato, Mexico,
enslaved Indians struck a major silver vein in Guanajuato.
   (SSFC, 5/4/03, p.D7)
1769Â Â Â Â Â Â Father Junipero Serra set
out on his northerly journey from Loreto to found missions along the
Baha Peninsula and into California.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)
1771Â Â Â Â Â Â Father Toribio
Basterrechea, vicar of Huachinango, was convicted by the Inquisition
of officiating at the marriage of two dogs. He was sentenced to 4
months of fasting and penance.
   (SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1773-1776Â Â Â In Mexico a mid-sixteenth century church
was abandoned in the Quechula locality of southern Chiapas state due
to big plagues in the region.
   (SSFC, 10/18/15, p.A5)
1774Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico exported 600 tons
of the cochineal shell, known as carmine, to Spain. The acid color
was extracted from the shell of the tiny red beetle that grew on
cactus leaves. It was used to manufacture a red dye that was
used in British "redcoats" and by Betsy Ross to color the first US
flag.
   (WSJ, 10/7/98, p.B1)
1775Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 29, Mexican Captain
Juan Bautista de Anza (39) and his party of Spanish soldiers and
setters departed Tubac, Arizona, on a journey to the SF Bay Area
following reports of a great river flowing into the bay. Anza led
240 soldiers, priests and settlers to Monterey. Jose Manuel Valencia
was one of the soldiers. His son, Candelario Valencia, later served
in the military at the Presidio and owned a ranch in Lafayette and
property next to Mission Dolores. One of the soldiers was Don Salvio
Pacheco.
   (SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)(SFC, 12/31/99, p.A22)(SFC,
9/14/13, p.C4)
1775Â Â Â Â Â Â Altar was founded in
Mexico’s Sonora state as a military base. It’s location 60 miles
south of Arizona later proved valuable as a jumping off point for
immigrant smuggling to the US.
   (Econ, 8/12/06, p.31)
1775Â Â Â Â Â Â The Monte de Piedad (Mount
of Pity), or National Pawn Shop, stands on the site of Moctezuma's
brother's palace in Mexico City. It was founded by the Count of
Regla. As a lender of last resort the shop provided loans worth
one-fifth to one-third an item’s value at interest rates of 4% a
month.
   (Hem., 1/96, p.50)(SFC, 1/15/98, p.A10)
1775Â Â Â Â Â Â Manuel Arroyo of Real del
Monte confessed to 30 counts of oral sex on men. He claimed that his
doctor told him it was good for his health and a way to avoid evil
thoughts about women. He was sentenced to 3 years in prison by the
Inquisition.
   (SFC, 9/18/96, p.A11)
1775-1776Â Â Â Juan Bautista de Anza led 198 colonists
and 1,000 cattle from Sonora, Mexico, to California.
   (SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1776Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 28, Mexican Captain
Juan Bautista de Anza, Lt. Jose Moraga, and Franciscan priest Pedro
Font arrived at the tip of San Francisco. De Anza planted a cross at
what is now Fort Point. They camped at Mountain Lake and searched
inland for a more hospitable area and found a site they called
Laguna de los Dolores or the Friday of Sorrows since the day was
Friday before Palm Sunday. Anza became known as the “father of SF.”
Mission Dolores was founded by Father Francisco Palou and Father
Pedro Cambon. Rancho San Pedro, near what is now Pacifica, served as
the agricultural center. Laguna de los Dolores was later believed to
be a spring near the modern-day corner of Duboce and Sanchez.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Bautista_de_Anza)(SFEC, 9/21/97,
p.C7)(SFEC, 3/1/98, p.W34)(SFC, 2/19/11, p.A10)
1777-1787Â Â Â Juan Bautista de Anza served as the
governor of New Mexico.
   (SFC, 6/7/00, p.A15)
1781Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 4, Mexican Provincial
Governor, Felipe de Neve, founded Los Angeles. He founded El Pueblo
de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles (Valley of Smokes),
originally named Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles de
Porciuncula, by Gaspar de Portola, a Spanish army captain and Juan
Crespi, a Franciscan priest, who had noticed the beautiful area as
they traveled north from San Diego in 1769. 44 Spanish settlers
named a tiny village near San Gabriel, Los Angeles. Los Angeles,
first an Indian village Yangma, was founded by Spanish decree. 26 of
the settlers were of African ancestry.
   (HFA, '96, p.38)(AP, 9/4/97)(SFEC, 4/12/98, Par
p.20)(HN, 9/4/98)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)(HN, 9/4/00)(MC, 9/4/01)
1784Â Â Â Â Â Â The 1st Spanish military
officer who explored the Mayan ruins of Palenque thought it was
Atlantis risen.
   (SSFC, 12/7/03, p.C10)
1786Â Â Â Â Â Â Andres Lopez of Mexico
painted "Sacred Heart of Jesus."
   (WSJ, 3/3/98, p.A16)
1788Â Â Â Â Â Â The Templo La Valenciana
church was built next to the Valenciana mine.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T10)
1790Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 17, An Aztec calendar
stone was discovered in Mexico City.
   (HFA, '96, p.44)(MC, 12/17/01)
1791Â Â Â Â Â Â May 14, In Mexico a time
capsule was placed atop a bell tower at Mexico City's Metropolitan
Cathedral when the building's topmost stone was laid, 218 years
after construction had begun. Workers restoring the church found it
in October, 2007.
   (AP, 1/15/08)
1792Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Campeche’s
northern fort, the Reducto de San Jose, was built. It later housed
the Museo de Barcas y Armas.
   (SSFC, 1/25/09, p.E5)
1794Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 21, Antonio Lopez de
Santa Anna, Mexican Revolutionary, was born.
   (HN, 2/21/98)
1801Â Â Â Â Â Â La Iglesia de Nuestra
Senora del Refugio was a Franciscan-style mission church built in
the border town of Guerrero Viejo.
   (SFC, 6/4/98, p.C2)
1803Â Â Â Â Â Â Alexander Von Humboldt,
German explorer and scientist, spent some time in Taxco. The house
where he stayed later became the Museum of Colonial Religious Art.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T7)
1805Â Â Â Â Â Â Spanish soldiers under Lt.
Francisco Ruiz discovered badgers in a canyon during an expedition
in southern California. The area was thus named El Tejon (the
badger).
   (SFC, 5/9/08, p.A1)
1806Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 21, Benito Juarez,
President of Mexico, was born in Oaxaca. He was Mexico's first
president of Indian ancestry and fought against the French and their
puppet emperor Maximilian.
   (AP, 3/21/97)(HN, 3/21/99)
1807Â Â Â Â Â Â Lieutenant Zebulon
Montgomery Pike strayed beyond the limits of the territory into the
Spanish-held territory of New Mexico, and was accused of spying by
Spanish authorities. The Spaniards released Pike and his men after
they could find no evidence against him. Pike’s explorations the
previous November had taken him to the Rockies, where he reached the
base of a mountain that would later be named Pikes Peak in his
honor. Pike’s mission was to explore the southwestern limits of the
Louisiana Territory, the vast tract of land that the United States
had purchased from France in 1803 in a deal known as the Louisiana
Purchase.
   (HNQ, 7/15/02)
1810      Sep 16, In Mexico
Father Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla delivered the cry for freedom in
front of a small crowd of his parishioners (The Grito de Dolores) in
Dolores Hidalgo. This action stemmed from meetings of the literary
and social club of Queretaro (now a central state of Mexico), which
included the priest, the mayor of the town, and a local military
captain named Ignacio Allende. They believed that New Spain should
be governed by the Creoles (criollos) rather than the Gachupines
(peninsulares). Rev. Hidalgo was joined by Rev. Jose Maria Morelos.
Both priests were later executed by firing squads. When Mexico
revolted the Spanish settlements began to fall apart. Under Mexican
rule the missions were secularized and the huge land holdings were
broken up. At age 55, Hidalgo was a tall, gaunt man who carried his
head habitually bent forward, giving him the appearance of a true
contemplative. But looks were deceiving. He had a restless, willful
nature, and his expressive green eyes shot fire when he argued
politics. In his student days, he had won debates and honors; as a
theologian he enjoyed considerable local renown. He was a visionary,
resentful of authority and with a touch of the crusader about him.
   (SFC, 5/19/96,CG, p.16)(SCal, Sep, 1995)(WSJ,
8/13/97, p.A12)(AP, 9/16/97)(HNQ, 12/17/00)
1810Â Â Â Â Â Â Juan Jose de los Reyes
Martinez, miner and revolutionary hero (El Pipila), joined some
20,000 rebels who stormed Guanajuato, Mexico, and cornered Spanish
colonists inside a granary. Martinez set fire to the granary and
died in the flames.
   (SSFC, 5/4/03, p.D6)
1810-1996Â Â Â This period of Mexican history is
covered by Enrique Krauze in his book: "Mexico: Biography of Power."
   (WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1811Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 31, Miguel Hidalgo y
Costilla, Mexican hero priest, was executed by Spanish.
   (MC, 7/31/02)
1811-1812Â Â Â During the war for independence the
crime rate rose to double digits for two years in a row.
   (SFEC, 1/26/97, p.A14)
1813Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 6, Chilpancingo
congress declared Mexico independent of Spain.
   (MC, 11/6/01)
1815Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 22, Spaniards executed
Mexican revolutionary priest Jose Maria Morelos (b.1765).
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Mar%C3%ADa_Morelos)
1817Â Â Â Â Â Â The Metropolitan Cathedral
in Mexico City was completed.
   (Hem., 1/96, p.49)
1817Â Â Â Â Â Â Pedro Moreno and Victor
Rosales died fighting Spain in western Mexico. Their bodies were
among 14 later placed in urns as hero’s of Mexico’s 1810-1821
independence movement. In 1925 urns holding the remains were sealed
in crypts at the Independence monument. Others in the urns included
Miguel Hidalgo and Ignacio Allende.
   (AP, 8/14/10)
1820Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican government
granted Luis Peralta (1759-1851) the 44,800-acre Rancho San Antonio
in the East Bay of northern California, for his military services.
The rancho ran from San Leandro Creek to a rise known as El Cerrito.
Peralta settled in San Jose, while his four sons took over the land
grant. The Peralta Hacienda in Oakland was built in 1870.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lu%C3%ADs_Mar%C3%ADa_Peralta)(SFC,
5/3/02, p.A20)(SFC, 11/26/10, p.D9)
1821Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 24, Mexico rebels
proclaimed the "Plan de Iguala," their declaration of independence
from Spain, and took over the mission lands in California.
   (HT, 3/97, p.61)(AP, 2/24/98)(HN, 2/24/98)
1821Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 23, After 11 years of
war, Spain granted Mexican independence as a constitutional
monarchy. Spanish Viceroy Juan de O'Donoju signed the Treaty of
Cordoba, which approved a plan to make Mexico an independent
constitutional monarchy.
   (HN, 8/23/00)(MC, 8/23/02)
1821Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 28, In the city of
Puebla a nun served a tri-colored chili dish to the Emperor Agustin
de Iturbide, who was on his way home from signing the Treaty of
Cordoba, which effectively freed Mexico from Spain. Iturbide, a
Creole, had led the suppression of the initial rebellion for
independence. He later abdicated, went into exile, returned and was
executed. After Iturbide Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna led the country
over 11 presidential terms.
   (WSJ, 9/5/96, p.B1)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1821Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 27, The Mexican Empire
declared its independence. Revolutionary forces occupied Mexico City
as the Spanish withdraw.
   (MC, 9/27/01)
1821Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexican rule began over
the New Mexico territory.
   (SSFC, 5/22/05, p.E12)
1821-1846Â Â Â Mexico ruled over California with a
series of 12 governors. During part of this time Gen’l. Jose Castro
commanded all of the Spanish forces in California and was an active
opponent of US rule in 1846.
   (SFEC, 9/21/97, p.C7)
1822Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 25, Gen. Agustin de
Iturbide was crowned Agustin I, 1st emperor of Mexico.
   (SC, 7/25/02)
1822Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug, William Richardson
(1795-1856) came to SF as first mate aboard the British whaler
Orion. He jumped ship and began living at the Presidio. In 1835 he
put up a tent in Yerba Buena, later renamed San Francisco, on Calle
de la Fundacion, a site later identified as 827 Grant Ave.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_A._Richardson)(SFC, 9/16/17
p.C2)
1822Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 12, Mexico was
officially recognized as an independent nation by US.
   (MC, 12/12/01)
1822Â Â Â Â Â Â California became part of
Mexico.
   (SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.4)
1822Â Â Â Â Â Â The mission of St.
Gertrude the Great on the Baha Peninsula was closed as the local
population diminished.
   (WSJ, 12/26/97, p.A9)
1823Â Â Â Â Â Â , Mexico forbade the sale
or purchase of slaves, and required that the children of slaves be
freed when they reached age fourteen.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery_in_Texas)
1824Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 4, The Federal
Constitution of the United Mexican States of 1824 was enacted, after
the overthrow of the Mexican Empire of Agustin de Iturbide. In the
new constitution, the republic took the name of United Mexican
States, and was defined as a representative federal republic, with
Catholicism as the official religion. A liberal constitution,
established at this time, was later replaced by Santa Anna.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1824_Constitution_of_Mexico)(AP,
9/15/10)
1824Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican governor of
California offered all missions for sale under a program of
secularization.
   (SFEC, 3/12/00, p.T4)
1824Â Â Â Â Â Â A Mexican General was
served chiles en nogada after he threw out the last Spanish viceroy.
The dish consisted of green chiles, pomegranate seeds and a white
walnut sauce.
   (WSJ, 12/11/98, p.A1)
1824Â Â Â Â Â Â Since this year budget
oversight has been handled by the executive branch.
   (WSJ, 11/30/95, p.A-12)
1828Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican city of
Valladolid was renamed Morelia after independence hero Jose Maria
Morelos
   (SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C11)
1829Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 25, Pres. Jackson made
an offer to buy Texas, but the Mexican government refused.
   (chblue.com, 8/25/01)
1829Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico abolished
slavery, but it granted an exception until 1830 to Texas. In
following years a southern US network helped thousands of American
Black slaves escape to Mexico.
   (AP, 9/16/20)
1829Â Â Â Â Â Â A hurricane destroyed the
town of Loreto in Baha California except for the Mission Nuestra
Senora de Loreto. The center of government was moved down the coast
to La Paz.
   (SFEC, 5/18/97, p.T5)(SSFC, 11/2/03, p.C10)
1831Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico appointed Manuel
Victoria to replace Alta California Gov. Jose Maria de Echeandia.
   (SFC, 4/4/15, p.C2)
1833Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico took mission
property from the Church and turned out the Acagchemem Indians at
Mission San Juan Capistrano.
   (HT, 3/97, p.61)
1833Â Â Â Â Â Â The people of Iztapalapa,
Mexico, began re-enacting the Passion of Christ, to give thanks for
divine protection during a cholera epidemic.
   (AP, 4/5/06)
1834Â Â Â Â Â Â Jose Bernal owned Rancho
Rincon de Las Salinas y Potrero. It included the land that later
became known as Hunters Point in San Francisco. La Punta de Conca
(seashell point) was later purchased by Robert and Philip Hunter who
arrived during the gold rush and bought the land to develop a town.
   (SSCM, 7/21/02, p.16)(SFL)
1835Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep, Texans petitioned for
statehood separate from Coahuila. They wrote out their needs and
their complaints in The Declaration of Causes. This document was
designed to convince the Federalists that the Texans desired only to
preserve the 1824 Constitution, which guaranteed the rights of
everyone living on Mexican soil. But by this time, Santa Anna was in
power, having seized control in 1833, and he advocated the removal
of all foreigners. His answer was to send his crack troops,
commanded by his brother-in-law, General Martin Perfecto de Css, to
San Antonio to disarm the Texans.
   (HNQ, 3/24/01)
1835Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 2, The first battle of
the Texas Revolution took place as American settlers fought Mexican
soldiers near the Guadalupe River; the Mexicans ended up
withdrawing.
   (AP, 10/2/08)
1835Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct, Before the Alamo,
Mexican General Css led troops against the small community of
Gonzales, since enshrined in history as the "Lexington of Texas."
San Antonio de Bixar went under military rule, with 1,200 Mexican
troops under General Css` command. When Css ordered the small
community of Gonzales, about 50 miles east of San Antonio, to return
a cannon loaned to the town for defense against Indian
attack--rightfully fearing that the citizens might use the cannon
against his own troops--the Gonzales residents refused. "Come and
take it!" they taunted, setting off a charge of old chains and scrap
iron, shot from the mouth of the tiny cannon mounted on ox-cart
wheels. Although the only casualty was one Mexican soldier, Gonzales
became enshrined as the "Lexington of Texas." The Texas Revolution
was on.
   (HNQ, 3/24/01)
1835Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 13, Texans officially
proclaimed Independence from Mexico, and called itself the Lone Star
Republic, after its flag, until its admission to the Union in 1845.
   (HN, 11/13/98)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 12, Mexican General
Santa Anna crossed the Rio Grande en route to the Alamo.
   (HN, 2/12/99)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 23, The Alamo was
besieged by Santa Anna. Thus began the siege of the Alamo, a 13-day
moment in history that turned a ruined Spanish mission in San
Antonio, Texas, into a shrine known and revered the world over. In
2012 James Donovan authored “The Blood of Heroes: The 13-Day
Struggle for the Alamo – and the Sacrifice That Forged a Nation.
   (AP, 2/23/98)(Econ, 6/2/12, p.99)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 24, Some 3,000
Mexicans under Gen. Santa Ana launched an assault on the Alamo, with
its 182 Texan defenders. The siege lasted 13 days.
   (HN, 2/24/98)(MC, 2/24/02)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 27, Mexican forces
under General Jose de Urrea defeated Texan forces at the Battle of
San Patricio.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliad_Campaign)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 2, Texas declared its
independence from Mexico on Sam Houston's 43rd birthday. The first
vice-president was Lorenzo de Zavala. Mexico refused to recognize
Texas but diplomatic relations were established with the US, Britain
and France. Texas was an independent republic until 1845.
   (WSJ, 11/21/95, p.A-12)(WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)(SFC,
4/28/97, p.A3)(AP, 3/2/98)(HN, 3/2/99)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 2, Mexican forces
under General Jose de Urrea defeated Texan forces at the Battle of
Agua Dulce.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliad_Campaign)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 6, The Alamo fell
after fighting for 13 days. Angered by a new Mexican constitution
that removed much of their autonomy, Texans seized the Alamo in San
Antonio in December 1835. Mexican president General Antonio Lopez de
Santa Anna marched into Texas to put down the rebellion. By late
February, 1836, 182 Texans, led by Colonel William Travis, held the
former mission complex against Santa Anna’s [3,000] 6,000 troops. At
4 a.m. on March 6, after fighting for 13 days, Santa Anna’s troops
charged. In the battle that followed, all the Alamo defenders were
killed while the Mexicans suffered about 2,000 casualties. Santa
Anna dismissed the Alamo conquest as "a small affair," but the time
bought by the Alamo defenders’ lives permitted General Sam Houston
to forge an army that would win the Battle of San Jacinto and,
ultimately, Texas’ independence. Mexican Lt. Col. Pena later wrote a
memoir: "With Santa Anna in Texas: Diary of Jose Enrique de la
Pena," that described the capture and execution of Davy Crockett and
6 other Alamo defenders. In 1975 a translation of the diary by
Carmen Perry (d.1999) was published. Apparently, only one Texan
combatant survived Jose María Guerrero, who persuaded his captors he
had been forced to fight. Women, children, and a black slave, were
spared.
   (AP, 3/6/98)(HN, 3/6/98)(HNPD, 3/6/99)(SFC,
6/15/99, p.C6)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 12, Mexican forces
under General Jose de Urrea defeated Texan forces at the Battle of
Refugio.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliad_Campaign)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 13, Refugees from the
Alamo arrived in Gonzales, Texas, and informed Gen. Sam Houston of
the March 6 fall of the Alamo. Houston immediately ordered a
retreat.
   (ON, 8/10, p.1)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 20, At Coleto Creek,
Texas, Colonel James Fannin after being surrounded by Mexican forces
under General Urrea, agreed to surrender to Colonel Juan Jose
Holzinger. Fannin was unaware that General Santa Anna had decreed
execution for all rebels. Urrea negotiated the surrender "at the
disposal of the Supreme Mexican Government," falsely stating that no
prisoner taken on those terms had lost his life.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliad_Campaign)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 26, Mexican Colonel
Jose Nicolas de la Portilla received orders from Gen. Santa Anna in
triplicate to execute his Texan prisoners at Goliad.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliad_Campaign)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 27, Mexican Colonel
Jose Nicolas de la Portilla executed his Texan prisoners at Goliad.
Colonel Portilla had the 342 Texians marched out of Fort Defiance
into three columns. The Texians were then fired on at point-blank
range. The wounded and dying were then clubbed and stabbed. Those
who survived the initial volley were run down by the Mexican
cavalry.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goliad_Campaign)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar, Thousands of English
speaking Texans abandoned their homes as the Mexican army advanced
following the fall of the Alamo. They fled toward Louisiana in what
came to be called the “Runaway Scrape.”
   (ON, 8/10, p.2)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 21, Some 910 Texians
led by Sam Houston, the former governor of Tennessee, defeated the
Mexican army under Gen. Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna at San Jacinto.
The victory in the 18 minute battle sealed Texan independence from
Mexico. Houston counted 9 fatalities. 630 Mexicans were killed out
of some 1,250 troops. Some 700 were taken prisoner.
   (AP, 4/21/97)(HN, 4/21/98)(AH, 2/03, p.22)(ON,
8/10, p.3)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 12, Mexican
authorities crushed the revolt which broke out on August 25.
   (HN, 9/12/98)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct, Don Juan Alvarado,
president of the 7-man legislature in the Mexican territory of
California, fled Monterey with his deputies to Mission San Juan
Bautista under threats from Lt. Col. Nicolas Gutierrez, the military
governor. There they formed plans for a coup.
   (ON, 4/04, p.9)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 4, Don Juan Alvarado
and a group of followers forced the surrender of Lt. Col. Nicolas
Gutierrez, the military governor Monterey. The quickly drafted
a constitution and proclaimed California independent of Mexico.
Officials in southern California refused to recognize Alvarado's
government and he agreed to make California a territory of Mexico
with himself as governor.
   (ON, 4/04, p.10)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 28, Spain recognized
the independence of Mexico.
   (MC, 12/28/01)
1836Â Â Â Â Â Â The remains of Hernando
Cortes (d.1547), the Spanish conquistador who subdued Aztec king
Montezuma and stole his wife, were brought to Mexico from Spain and
laid to rest in Mexico City.
   (WSJ, 12/14/00, p.A8)
1838Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 30, Mexico declared
war on France.
   (HN, 11/30/98)
1839Â Â Â Â Â Â The Bernal Heights area of
SF, Ca., began to be developed as part of a Mexican land grant
belonging to Don Jose Cornelio Bernal.
   (SFC, 6/29/06, 96 Hours p.41)
1840s      A native rebellion called
the Caste War broke out in southern Mexico against the ruling
hacienda class. The 22,000 square-foot palacio of Hacienda Tabi in
the Yucatan was sacked.
   (Arch, 1/05, p.45)
1841Â Â Â Â Â Â John Lloyd Stephens
published "Incidents of Travel in Central America, Chiapas and
Yucatan" with illustrations by Frederick Catherwood.
   (ON, 12/99, p.8)
1842Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 18, US Commodore
Thomas ap Catesby Jones sailed into Monterey, the MexicanÂ
capital of California, on the mistaken belief that the US and Mexico
had gone to war.
   (SFC, 1/9/04, p.D2)
1842Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 19, US Commodore
Thomas ap Catesby Jones ordered the surrender of Mexican officials
in Monterey, Ca., on the mistaken belief that the US and Mexico had
gone to war. He soon learned of his error and returned Monterey to
Mexican authority.
   (SFC, 1/9/04, p.D2)
1842Â Â Â Â Â Â John Lloyd Stephens and
Frederick Catherwood returned to Mexico and later produced a 2nd
book titled: Incidents of Travel in Yucatan," which described their
discovery of 44 additional ruined cities in southeastern Mexico.
   (ON, 12/99, p.8)
1843Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 25, Seventeen Texans,
who picked black beans from a jar otherwise filled with white beans,
were executed by a Mexican firing squad. After months of raiding,
captivity and escapes in Northern Mexico, Mexican president Antonio
Lopez de Santa Anna ordered the execution of one tenth of the 176
Texas freebooters of the Mier Expedition. The event was later
depicted by artist Theodore Gentilz.
   (HNPD, 3/27/00)
1843Â Â Â Â Â Â William Hickling Prescott
(1796-1859), American Historian, authored "History of the Conquest
of Mexico."
   (ON, 10/00, p.5)(WSJ, 8/16/08, p.W6)
1843Â Â Â Â Â Â In California a land grant
established Rancho El Tejon. The area was named El Tejon (the
badger) after Spanish soldiers under Lt. Francisco Ruiz discovered
the species during an 1805 expedition.
   (SFC, 5/9/08, p.A1)
1845Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 28, Mexico dropped
diplomatic relations with US.
   (MC, 3/28/02)
1845Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 29, Texas (comprised
of the present State of Texas and part of New Mexico, Colorado, and
Wyoming) was admitted as the 28th state, with the provision that the
area (389, 166 square miles) should be divided into no more than
five states "of convenient size." Sam Houston insisted on
maintaining control of offshore waters as a condition of joining the
union. The annexation of Texas led Mexico and the US to prepare for
war.
   (AP, 12/29/97)(Econ, 7/1/06, p.29)(SFC, 1/11/20,
p.C2)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 13, President James
Polk dispatched General Zachary Taylor and 4,000 troops to the Texas
Border as war with Mexico loomed. At the outset of the
Mexican-American War, the Mexican army numbered 32,000 and the
American army consisted of 7,200 men. The American army had, since
1815, only fought against a few Indian tribes. Forty-two percent of
the army was made up of recent German or Irish immigrants. In the
course of the war, the total U.S. force employed reached 104,000. In
2008 Martin Dugard authored “The Training Ground: Grant, Lee,
Sherman, and Davis in the Mexican War, 1846-1848.” In 2012 Amy S.
Greenberg authored “A Wicked War: Polk, Clay, Lincoln and the 1846
US Invasion of Mexico.”
   (HNQ, 2/28/99)(WSJ, 5/16/08, p.W8)(SSFC, 1/6/13,
p.F6)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â May 8, News reached
Washington DC that Mexican troops had attacked a US reconnaissance
patrol near the Rio Grande and killed or captured some 40 men. That
same afternoon Polk and his cabinet had decided to ask Congress for
a declaration of war against Mexico.
   (AH, 6/07, p.44)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â May 8, The first major
battle of the Mexican-American War was fought at Palo Alto, Texas;
US forces led by General Zachary Taylor were able to beat back the
invading Mexican forces.
   (AP, 5/8/07)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â May 9, US forced Mexico
back to Rio Grande in the Battle of Resaca de la Palma.
   (MC, 5/9/02)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â May 9, Gen. Mariano Arista
crossed the Rio Grande and killed a number of US soldiers in a
surprise attack. Mexico believed that France and Britain would
support it in a war against the US.
   (WP, 6/29/96, p.A15)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â May 18, US troops attacked
at the Rio Grande and occupied Matamoros.
   (SC, 5/18/02)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â May 24, General Zachary
Taylor captured Monterey in the Mexican War. [see Sep 25]
   (HN, 5/24/98)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 22, The United States
annexed New Mexico. The US pledged to honor the land grants in
northern New Mexico that were awarded by the Spanish and Mexican
governors of the territory.
   (AP, 8/22/97)(WSJ, 5/7/99, p.A6)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 25, American General
Zachary Taylor's forces captured Monterey, Mexico. [see May 24]
   (HN, 9/25/98)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 16, General Zachary
Taylor took Saltillo, Mexico. General, cried Brig. Gen. John Wool in
despair, we are whipped! I know it, replied Maj. Gen. Zachary
Taylor, but the volunteers don't know it. Let them alone; we'll see
what they do.
   (HN, 11/16/98)
1846Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 6, Mounted Californio
lancers overwhelmed the troops of Gen. Steven Kearny at the Battle
of San Pasqual (San Diego). This was the worst defeat suffered by US
troops in the California campaign of the Mexican-American War.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_San_Pasqual)(SFC, 9/1/18,
p.C1)
c1846Â Â Â Â Â Â Santa Anna was recalled
to serve as president and to lead the army.
   (WSJ, 5/29/98, p.W10)
1846-1848Â Â Â US troops invaded and captured Mexico
City.
   (SFC, 12/10/96, p.A12)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 24, 1,500 New Mexican
Indians and Mexicans were defeated by US Col. Price.
   (MC, 1/24/02)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 22, In the Battle of
Buena Vista US troops beat Mexican army during the Mexican-American
War. Mexican General Santa Anna (of Alamo infamy) surrounded the
outnumbered forces of U.S. General Zachary Taylor ('Old Rough and
Ready') at the Angostura Pass in Mexico and demanded an immediate
surrender. Taylor refused, reported to reply, "Tell him to go to
hell," and early the next morning Santa Anna dispatched some 15,000
troops to move against the 5,000 Americans. The superior US
artillery was able to halt one of the two advancing Mexican
divisions. By the afternoon Taylor had lived up to his word as the
Mexicans began to withdraw.
   (MC, 2/22/02)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 23, U.S. troops under
Gen. Zachary Taylor defeated Mexican Gen. Santa Anna at the Battle
of Buena Vista in Mexico. The United States and Mexico had been at
war over territorial disputes since May 1846.
   (AP, 2/23/98)(HN, 2/23/98)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 28, Colonel Alexander
Doniphan and his ragtag Missouri Mounted Volunteers rode to victory
at the Battle of Sacramento, during the Mexican War.
   (HN, 2/28/99)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 7, U.S. General Scott
occupied Veracruz, Mexico. Pres. Polk decided to attack the heart of
Mexico. He sent Gen. Winfield Scott, who landed at Veracruz and with
his troops hacked their way to Mexico City. [see Mar 9]
   (HFA, '96, p.48)(HN, 3/7/98)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 9, US forces under
General Winfield Scott invaded Mexico (Mexican-American War) 3 miles
south of Vera Cruz. Encountering almost no resistance from the
Mexicans massed in the fortified city of Vera Cruz, by nightfall the
last of Scott's 10,000 men came ashore without the loss of a single
life. It was the largest amphibious landing in U.S. history until WW
II. [see Mar 7]
   (MC, 3/9/02)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 29, Some 12,000 US
forces led by General Winfield Scott occupied the city of Vera Cruz
after Mexican defenders capitulated.
   (HFA, '96, p.26)(AP, 3/29/97)(MC, 3/29/02)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 18, U.S. forces
defeated the Mexicans at Cerro Gordo in one of the bloodiest battle
of the war.
   (HN, 4/18/99)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 20, General Winfield
Scott won the battle of Churubusco on his drive to Mexico City. The
Mexican War gave future civil war generals their first taste of
combat.
   (HN, 8/20/98)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 8, The US under Gen.
Scott defeated Mexicans at Battle of Molino del Rey.
   (MC, 9/8/01)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 13, US General
Winfield Scott took Chapultepec, removing the last obstacle to his
troops moving on Mexico City. Six teenage military cadets later
became known as “Los Ninos Heroes” for their defense of Chapultepec
Castle.
   (HN,
9/13/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ni%C3%B1os_H%C3%A9roes)
1847Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 14, US forces under
Gen. Winfield Scott took control of Mexico City (the "Halls of
Montezuma"). The Mexican forces fled with their leader, Santa Anna.
   (HFA, '96, p.48)(AP, 9/14/97)
1847-1901Â Â Â The Caste War of Yucatan extended over
this period. it began with the revolt of the native Maya people
against the population of European descent (called Yucatecos) in
political and economic control. In 2017 the wreck of paddle-wheel
steamboat "La Union," which had carried Mayan people during this
period into virtual slavery to Cuba, was found.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_War_of_Yucat%C3%A1n)(SFC,
9/16/20, p.A2)
1848Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 2, US and Mexico
signed the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo. Mexico ceded one-third of
its territory to the US including California, agreed to the Rio
Grande as the boundary between Texas and Mexico and was awarded $15
million. 25,000 Mexicans and 12,000 Americans lost their lives in
the 17-month old conflict.
   (HFA, ‘96, p.48)(SFC, 6/13/96, p.A17)(HN, 2/2/99)
1848Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 10, The US Senate
ratified the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, ending the war with
Mexico.
   (AP, 3/10/98)(HN, 3/10/98)
1848Â Â Â Â Â Â May 30, Mexico ratified
the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo giving US: New Mexico, California
and parts of Nevada, Utah, Arizona & Colorado in return for $15
million.
   (MC, 5/30/02)
1848Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico was forced to sell
most of the territory that is now Arizona to the United States
following its defeat in the Mexican-American war.
   (AP, 5/20/10)
1852Â Â Â Â Â Â Capt. Charles Melville
Scammon, a whaler, discovered the spawning area of the Pacific gray
whales in the lagoons of Magdalena Bay off the Baha coast.
   (SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1853Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 15, William Walker set
out from San Francisco with 45 men to conquer the Mexican
territories of Baja California Territory and Sonora State. He
succeeded in capturing La Paz, the capital of sparsely populated
Baja California, which he declared the capital of a new Republic of
Lower California, with himself as president and his former law
partner, Henry P. Watkins, as vice president. He then put the region
under the laws of the American state of Louisiana, which made
slavery legal.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Walker_(filibuster))(SFC,
8/1/15, p.C2)
1853Â Â Â Â Â Â Benito Juarez, patriot and
reformer, was locked up for 11 days in the dungeon of the fortress
of San Juan de Ulua in Veracruz.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1854      Jan 10, William
Walker proclaimed the independence of lower California, calling it
the Republic of Sonora. A serious lack of supplies, discontent
within his party and an unexpectedly strong resistance by the
Mexican government quickly forced Walker to retreat and return to
San Francisco where he was tried but quickly acquitted.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republic_of_Sonora)(SFC, 8/1/15,
p.C2)
1854Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 12, French adventurer
Count Gaston Raousset-Boulbon (b.1817) was shot and killed by a
Mexican firing squad. He had led some 112 gold miners from
California’s Tuolumne County on an invasion of Mexico.
  Â
(https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaston_de_Raousset-Boulbon)(SFC,
9/5/15, p.C2)
1854Â Â Â Â Â Â Julia Pastrana (20) became
known as the "ape woman" after she left the Mexico’s Pacific coast
state of Sinaloa. A rare genetic condition covered her face in thick
hair. She was taken around the United States by showman Theodore
Lent. She and Lent married and had a son, but she developed a fever
related to complications from childbirth, and died along with her
baby in 1860 in Moscow. In 2013Â the University of Oslo,
Norway, shipped her remains back to Sinaloa, where they were laid to
rest.
   (AP, 2/13/13)
1855-1926Â Â Â An estimated 3,350 gray whales were
harpooned in Magdalena Bay.
   (SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1858Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 21, Felix Marma
Zuloaga became president of Mexico upon the ouster of Ignacio
Comonfort.
   (AP, 1/21/08)
1858Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 15, At the Battle of
Azimghur, Mexicans defeated the Spanish loyalists.
   (HN, 4/15/98)
1858Â Â Â Â Â Â May 4, In the Mexican War
of Reform liberals established their capital at Vera Cruz.
   (MC, 5/4/02)
1858-1862Â Â Â Benito Juarez served his 1st term as
president. He succeeded in resisting the French and offered a moment
of democracy before bending the constitution to stand for
re-election.
   (WUD, 1994, p.772)(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A12)
1859Â Â Â Â Â Â Melchor Ocampo, a Mexican
lawyer, scientist and liberal politician, penned a 537-word ode to
marriage, which was incorporated as the vows in a new civil marriage
law. They were meant to replace religious vows as Mexican liberals
stripped away the Roman Catholic Church’s control over much of the
country’s political, social and economic life. Conservative foes
summarily executed Ocampo by firing squad for promoting the
separation of church and state, but kept the amended vows in the new
civil marriage law.
   (AP, 7/30/06)
1860Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico City the
Hosteria de Santo Domingo restaurant began serving Chile en Nogada,
a chili dish that displays the national colors (green, white &
red).
   (WSJ, 9/5/96, p.B1)
1861Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec, French, British and
Spanish troops landed at Veracruz, Mexico, seeking to force Benito
Juarez to resume his financial obligations.
   (PCh, 1992, p.485)
1862Â Â Â Â Â Â May 5, At the Battle of
Pueblo, a [2,000] 5,000 man Mexican force (cavalry), loyal to Benito
Juarez and under the leadership of Gen’l. Ignacio Zaragoza, defeated
6,000 [10,000] French troops sent by Napoleon III. The French were
attempting to capture Puebla de Los Angeles, a small town in
east-central Mexico. The Battle of Puebla represented a great moral
victory for the Mexican government, symbolizing the country's
ability to defend its sovereignty against threat by a powerful
foreign nation. The event became memorialized in the Cinco de Mayo
annual festival. Napoleon had intended to march through to the US
and help the Confederacy in the Civil War.
   (SFEM, 4/27/97, p.6)(AP, 5/5/97)(SFEC,11/9/97,
p.T6)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T8)(SFC, 5/1/99, p.A13)(WSJ, 5/5/00,
p.W17)(MC, 5/5/02)
1863Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 7, Mexico City was
captured by French troops.
   (HN, 6/7/98)
1863Â Â Â Â Â Â French forces captured
Puebla.
   (SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)
1864Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 10, The French crowned
Archduke Maximilian, the younger brother of Austria’s Franz Josef,
as ruler of Mexico.
   (CLTIH, 4/10/96)(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.W17)
1864Â Â Â Â Â Â May 29, Mexican Emperor
Maximilian arrived at Vera Cruz.
   (SC, 5/29/02)
1867Â Â Â Â Â Â May 5, At the Battle of
Puebla, the Mexican Juarez forces under Mariano Escobedo defeated
Maximilian's forces at Gueratero.
   (HN, 5/5/98)(PCh, 1992, p.505)
1867Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 19, Mexican Emperor
and Austrian Archduke Maximillian (35) was executed on the orders of
Benito Juarez by a firing squad in Queretaro. The event was
immortalized in a painting by Manet.
   (HN, 6/19/98)(SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T10)(PCh, 1992,
p.505)(WSJ, 5/5/00, p.17)
1867-1871Â Â Â Benito Juarez served his 2ndt term as
president.
   (WUD, 1994, p.772)(SFC, 4/5/01, p.A12)
1869Â Â Â Â Â Â The Santo Madero Church
was built in Parras de la Fuente.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
1870Â Â Â Â Â Â Tequila Herradura began
producing tequila at the Hacienda San Jose del Refugio in the
highlands of Jalisco state. Their tequila was made from 100%
blue-agave juice.
   (WSJ, 5/3/99, p.A1)
1872Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 18, Benito Juarez
(66), general (battle of Acapulco) and Pres. of Mexico (1858-1872),
died of a heart attack in the National Palace.
   (MC, 7/18/02)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1875Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 12, Mayan Indians
attacked the Xuxub sugar plantation in the Yucatan and dozens of
workers were killed or taken captive. Bernadino Cen, the Mayan
leader, was killed when the Mexican National Guard arrived the next
day. In 2004 Paul Sullivan authored “Xuxub Must Die.”
   (WSJ, 5/13/04, p.D10)
1875Â Â Â Â Â Â In the early autumn
Brigham Young sent Daniel W. Jones and five elders on horseback to
Mexico. During the 3,000-mile trip, the missionaries stopped
frequently in New Mexico and Arizona, preaching the gospel and
converting Indians. Jones and his team arrived in Franklin, Texas,
(El Paso) in 1876, crossing through present-day Juarez. They were
warmly welcomed by Mexican officials.
  Â
(www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/19_mormons.htm)
1876Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 20, Antonio L de Santa
Ana, president of Mexico and victor at Alamo, died.
   (MC, 6/20/02)
1876Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 28, Porfirio Diaz
(1830-1915) rose to the presidency following a coup. He was an
economically progressive leader, imposed brutal order on the
countryside and liberated Mexico City from its perennial
floods. Díaz was forced to resign in May 1911 and went into
exile in Paris, where he died four years later.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porfirio_D%C3%ADaz)(WSJ, 8/13/97,
p.A12)(WSJ, 12/14/00, p.A1)
1877 Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 1, U.S. troops were
authorized to pursue bandits into Mexico.
   (DT internet 6/1/97)
1877Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 4, Pancho Villa
(d.1923), [Doroteo Arango], Mexican revolutionary rebel, was born.
[see Jun 5, 1878]
   (MC, 10/4/01)
1878Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 5, Francisco "Pancho"
Villa (d.1923), Mexican revolutionary and guerrilla leader, was
born. He defied American General John J. Pershing’s expedition for
him. [see Oct 4, 1877]
   (HN, 6/5/99)
1878Â Â Â Â Â Â Maria Guadalupe Garcia
Zavala (d.1963) was born in Mexico. She co-founded the Congregation
of the Servants of Saint Margaret Mary and the Poor and was
beatified in 2004.
   (AP, 4/25/04)
1879Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 8, Emiliano Zapata,
Mexican revolutionary who occupied Mexico City three times, was born
in Anenecuilco, Morelos state, Mexico.
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emiliano_Zapata)
1880Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 14, Apache leader
Victorio was slain in Mexico. [see Oct 15]
   (HN, 10/14/98)
1880Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 15, Victorio, feared
leader of the Minbreno Apache, was killed by Mexican troops in
northwestern Chihuahua, Mexico. [see Oct 14]
   (HN, 10/15/98)
1880s      The Palace of Justice in
Vallodolid, Mexico, was built by Belgian engineer Guillermo Wodon de
Sorinne.
   (SSFC, 11/17/02, p.C11)
1883Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 8, Emiliano Zapata,
Mexican revolutionary who occupied Mexico City three times, was
born. [see 1877].
   (HN, 8/8/98)(WUD, 1994 p.1659)
1885Â Â Â Â Â Â May 15, Mormons began an
exodus from the United States into Mexico. Chihuahua Governor Ochoa
had agreed to sell land to the Mormons to colonize. Church President
John Taylor had explored the area and church officials selected
Casas Grandes, a valley in the state of Chihuahua, as the place to
begin settlement.
  Â
(www.epcc.edu/nwlibrary/borderlands/19_mormons.htm)
1886Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 8, Diego Rivera
(d.1957), Mexican painter, was born in Guanajuato.
   (SSFC, 8/19/12, p.P2)
1886Â Â Â Â Â Â The Tequila San Matias
company in Guadalajara began tequila production.
   (SFEC,10/19/97, Z1 p.4)
1888Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the Santo Tomas
Winery was founded near Ensenada.
   (SFC, 9/27/96, p.E3)
1889Â Â Â Â Â Â After the Paris World Fair
a church designed by Alexandre Gustave Eiffel was dismantled and
shipped to Santa Rosalia in Baja, Mexico.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T11)
1891Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the El Palacio
de Hierro (The Iron Palace) chain of stores was founded to bring
Parisian fashion to posh ladies of the new world.
   (Econ, 12/8/12, p.67)
1892Â Â Â Â Â Â In Merida the Palacio de
Gobierno was built on the site of the governors’ palace.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1893Â Â Â Â Â Â Don Evaristo Madero,
grandfather of Francisco Madero, bought the San Lorenzo Hacienda and
winery.
   (SFEC, 11/7/99, p.T8)
1894Â Â Â Â Â Â Edward Herbert Thompson,
American consul, purchased land in the Yucatan that contained the
ruins of the Mayan city of Chichen Itza.
   (ON, 5/02, p.6)
1895Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 14, Nigel Bruce, actor
(Dr Watson in Sherlock Holmes movies), was born in Baja, Mexico.
   (MC, 2/14/02)
1895Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 22, Paul Muni, actor
(Academy Award 1936-Angel on My Shoulder), was born in Juarez.
   (MC, 9/22/01)
1896Â Â Â Â Â Â Amado Nervo (1870-1919),
Mexican poet, journalist and educator. published "The Elysian Fields
of Tabasco." Here he noted how families in Tabasco used classical
names for newborns rather than saints' names.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amado_Nervo)(Econ., 10/3/20, p.28)
1896Â Â Â Â Â Â Moises Saba Amigo arrived
in Mexico from Aleppo, Syria. He was part of a large migration of
Jews known as "Turcos" from Syria and Palestine whose passports were
issued by Ottoman Turkey. He started peddling dry goods and moved up
to a chain of stores, then textiles. The family savings were put
into real estate. The Saba family were billionaires by 1997.
   (WSJ, 8/22/97, p.A10)
1898Â Â Â Â Â Â May 31, German List
(d.1998) was born in Puebla. He became a poet and chronicled the
Mexican Revolution from 1910-1920.
   (SFC, 10/20/98, p.A22)
1900Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 31, In Mexico it was
rumored in San Jose de Gracia, Michoacan state, that the world would
come to an end on this date. A 1968 biography of this was recorded
in "Pueblo en Vilo" (Town on Edge) by Luis Gonzalez y Gonzales,
considered to be the founder of microhistory in Mexico.
   (Econ., 10/3/20, p.71)
1899Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 31, Silvestre
Revueltas (d.1940), violinist, conductor and composer (Sensemaya),
was born in Santiago, Papasquiaro, Mexico.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvestre_Revueltas)
1900Â Â Â Â Â Â Jose Eca de Queiroz,
Portuguese novelist, died. His novels included an 1875 satire about
a priest struggling with his vows of celibacy. It was made into a
Mexican film "El Crimen del Padre Amaro" (The Crime of Father
Amaro) in 2002.
   (AP, 8/9/02)
1900-1908Â Â Â In Merida the Teatro Peon Contreras was
built during the boom years of henequen trade. A thorny agave plant
provided a natural rope fiber, sisal, that made the Yucatan
plantation owners rich until synthetic ropes were developed.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)  Â
1900-1910Â Â Â Simon Bley, banker and politician,
served as the mayor of Hermosillo.
   (SFC, 11/2/99, p.A26)
1901Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 2, Mexican government
troops were badly beaten by Yaqui Indians.
   (HN, 2/2/99)
1901Â Â Â Â Â Â A silver refinery was
established in Torreon in Coahuila state. Land for housing was sold
next to the area in the 1970’s and in 1998 a pediatrician began
noticing high levels of lead among the children. The Met Mex Penoles
plant had created a mountain of slag over the years and poisonous
lead seeped into the blood of thousands of children in the area. In
1999 a plan was announced to evacuate a 20-block area. 393 homes
were to be bulldozed for a 15-acre buffer zone in a $36 million
cleanup program, the largest ever by a Mexican company.
   (SFC, 5/6/99, p.C2)(Econ, 9/3/11, p.37)
1901Â Â Â Â Â Â Colorado River water first
flowed to California's arid southeast on the Alamo Canal, which
dipped into Mexico. California farmers soon decided they needed a
canal completely within the United States, leading to completion of
the All-American Canal in 1942.
   (AP, 3/18/06)(Econ, 8/1/09, p.71)
1902Â Â Â Â Â Â A massacre by Mexican
federal troops, "the Battle of the Sierra Mazatan," killed about 150
Yaqui men, women and children. US anthropologist Ales Hrdlicka came
upon some of the bodies while they were still decaying, hacked off
the heads with a machete and boiled them to remove the flesh for his
study of Mexico's "races." He sent the resulting collection to the
New York museum. In 2009 Yaqui Indians buried their lost warriors
after a two-year effort to rescue the remains from New York's
American Museum of Natural History.
   (AP, 11/17/09)
1903Â Â Â Â Â Â El Teatro Juarez was
completed in Guanajuato after 20 years of construction.
   (SSFC, 5/4/03, p.D6)
1904-1909Â Â Â Edward Herbert Thompson led dredging
operations at the sacred well of Chichen Itza.
   (ON, 5/02, p.7)
1905Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 3, Dolores Del Rio,
actress (What Price Glory?), was born in Mexico.
   (SC, 8/3/02)
1905Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico’s Islas Marias
penal colony was founded. It was about 112 kms (70 miles) from the
mainland Pacific coast resort of Puerto Vallarta. The Maria
Madre island penal colony was ordered closed in 2019.
   (AP, 11/24/11)(AP, 2/18/19)
1905Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Pres. Diaz and
his finance minister, Jose Limantour, set a silver-gold parity of
32:1, that proved to be a deflationary mistake on the eve of
revolution.
   (WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1906Â Â Â Â Â Â The Cemex company was
founded in Mexico with the opening of Cementos Hidalgo. In 1920
Cementos Portland Monterrey began operations and in 1931 the 2
companies merged to become Cementos Mexicanos.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cemex)
1907Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 6, Artist Frida Kahlo
(d.1954) was born in Coyoacan, Mexico.
   (SFC, 4/18/96, E-1)(SFC, 7/14/96, p.C11)(AP,
7/6/07)
1907Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 8, George W. Romney,
later governor of Michigan, was born in Chihuahua, Mexico. He
later was a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination
until he admitted that he had been "brainwashed" by the military on
the Vietnam War.
   (HN, 7/8/98)(SSFC, 2/25/07, p.A4)
1908Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 18, Lupe Velez
(d.1944), film star, was born in San Luis Potosi, Mexico. Her over
40 films included “The Gaucho” (1927).
  Â
(www.imdb.com/name/nm0892473/)(www.youtube.com/watch?v=mArs7CMZYtg)
1908Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico at least 5,000
Yaqui had been sold into slavery by this time. During the 34-year
rule of Mexican dictator Porfirio Diaz (1876-1911), the government
repeatedly provoked the Yaqui remaining in Sonora to rebellion in
order to seize their land for exploitation by investors for both
mining and agricultural use.
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui)
1909Â Â Â Â Â Â The legendary Jesus
Malverde, a Mexican Robin Hood who rode the hills around Culiacan in
Sinaloa State, was supposedly hanged by the government and left to
rot. The legendary crime figure became revered as a saint by many of
the country's drug traffickers. In 2007 housewife Maria Alicia
Pulido Sanchez built him a shrine in Mexico City after her son
Marcos Abel recovered from injuries he suffered in a December 2005
car crash in just three days when she prayed to a Malverde statue a
friend had given her.
   (SFEC, 3/2/97, p.A14)(AP, 1/23/07)
1910Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 20, Mexican President
Porfirio Diaz proclaimed martial law and arrested hundreds.
   (HN, 6/20/98)
1910Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 18, The first shots of
the revolution were fired in Puebla when federal police attacked the
home of Aquiles Serdan, a shoe store owner agitating against Diaz.
   (SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6)
1910Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 20, Revolution broke
out in Mexico. Francisco I. Madero called for a rise to national
arms on this day when dictator Porfirio Diaz reneged on his pledge
to stay out of the presidential election.
   (SFEC,11/9/97, p.T6) (AP, 11/20/97)
1910Â Â Â Â Â Â The Revolution became a
consuming civil war.
   (SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1910Â Â Â Â Â Â The National Autonomous
University of Mexico was re-founded after being closed for 39 years
due to civil wars.
   (WSJ, 9/1/99, p.A8)
1910-1920Â Â Â Over 1 million people died during the
revolution.
   (SFC, 10/20/98, p.A22)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 24, U.S. Cavalry was
sent to preserve the neutrality of the Rio Grande during the Mexican
Civil War.
   (HN, 1/24/99)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan, A pair of U.S. Army
aviators dropped the first live bomb. The Mexican Revolution gave
the opportunity to use the airplane in actual combat. Airplanes had
already begun to replace balloons for battlefield observation.
   (HNQ, 7/16/00)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 7, The United States
sent 20,000 troops to the Mexican border in the wake of the Mexican
Revolution.
   (AP, 3/7/98)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 12, Gustavo Diaz
Ordaz, president of Mexico, was born.
   (HN, 3/12/98)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â May 13, In Mexico
revolutionary troops overan the city of Torreon. 303 Chinese men,
women and children were killed over the next 3 days by a local
mob and the revolutionary forces of Francisco I. Madero. In 2021
Pres. Andres manuel Lopez Obrador presented an apology for the
massacre.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torre%C3%B3n_massacre)(SFC, 5/17/21,
p.A4)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â May 25, Porfirio Diaz,
President of Mexico, resigned his office under pressure from the
revolution.
   (HN, 5/25/98)(SC, 5/25/02)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â May 26, Porfirio Diaz
caught a train from Mexico City’s San Lazaro station to Veracruz.
   (WSJ, 1/11/00, p.A23)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 21, Porfirio Diaz, the
ex-president of Mexico, exiled himself to Paris.
   (HN, 6/21/98)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 12, Cantinflas
(d.1993), comedian and film star, was born in Mexico City as Mario
Moreno.
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cantinflas)
1911Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 28, Zapata proclaimed
Plan of Ayala, Mexico.
   (MC, 11/28/01)
1911-1912Â Â Â During the Revolution the crime rate
rose in double digits for two years in a row
   (SFEC, 1/26/97, p.A14)
1911-1913Â Â Â Francisco Indalecio Madero,
revolutionary and political leader, served as president.
   (WUD, 1994, p.861)
1912Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 29, The U.S. sent
rifles to the Mexican ambassador in Mexico City and readied U.S.
ships to transport troops to fight the rebels.
   (HN, 3/29/98)
1912Â Â Â Â Â Â Pancho Villa, a former
bandit, returned to Mexico from the US with a tiny band of men that
he built into the "Division del Norte."
   (SFC, 5/5/99, p.A2)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 20, Jose Guadalupe
Posada, Mexican cartoonist, died. He had created Catrina, the
Skeleton Lady in her elegant broad-brimmed hat in a satirical
engraving sometime between 1910 and his death. Her image grew over
the years to symbolize Mexico’s Day of the Dead.
   (AP, 10/31/13)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 9-1913 Feb 18, The 10
Day Tragedy of Mexico City when 3,000 died.
   (MC, 2/9/02)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 9, Pancho Villa and
his men stole 122 silver bars from a train in Northern Mexico. The
silver was then valued at about $160,000 and in 1999 would be $2.6
million. Wells Fargo and its Mexican subsidiary arranged to buy back
the silver for cash and gave Villa either $50,000 or 50,000 pesos
($25,000) in exchange for 93 of the 122 bars.
   (SFC, 5/5/99, p.A2)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 17, U.S. Marines set
sail from San Diego to protect American interests in Mexico.
   (HN, 6/17/98)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â A coup led by Victoriano
Huerta and encouraged by US Ambassador Lane Wilson overthrew and
murdered Pres. Madero.
   (WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â The Banco Mercantil in
Monterrey, Mexico faced demands by rebel troops to pay tribute to
the Revolution or close. The bank spirited millions of dollars in
gold bullion to Laredo, Texas. It survived the hostilities by
operating "offshore" and returned home in 1916.
   (WSJ, 4/1/96, p.A-10)
1913Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico’s active Volcan de
Fuego, part of the Colima volcano complex, experienced a major
eruption. As of 2012 it has erupted more than 40 times since 1576.
Only a fraction of the volcano's surface area is in the state of
Colima; the majority of its surface area lies over the border in the
neighboring state of Jalisco.
   (SSFC, 8/19/12,
p.P3)(www.gomanzanillo.com/old_articles/volcano/)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 9, US Sen Albert Fall
(Teapot Dome) demanded the "Cubanisation of Mexico."
   (MC, 3/9/02)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 31, Octavio Paz,
Mexican diplomat and Nobel Prize-winning writer, was born.
   (HN, 3/31/01)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 9, In the Tampico
incident a US ship crew was arrested in Mexico.
   (MC, 4/9/02)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 21, U.S. marines
occupied Veracruz, Mexico. They stayed for six months.
   (HN, 4/21/98)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 15, Mexican president
Huerta fled with 2 million pesos to Europe.
   (MC, 7/15/02)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 16, Zapata and Pancho
Villa over ran Mexico.
   (MC, 8/16/02)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 15, President Woodrow
Wilson ordered the Punitive Expedition out of Mexico. The
Expedition, headed by General John Pershing, had been searching for
Pancho Villa, a Mexican revolutionary.
   (HN, 9/15/99)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Elmer Jones, a Wells Fargo
vice-president, was summoned by Pancho Villa and ordered to continue
doing business on the northern railroads seized by Villa. Jones and
another official refused and were imprisoned and ordered to be
executed. The execution order was not completed and the Wells Fargo
officials were rescued. The incident is contained in the book:
"Wells Fargo: Advancing the American Frontier."
   (SFC, 5/5/99, p.A2)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â The Sindicato Mexicano
Electricistas (SME) was founded.
   (WSJ, 12/3/99, p.A1)
1914Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico defaulted on its
debt. It was shut out of capital markets for most of the next three
decades.
   (Econ, 5/2/15, p.63)
1915      Jan 9, Pancho Villa
signed a treaty with U.S. General Scott, halting border conflicts.
   (HN, 1/9/98)
1915Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 18, A train derailed
on a steep incline at Colima-Guadalajara, Mexico, and some 600
people were killed.
   (MC,
1/18/02)(http://www.emergency-management.net/pass_train.htm)
1915Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 21, Anthony Quinn
(d.2001), film star, was born in Chihuahua to Frank Quinn and
Manuella Oaxaca.
   (HN, 4/21/98)(SFC, 6/4/01, p.A17)
1915Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 2, Porfirio Diaz,
former president of Mexico, died in Paris, France. In 1994 his
grandson, Carlos Tello Diaz, authored a study of his grandfather.
   (SFC, 12/14/00, p.A8)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A14)
1915Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 19, US recognized
General Venustiano Carranza (opposing Pancho Villa) as the president
of Mexico, and imposed an embargo on the shipment of arms to all
Mexican territories except those controlled by Carranza.
   (MC, 10/19/01)
1915Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the government
freed all prisoners at the fortress of San Juan de Ulua after they
defended the fortress during a brief US occupation of Veracruz. The
government declared the dungeon closed to prisoners for at least one
hundred years.
   (SFEC, 5/17/98, p.T12)
1915-1916Â Â Â A number of skirmishes took place
between the Texas Rangers and Mexican Americans rebelling under the
"Plan de San Diego" and numerous people were killed. Participants
included the anarchist Magon brothers, and rebel leader Aniceto
Pizana. In 2003 Benjamin Heber Johnson authored "Revolution in
Texas: How a Forgotten Revolution and Its Bloody suppression Turned
Mexicans into Americans."
   (SSFC, 1/4/04, p.M3)
1915-1920Â Â Â Venustiano Carranza (1859-1920),
revolutionary and political leader, served as president. The army
was led by Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928).
   (WUD, 1994, p.226,994)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 9, Pancho Villa led
1,500 horsemen in a night raid on Columbus, New Mexico. 18 US
soldiers and citizens were killed as the town was looted and burned.
President Woodrow Wilson responded by ordering General John J.
"Black Jack" Pershing to "pursue and disperse" the bandits. Wilson
called out 158,664 National Guard members to deal with the
situation.
   (HN, 3/9/99)(SFC, 5/17/06, p.A11)(AP, 3/9/07)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 10, US President
Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. "Black Jack" Pershing to
pursue and capture Pancho Villa, following Villa’s raid in New
Mexico.
   (SFC, 3/11/09, p.B2)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 15, General Pershing
and his 15,000 troops chased Pancho Villa into Mexico. US troops
pursued the guerillas, killing 50 on US soil and 70 more in Mexico.
General Pershing failed to capture the Villa dead or alive. Villa
was assassinated at Parral in 1923.
   (HN, 3/15/98)(MC, 3/15/02)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 19, The First
Aerosquadron took off from Columbus, NM, to join Gen. John J.
Pershing and his Punitive Expedition for Pancho Villa in Mexico.
   (HN, 3/19/99)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 30, Pancho Villa
killed 172 at the Guerrero garrison in Mexico.
   (HN, 3/30/98)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 31, General Pershing
and his army routed Pancho Villa's army in Mexico.
   (HN, 3/31/98)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 12, American
cavalrymen and Mexican bandit troops clashed at Parrel, Mexico.
   (HN, 4/12/99)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 17, American troops
under the command of Gen. Jack Pershing marched into Mexico. US
Gen’l. Pershing led an unsuccessful punitive expedition against
Francisco "Pancho" Villa. [see Mar 31]
   (SFC, 1/26/98, p.A17)(MC, 6/17/02)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 21, Mexican troops
beat a US expeditionary force under Gen Pershing.
   (MC, 6/21/02)
1916Â Â Â Â Â Â The newspaper El Universal
was founded.
   (SFC, 9/14/96, p.A10)
1917 Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 19, The Zimmermann
Note-a coded message sent to Germany's minister in Mexico by German
Foreign secretary Arthur Zimmermann, proposed an alliance between
Germany and Mexico in the event war broke out between the U.S. and
Germany. Intercepted by British naval intelligence, the note
proposed, among other things, "We shall give generous financial
support, and it is understood that Mexico is to reconquer the lost
territory in New Mexico, Texas, and Arizona." The message was
forwarded by the British to the U.S. State Department, which
subsequently released it to the press on March 1.
   (HNQ, 7/15/98)
1917Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 28, US forces were
recalled from Mexico after nearly eleven months of fruitless
searching for Mexican revolutionary Pancho Villa, accused of leading
a bloody raid against Columbus, New Mexico.
   (MC, 1/28/02)
1917Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 5, Mexico's
constitution was adopted.
   (HFA, '96, p.22)(AP, 2/5/97)
1917Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 19, American troops
were recalled from the Mexican border.
   (HN, 2/19/98)
1917Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 28, AP reported that
Mexico and Japan would ally with Germany if US enters WW I.
   (MC, 2/28/02)
1917Â Â Â Â Â Â Diego Rivera painted his
Cubist "Still Life with Bread and Fruit" while studying in Paris.
   (WSJ, 3/17/00, p.W12)
1917Â Â Â Â Â Â US law began to regulate
immigration from Mexico. The US passed special rules to allow
Mexicans to enter the US due to the expanding economy.
   (Econ, 8/27/16, p.17)(SFEC, 9/20/98, Z1 p.5)
1919Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 10, Emiliano Zapata
(b.c1877), a leader of Mexico's indigenous people during the Mexican
Revolution, was assassinated by a government emissary who had come
to his southern stronghold in the state of Morelos for peace
negotiations. His native language was Nahuatl of the Aztecs.
   (SFC, 4/13/96, p.A-10)(MC, 4/10/02)
1919Â Â Â Â Â Â May 1, In Mexico Pancho
Villa married Soledad Seanez Holguin. This was recognized by the
state in 1946 after proof showed the pair had both a civil and a
church wedding.
   (SFC, 7/13/96, p. A19)
c1919Â Â Â Â Â Â Jose Clemente Orozco,
David Alfaro Siqueiros (d.1974) and Diego Rivera, Mexican painters
in Paris, decided that the revolution must be expressed in a public
art that all could understand.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T5)
1920Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 28, Revolutionary and
bandit Pancho Villa surrendered to the Mexican government.
   (HN, 7/28/98)
1920-1924Â Â Â Alvaro Obregon (1880-1928), general and
statesman, served his first term as president. Obregon was killed by
an assassin, who pretended to do his portrait.
   (WUD, 1994, p.994)
1921Â Â Â Â Â Â Fidel Velasquez Sanchez
(1900-1997) formed the Union of Milk Workers.
   (SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1922Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 17, Luis Echeverria
Alvarez, president Mexico, was born.
   (MC, 1/17/02)
1922Â Â Â Â Â Â Mennonites from Canada and
Pennsylvania fled persecution and settled near Chihuahua, Mexico.
   (SFEC, 6/1/97, p.T3)(SFEC, 11/5/00, p.T4)
1923Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 20, In Mexico
Francisco Villa (aka Pancho Villa, b.1877) [Doroteo Arango], general
and revolutionist, died in an ambush. In c1999 Friedrich Katz of the
Univ. of Chicago published "The Life and Times of Pancho Villa." In
2001 Frank McLynn authored "Villa and Zapata."
   (WUD, 1994, p.1593)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC,
5/5/99, p.A2)(WSJ, 8/21/01, p.A14)(MC, 7/20/02)
1923Â Â Â Â Â Â Photographers Edward
Weston (1886-1958) and Tina Modotti (1896-1942) set up shop in
Mexico.
   (WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A16)
1924Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 16, Katy Jurado
(d.2002), Mexican-US film actress, was born as Maria Cristina Jurado
Garcia in Guadalajara.
   (SFC, 7/6/02, p.A19)
1924Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 24, The wedding of
Alma Reed, a New York Times reporter, and Felipe Carrillo, governor
of the Yucatan, was to have taken place. Carrillo was executed in
Merida, a few days before the wedding, by hacienda owners angry over
his planned reforms.
   (SSFC, 5/6/01, p.T6)
1924Â Â Â Â Â Â The government gave local
peasants title to more than 45 sq. miles of land in Mulege on the
Baha Peninsula. It was part of a huge nationwide redistribution of
land after the Revolution.
   (SFC, 1/31/97, p.A4)
1924Â Â Â Â Â Â US labor leader Samuel
Gompers visited Mexico.
   (SFC, 1/22/98, p.E3)
1924-1928Â Â Â Plutarco Elias Calles served as
president.
   (WUD, 1994, p.211)
1925Â Â Â Â Â Â There was eruption of
Popocatepetl volcano outside Mexico City.
   (SFC, 7/2/97, p.A9)
1926Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 11, The Mexican
government nationalized all church property. Pres. Plutarco Elias
Calles, founder of the modern Mexican political system, tried to
suppress the Church. This fomented the Cristiada, 3 years of
rebellion and outright war.
   (WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(Econ, 1/11/14, p.30)
1926Â Â Â Â Â Â The evangelical church
"Light of the World" was founded by the father of Samuel Joaquin
Flores.
   (SFC, 2/19/98, p.A8,10)
1926-1929Â Â Â In the "Cristero Wars" several thousand
Catholic lay people and priests were killed in Mexico for opposing
landowning and political restrictions placed against the church.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cristero_War)(WSJ,
11/22/96, p.A12)
1927Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 12, U.S. Secretary of
State Kellogg claimed that Mexican rebel Plutarco Calles was aiding
the communist plot in Nicaragua.
   (HN, 1/12/99)
1927Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr, The last major battle
between the Mexican Army and the Yaqui Indians was fought at Cerro
del Gallo Mountain. By employing heavy artillery, machine guns, and
planes of the Mexican Air Force to shell, bomb, and strafe Yaqui
villages, Mexican authorities eventually prevailed.
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yaqui)
1927Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 25, Mexican congress
opened land to foreign investors, reversing the 1917 ban enacted to
preserve the domestic economy.
   (HN, 12/25/98)
1928Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 25, In Mexico Toribio
Romo Gonzalez (b.1900), a Catholic priest, was killed during the
Cristero War. He was canonized as a saint on May 21, 2000, by
Pope John Paul II, and later came to be regarded as the patron saint
of migrants.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toribio_Romo_Gonz%C3%A1lez)(SFC,
7/17/14, p.D2)
1928Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 27, The U.S. accepted
the new oil-land laws enacted by Mexico, ending a long-standing
dispute between Mexico and the United States.
   (HN, 3/27/98)
1928Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 28, Mexico's
Pres.-elect Alvaro Obregon was murdered. His assassin Juan
Excapulario was captured.
   (SFC, 7/18/03, p.E5)
1928Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 11, Carlos Fuentes,
Mexican novelist, was born.
   (HN, 11/11/00)
1928Â Â Â Â Â Â The city of Taxco, famous
for its silver shops, was declared a national monument. The highway
from Mexico City reached Taxco.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T6)(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T7)
1928Â Â Â Â Â Â Rufino Tamayo painted his
"Still Life With Corn."
   (WSJ, 3/17/00, p.W12)
1929Â Â Â Â Â Â The Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI) began ruling. It was initially called the
Partido Nacional Revolucionario (PNR) and was cemented by Plutarco
Elias Calles. The party was decreed into existence by the incumbent
president to reconcile the violent, post-revolutionary factions.
   (SFC, 12/14/96, p.A12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC,
10/13/97, p.A1)
1929Â Â Â Â Â Â William Spratling, an
architecture professor from Tulane Univ. recruited goldsmiths to
teach local men in Taxco and inspired a silver arts renaissance.
   (SFEC, 11/8/98, p.T7)
1929-1935Â Â Â In the US a massive involuntary
migration of Mexicans took place as hundreds of thousands of
Mexicans were deported south on cattle cars.
   (SFEC, 1/2/00, BR p.12)
1930Â Â Â Â Â Â Pres. Pascual Ortiz Rubio
was wounded in an assassination attempt the day he took office. From
this point till 2000 the sale and public display of alcoholic
beverages were banned during patriotic events.
   (SFC, 9/16/00, p.A14)
1930Â Â Â Â Â Â Photographer Tina Modotti
was deported from Mexico for her political activities. She
bequeathed her photography position at Mexican Folkways Magazine to
Alvarez Bravo.
   (WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A16)
1930s      Sergei Eisenstein made
his film "Que Viva Mexico."
   (SFC, 4/14/98, p.E3)
1930s      Fidel Velasquez Sanchez
(1900-1997), a Mexico City baker [dairy worker], rose to power in
the union movement. He was a strong anti-communist and rewarded his
friends with money and power. He led the Confederation of Mexican
Workers (CTM) for 56 years.
   (SFC, 6/21/97, p.A10,12)(SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1930-1939Â Â Â During the 1930s Great Depression,
counties and cities in the American Southwest and Midwest forced
Mexican immigrants and their families to leave the US over concerns
they were taking jobs away from whites despite their legal right to
stay. Around 500,000 to 1 million Mexican immigrants and
Mexican-Americans were pushed out of the US.
   (AP, 8/30/15)  Â
1931Â Â Â Â Â Â Cementos Mexicanos, later
called Cemex, was formed when two companies in Monterey joined
forces, including one founded by Lorenzo Zambrano Gutierrez.
   (WSJ, 12/11/08, p.A14)
1932Â Â Â Â Â Â David Alfaro Sigueiros,
Mexican artist, arrived in Los Angeles to teach at the LA Art School
and spent seven months there. He experimented with new industrial
tools and created large outdoor murals. His 80x18 foot mural, “La
America Tropical,” on City Hall on Olvera Street, commissioned by
Christine Sterling, was painted over following completion. Soon
thereafter his request for a visa renewal was denied. In 2006 LA and
the Getty Foundation began a $7.7 million project to restore the
work.
   (SFC, 8/4/06, p.E7)(Econ, 9/25/10, p.103)
1932Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico abolished the death
penalty.
   (SFC, 1/16/02, p.A3)
1932Â Â Â Â Â Â The Los Flamingos Hotel
was built in Acapulco, Mexico. John Wayne and a number of Hollywood
pals bought it in 1954 and closed it to the public.
   (SSFC, 11/2/03, p.C6)
1932Â Â Â Â Â Â At Monte Alban in the
Oaxaca valley the spectacular Tomb 7 was verified as a Zapotec
burial chamber.
   (SFEC, 10/3/99, p.A24)
1933Â Â Â Â Â Â Petromex was formed during
the presidency of Abelardo L. Rodriguez.
   (www.trinity.edu/jgonzal1/341f96g1.html)
1934Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 30, Lazaro Cardenas,
following July elections, began serving as PRI president (1934-1940)
of Mexico.
   (SFEC, 5/2/99, p.A26)
1935Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 10, Jorge Mester,
conductor (Louisville Orch 1967-79), was born in Mexico City.
   (MC, 4/10/02)
1935Â Â Â Â Â Â Casino gambling was
outlawed in Mexico.
   (SFC, 6/8/96, p.A7)
1936Â Â Â Â Â Â Diego Rivera painted
"Portrait of the Poet Lalane."
   (WSJ, 9/8/00, p.W8)
1936Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film "Alla en
el Rancho" starred cowboy singer Tito Guizar (d.1999 at 91)
   (SFC, 12/27/99, p.C5)
1937Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 30, Mexico's Pres.
Lazaro Cardenas created the AGPN, "Administracion General del
Petroleo Nacional." The AGPN became a public organism that would
guide the Mexican oil industry. The creation of the AGPN constituted
the transformation of Petromex into a publicly driven firm.
   (www.trinity.edu/jgonzal1/341f96g1.html)
1937Â Â Â Â Â Â Enriquez Alferez (d.1999
at 98), Mexican artist, created his "Fountain of the Four Winds" for
the New Orleans Lakefront Airport. One of the 4 figures of the
sculpture was a well-endowed nude male. Â
   (SFC, 9/14/99, p.A23)
1938Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 18, Mexican President
Lazaro Cardenas nationalized his country's petroleum reserves and
took control of foreign-owned oil facilities.
   (WSJ, 3/20/96, p.A-1)(WSJ, 6/14/96, p.A15)(AP,
3/18/08)
1938Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 27, The U.S. stopped
buying Mexican silver in reprisal for the Mexican seizure of
American oil companies.
   (HN, 3/27/98)
1938Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 6, Bishop Rafael
Guizar Valencia (b.1878) died in Mexico City. He had risked his life
to tend the wounded during Mexico’s revolution. In 2006 Pope
Benedict XVI named him a saint.
   (SFC, 10/16/06, p.A2)
1938Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 12, Mexico agreed to
compensate the U.S. for land seizures.
   (HN, 11/12/98)
1938Â Â Â Â Â Â Nov 24, Mexico seized oil
land adjacent to Texas.
   (HN, 11/24/98)
1939Â Â Â Â Â Â The National Action Party
(PAN) was founded in the state of Chihuahua.
   (WSJ, 7/1/98, p.A1)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul, Avila Camacho was
elected president of Mexico. He agreed to compensate the
multi-nationals for their oil losses and a new market for Mexican
oil opened, i.e. the US.
   (www.mexconnect.com)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 20, Ramon Mercador
(Mercader) del Rio, a Spanish Communist, posed as a Canadian
businessman (aka Frank Jackson) and fatally wounded Leon Trotsky
with an alpine ax to the back of the head in Mexico City. Trotsky
died the next day.
   (WSJ, 3/29/96, p.A-14)(TMC, 1994, p.1940)(SFC,
7/19/96, p.B1)(HN, 8/20/01)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 21, Leon Trotsky,
exiled Communist revolutionary, died in Mexico City from wounds
inflicted by an assassin the day before. Earlier this year Josef
Grigulevich (27), a Lithuania-born KGB agent, established a safe
house at Zook's Pharmacy in Santa Fe, NM, for the assassins of Leon
Trotsky. The pharmacy, visible in archive photos, was replaced in
1990 by a Haagen-Dazs ice cream shop. Grigulevich was recruited by
Soviet strongman Josef Stalin's secret police as a university
student in Paris and learned the assassin's trade during the Spanish
civil war. He later published 58 books on Latin American history. In
2011 intelligence expert E.B. Held authored "A Spy's Guide to
Albuquerque and Santa Fe."
   (AP, 8/21/08)(AFP, 2/4/11)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 5, Silvestre
Revueltas, Mexican composer: Cuauhnahuac/Planos, died at 40.
   (MC, 10/5/01)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico's President Lazaro
Cardenas legalized heroin and opened injection rooms. The US cutoff
supplies of morphine, a heroin substitute, and Cardenas retreated.
   (Econ., 11/21/20, p.30)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â Andre Breton held the
Int’l. Surrealist Exhibition in Mexico City. Included was the
photograph "The Good Reputation Sleeping" by Alvarez Bravo.
   (WSJ, 3/12/97, p.A16)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â The Spanish song "Bésame
Mucho" was written Mexican Consuelo Velázquez before her sixteenth
birthday. The phrase "besame mucho" can be translated into English
as "kiss me a lot". She wrote this song even though she had never
been kissed yet at the time. She was inspired by the aria "Quejas, o
la Maja y el Ruiseñor" from the Spanish 1916 opera Goyescas by
Enrique Granados. The lyrics were translated into English by Sunny
Skylar.
   (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%A9same_Mucho)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â The Los Angeles city
council blocked games of professional women’s football. The LA team
went to Mexico and played before a filled stadium.
   (SFC, 2/7/03, p.D13)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â In Tecate at the foot of
Mt. Kuchumaa Rancho La Puerta was opened as a fitness spa, the first
in North America.
   (SFEM, 11/24/96, p.24)
1940Â Â Â Â Â Â John Steinbeck and marine
biologist Doc Ricketts (d.1948) traveled by boat from Monterey to
the Sea of Cortez. In 1951 Steinbeck authored "The Log from the Sea
of Cortez" based on the trip.
   (SFC, 2/22/02, p.A21)
1940s      Agustin Andrade and
Ignacio Alcazar, cousins, started ice cream shops in Mexico City.
Their enterprises expanded and came to be known the La Michoacana
ice cream shops. Popsicle shops, known as paleterias, later
established the economic base for the village of Tocumbo. Martin
Gonzalez later authored a history of Mexico's ice cream industry.
   (SFEC, 3/26/00, p.A19)
1940-1955Â Â Â Mexican cinema turned out some 100 films
a year during this period, later dubbed as the golden age of Mexican
cinema.
   (Econ, 11/20/10, p.45)
1941Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Rev. Marcial
Maciel founded the Legion of Christ, a conservative Roman Catholic
order to minister to the wealthy and multiply its beneficial impact
on society. In 1946 Pope Pius XII ordered Father Maciel to recruit
Latin American leaders. In 1997 8 men went public with allegations
of sexual abuse by Father Maciel dating to the 1940s and 1950s.
   (WSJ, 1/21/06, p.A13)
1941Â Â Â Â Â Â Fidel Velasquez Sanchez
(1900-1997) was first elected head of the Confederation of Mexican
Workers.
   (SFEC, 6/22/97, p.D8)
1941Â Â Â Â Â Â The film "The Forgotten
Village" was made by Herbert Kline. He was assisted by John
Steinbeck in the story about peasant life in Mexico.
   (SFC, 2/13/99, p.A24)
1942Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 5, Tina Modotti
(b.1896), Italian born actress, model, photographer and secret
agent, died in Mexico City. She had been expelled from Mexico in
1930 but returned incognito in 1939. In 1999 her biography by Pino
Cacucci was translated into English.
   (SFEC, 7/25/99, BR p.1)(SFC, 9/2/06,
p.E3)(http://tinyurl.com/lklsy)
1942Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 2, Vincente Fox
Quesada, elected president in 2000, was born.
   (SFC, 7/3/00, p.A1)(WSJ, 7/3/00, p.A8)
1942Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug 4, The "Bracero
Program," began running under the auspices of the US Dept. of Labor.
It sent Mexican workers to the US to help the labor shortage created
by World War II. From 1942-1949 10% of their wages was deposited
with the National Bank of Rural Credit, Banrural (Banco Nacional de
Credito Agricola, a predecessor of Banrural). The program ended in
1964. Workers in 1999 demanded to know the status of the fund.
Mexican banking officials in 1999 reported no evidence of the funds.
In 2001 a suit for $500 million was filed for deposits and interest
from 1942-1949.
   (SFC, 8/6/99, p.A16)(SFC, 10/6/99, p.A16)(SSFC,
7/15/01, p.A4)(SFC, 1/16/04, p.A19)
1942Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 5, Eduardo Mata,
Mexico City Mexico, conductor (Improvisaciones), was born.
   (MC, 9/5/01)
1943Â Â Â Â Â Â The evangelical church
"Light of the World" began a relationship with the Institutional
Revolutionary Party (PRI). The cult provided crowds at political
rallies in exchange political leverage.
   (SFC, 2/19/98, p.A8,10)
1943Â Â Â Â Â Â The Lacandon people of
southern Mexico went almost extinct. By 2019 their population had
grown significantly, yet remains small, at approximately 650
speakers of the Lacandon language. Their ancestral home in Chiapas
state is the last pocket of tropical rain forest in North America.
   (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lacandon)(SSFC,
10/13/19, p.A23)
1943Â Â Â Â Â Â Parcutin Volcano in
central Mexico began a 9-year eruption.
   (AM, 3/04, p.50)
1944Â Â Â Â Â Â Jun 1, The government of
Mexico abolished the traditional afternoon siesta. [see Apr 1, 1999]
   (Web Tech news, 6/1/99)
1944Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico and the US signed a
treaty allowing cross-border flows of water to each other.
   (SFC, 2/6/20, p.A2)
1944Â Â Â Â Â Â Dr. Norman Borlaug
(b.1914), a microbiologist on the staff of the du Pont de Nemours
Foundation, arrived in Mexico to deal with the failure of the wheat
crop caused by stem rust. In 1970 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for
developing new strains of wheat as well as systems for fertilizing
and nurturing growth.
   (WSJ, 1/17/07,
p.A16)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Borlaug)
1945Â Â Â Â Â Â The film "Campeon Sin
Corona" (Champion Without a Crown) starred David Silva and was
directed by Hector Alejandro Galindo.
   (SFC, 2/11/99, p.A25)
1946Â Â Â Â Â Â The Int’l. Whaling
Commission prohibited the hunting of gray whales worldwide when
their numbers were down to the thousands.
   (SFEM, 5/7/00, p.9)
1946-1952Â Â Â Miguel Aleman Valdez was president of
Mexico. He was known as the "Enterprise President." He gave the PRI
a pro-business cast and an odor of corruption. He built a showcase
campus for UNAM.
   (WSJ, 11/19/96, p.A18)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(WSJ,
9/1/99, p.A8)
1947Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 20, Carlos Santana,
legendary guitar player, was born in Autlan, Mexico.
   (SSFC, 10/14/07, Par p.18)
1948Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 28, A plane chartered
by US Immigration Services left Oakland, Ca., carrying 32 people,
including 28 Mexicans. Many were part of the bracero program and had
finished their government-sponsored work contracts. 20 miles West of
Coalinga an engine exploded, a wing broke off and more than 100
witnesses watched bodies and luggage thrown from the fireball. There
were no survivors.
   (http://tinyurl.com/ky6debf)
1948Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film "Nosotros
Los Pobres" (We the Poor) starred Katy Jurado (d.2002) and Pedro
Infante.
   (SFC, 7/6/02,
p.A19)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosotros_los_pobres)
1948Â Â Â Â Â Â The film "Una Familia de
Tantas" (One Family of Many) was directed by Hector Alejandro
Galindo.
   (SFC, 2/11/99, p.A25)
1948Â Â Â Â Â Â In London, England,
Joaquin Capilla (19) of Mexico won a bronze medal for platform
diving.
   (AP, 5/9/10)
1950Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 5, In Mexico City the
English-language News newspaper was founded by Romulo O'Farrill, Sr.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_News_(Mexico_City))
1950Â Â Â Â Â Â Octavio Paz (36), poet and
essayist, published "The Labyrinth of Solitude," his classical study
of the Mexican character.
   (SFC, 4/20/98, p.A17)(Econ, 11/18/06, Survey p.4)
1950Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film "Los
Olvidados" was directed by Luis Bunuel. It was released in the US as
"The Young and the Damned." It was a study of social pathology among
the urban poor in Mexico City.
   (WSJ, 3/30/01, p.W6)(SFC, 8/9/07, p.B5)
1950Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film “Un Dia
de Vida” (One Day of Life) by Emilio Fernandez told the story of a
dissident army officer sentenced to death for protesting military
complicity in the assassination of Emiliano Zapata.
   (SFC, 7/7/14, p.E2)
1950Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mina El Eden in
Zacateca was closed.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T3)
1951Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 6, William Burroughs
(1914-1997), writer, shot and killed his wife Joan Vollmer (27) in
Mexico City. He claimed to be trying to shoot a glass off her head,
a la William Tell, during a day of drinking and drugs but shot her
in the head.
   (SFEC, 8/3/97, p.B6)(Internet)
1951Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 15, Dr. Carl Djerassi
(27), Prof. of chemistry at Stanford Univ., developed the birth
control pill in Mexico City while working for Palo Alto based Syntex
Corp. He synthesized norethindrone, a steroid oral contraceptive. In
2001 Carl Djerassi authored "This Man’s Pill: Reflections on the
50th Birthday of the Pill." Djerassi synthesized a key hormone in
the pill in Mexico City in 1951. Serle won FDA ok to market the pill
May 11, 1960.
   (SJSVB, 4/8/96, p.8)(SSFC, 10/14/01, Par
p.13)(SSFC, 10/21/01, p.R6)
1951Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec. 17, Raul and Carlos
Salinas, aged 5 and 3, played with their friend Gustavo Zapata at
their home in Mexico City. While playing they snatched a rifle from
a closet and shot a servant just below the eye, killed her and
continued playing. Newspaper reports of the time indicated that
Carlos pulled the trigger.
   (WSJ, 2/8/96, p.A-6)
1951Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 27, Ernesto Zedillo
was born.
   (WP, 6/29/96, p.A20)
1952Â Â Â Â Â Â The film "El Bruto"
starred Katy Jurado (1924-2002) and was directed by Luis Bunuel.
Jurado won an Ariel, Mexico’s highest acting award, for her
performance.
   (SFC, 7/6/02, p.A19)
1952Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico City Rev.
Marcial Maciel, founder of the Legion of Christ, built the order’s
1st school, Instituto Cumbres (The Heights), with funds donated by
Flora Baragan de Garza, the Monterey widow of one of the wealthiest
men in Mexico.
   (WSJ, 1/21/06, p.A1)
1952Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico Amalia Hernandez
(d.2000 at 83) founded the Ballet Folklorico de Mexico.
   (SFEC, 9/8/96, DB p.47)(SFC, 11/8/00, p.B7)
1952Â Â Â Â Â Â In the 15th Olympic Games
in Helsinki, Finland, Joaquin Capilla (23) of Mexico won an Olympic
silver medal, for platform diving.
   (AP, 5/9/10)
1952Â Â Â Â Â Â The sarcophagus of Lord
Pakal was found in the ruins at Palenque by Alberto Ruz L’Huiller.
   (SSFC, 5/5/02, p.C5)
1952Â Â Â Â Â Â Petroleum engineers
drilled in the Yucatan and found unexpected igneous rock. It was
later thought to have come from a comet that hit about 65 million
years ago. Sinkholes scattered around the edge of the resulting 112
mile diameter crater were later believed to result from rocks
sinking in the center and causing fractures along the perimeter.
   (SFC, 2/4/97, p.A9)
1953Â Â Â Â Â Â Aug, The border town of
Guerrero was founded became Guerrero Viejo after a new dam and flood
covered the old town and the 2,500 residents moved to the new
Guerrero Nuevo.
   (SFC, 6/4/98, p.C16)
1953Â Â Â Â Â Â Sybille Bedford (b.1911),
German-born English novelist, published her 1st book, “A Visit to
Don Otavio,” a travelogue of Mexico.
   (WSJ, 5/12/05, p.D8)
1953Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film “Abismos
de Pasion” was directed by Luis Bunuel. It was loose adaptation of
Emily Bronte’s “Wuthering Heights” and featured Ernesto Alonso
(d.2007).
   (SFC, 8/9/07, p.B5)
1953Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film "Espaldas
Mojadas" (Wetbacks) was directed by Hector Alejandro Galindo.
   (SFC, 2/11/99, p.A25)
1953Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico allowed women the
right to vote.
   (SFC, 12/4/97, p.C6)
1953Â Â Â Â Â Â Speedy Gonzalez, a cartoon
mouse with a Mexican accent, debuted in the US.
   (AP, 6/30/05)
1954Â Â Â Â Â Â Jan 16, Mexico closed its
borders to all farm laborers heading for the US following a
breakdown in negotiations with the US over renewal of an annual
agreement on labor flow.
   (SFC, 1/16/04, p.E5)
1954Â Â Â Â Â Â Jul 13, Frida Kahlo
(b.1907), artist, died in Mexico City. Her final painting was an
incomplete portrait of Joseph Stalin. Hayden Herrera authored her
biography in 1983. Raquel Tibol later authored "Frido Kahlo: An Open
Life."
   (SFC, 4/22/01, p.D3)(WSJ, 7/6/01,
p.W11)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frida_Kahlo)
1954Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film "And
Tomorrow They Will Be Women" featured Sonia Furio (1937-1996).
   (SFC, 12/4/96, p.A17)
1954Â Â Â Â Â Â On the US-Mexican border
the 100,000 acre Falcon Lake, near Zapata, Texas, was created on the
Rio Grande's old river bed. It was managed by the bi-national
International Water Boundary Commission.
  Â
(http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20101001/ts_csm/329598)
1954Â Â Â Â Â Â The French abandoned their
copper mines in Santa Rosalia, Baha.
   (SFEC, 11/10/96, p.T11)
1955Â Â Â Â Â Â Apr 3, In Guadalajara,
Mexico, a night train plunged into a canyon and some 300 people were
killed.
   (SFC, 6/4/98, p.A15)(AP, 2/18/04)
1955Â Â Â Â Â Â June, Gordon Wasson, a
vice-president of J.P. Morgan, traveled to Mexico and became one of
the first outsiders to eat the hallucinogenic psilocybin mushroom.
   (Econ, 7/15/06, p.78)
1955Â Â Â Â Â Â The Mexican film “Ensayo
de un Crimen” (The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz) was
directed by Luis Bunuel and featured Ernesto Alonso.
   (SFC, 8/9/07, p.B5)
1955-1969Â Â Â Enrique Alonso “Cachirulo” (1928- 2004)
actor, writer and producer, directed the “Teatro Fantastico” TV
show.
   (SFC, 8/30/04, p.B4)
1956Â Â Â Â Â Â Winston Scott (1909-1971)
was appointed as the American CIA station chief in Mexico.
   (www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm)
1956 Â Â Â Â Â Â In Australia Joaquin
Capilla (27) of Mexico won a bronze medal for springboard diving and
a gold for platform diving.
   (AP,
5/9/10)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joaqu%C3%ADn_Capilla)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 17, Two male attorneys
"stood in" as actress Sophia Loren and producer Carlo Ponti were
married by proxy in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. Legal issues later forced
an annulment; the couple wed in Sevres, France, in 1966.
   (AP, 9/17/07)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Life magazine printed R.
Gordon Wasson’s “Seeking the Magic Mushroom” detailing his
experiences at a religious ritual in Mexico. Wasson, a
vice-president of J.P. Morgan, experienced the hallucinogenic
psilocybin mushroom during a trip to Mexico in 1955.
   (WSJ, 7/11/06, p.B10)(Econ, 7/15/06, p.78)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Ernesto P. Uruchurtu, aka
the Iron Mayor of Mexico City, opened a new building for street
vendors but left out fruit seller Rico Guillermina (1933-1996) and
hundreds of others. She began a crusade and formed the Civic
Association of Street Vendors which supported the PRI, who in return
disregarded the laws controlling street sales.
   (SFC, 9/7/96, p.A19)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico began allowing
artists to pay taxes with donations of their artwork after muralist
David Alfaro Siqueiros faced jail time for not paying taxes.
   (SFC, 7/24/14, p.A4)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Iusacell obtained a mobile
radio telephone concession in Mexico.
   (WSJ, 8/7/96, p.A10)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Miguel Covarrubias,
Mexican muralist, died. His work included murals for the 1939-1940
World’s Fair in San Francisco.
   (SFC, 4/20/01, p.A19)
1957Â Â Â Â Â Â Diego Rivera, artist, died
in Mexico City.
   (Hem., 1/96, p.50)
1958Â Â Â Â Â Â Carlos Fuentes (b.1928),
Mexican author, published his first novel “Where the Air Is Clear.”
It was set in Mexico City in 1956-1957 when he was a student there
on the G.I. Bill.
   (WSJ, 6/14/08, p.W10)
1958Â Â Â Â Â Â Wrestler Rodolfo Guzman
(d.1984) began appearing in films as El Santo (The Saint) and
went on to star in dozens of films battling criminals, demons,
witches and zombies.
   (SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A19)
1959Â Â Â Â Â Â Peñon Woman was found in
central Mexico dating back 13,000 years. She shared many of the
features found in the Kennewick Man (1996) of Washington State.
   (Econ, 7/16/05, p.77)
1960Â Â Â Â Â Â May 6, Jacques Mornard
(Ram¢n Mercader), Trotsky's murderer, was freed in Mexico.
   (MC, 5/6/02)
1960Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 19, The United States
and Mexico agreed to the co-construction of a dam on the Rio Grande.
   (HN, 10/19/98)
1961Â Â Â Â Â Â Oscar Lewis, American
anthropologist, authored "The Children of Sanchez." He had
interviewed a poor, problem-plagued Mexican family for the book,
which became a social science landmark, defining what came to be
known as "the anthropology of poverty."
   (AP, 1/26/04)
1961Â Â Â Â Â Â The Flying Samaritans had
their beginning when Aileen Saunders was forced to land near El
Rosario in Baja, California.
   (SFEC, 6/25/00, p.T10)
1961Â Â Â Â Â Â M.S. Swaminathan, adviser
to India’s minister of agriculture, invited Norman Borlaug, a plant
geneticist who had improved the yield on Mexican wheat, to visit
India.
   (Econ, 12/24/05, p.29)
1961-1968Â Â Â Octavio Paz, poet and Nobel laureate,
served as the Mexican ambassador to India. In 1997 he published "In
Light of India."
   (SFEC, 8/31/97, BR p.9)
1962Â Â Â Â Â Â May 23, Ruben Jaramillo,
Mexican agrarian reformer, was assassinated along with his family by
state forces.
   (SFC, 12/31/96, p.C9)(AP, 5/23/04)
1962Â Â Â Â Â Â The film "El Santo Against
the Vampire Woman" starred Rodolfo Guzman.
   (SFEC, 9/19/99, p.A19)
1963Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 26, Lee Harvey Oswald
traveled on a Continental Trailways bus to Mexico.
   (MC, 9/26/01)
1963Â Â Â Â Â Â Sep 27, Lee Harvey Oswald
visited the Cuban consulate in Mexico.
   (MC, 9/27/01)
1963Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 8, Remedios Varo
(b.1908), Spanish-born surrealist painter, died in Mexico. Walter
Gruen, her 11-year lover and promoter, collected her work and in
1987 attempted to get copyright protection. A Mexican judge denied
his request due to Varo’s failure to get a formal divorce from
French poet Benjamin Peret. In 1999 the Mexican government tried to
seize the paintings on behalf of Mexico but faced a claim by next of
kin niece Beatriz Varo. By 2005 Mr. Gruen agreed to give his entire
collection to the Mexican government if it gets named after his
deceased daughter.
   (http://tinyurl.com/b87uu)(WSJ, 9/20/05, p.A1)
1963Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico during the
administration of Lopez Mateos soldiers took part in the mutilation
killing of a leader of coffee farmers in the community of El Ticui.
The event was documented in a 2006 government report on Mexico’s
“dirty war.”
   (AP, 2/27/06)
1963Â Â Â Â Â Â Winston Scott served as
American CIA station chief in Mexico during the time that Lee Harvey
Oswald visited the Cuban Embassy there. In 2008 Jefferson Morley
authored “Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of
the CIA.” Morley proposed that Scott later covered up CIA operations
that involved Oswald.
  Â
(www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/JFKscottW.htm)(WSJ, 3/20/08, p.D7)
1963Â Â Â Â Â Â In Guadalajara, Mexico,
Maria Guadalupe Garcia Zavala (b.1878), co-founder of the
Congregation of the Servants of St. Margaret Maria and of the Poor,
died in the Santa Margarita Hospital she helped found. Zavala, aka
Madre Lupita, had decided at 22 to dedicate herself to helping the
sick. Her religious mission played out during a period of tension
between church and state, when tens of thousands of people were
killed during a 1926-1929 uprising by Roman Catholic rebels against
anti-clerical laws. She was beatified in 2004 by Pope John Paul II.
In 2013 she was canonized as a saint by Pope Francis.
   (AP, 4/24/04)(AP, 5/12/13)
1964Â Â Â Â Â Â Dec 13, In El Paso, Texas,
President Johnson and Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz set off
an explosion that diverted the Rio Grande, reshaping the
U.S.-Mexican border and ending a century-old dispute.
   (AP, 12/13/04)
1964Â Â Â Â Â Â Luis Bunuel made his film
"Simon del Desierto" (Simon of the Desert). It was his last film
before returning to Europe. It features an ascetic who gets
transported to a go-go bar in Greenwich Village.
   (SFC, 4/14/98, p.E3)
1964Â Â Â Â Â Â The John Huston film
"Night of the Iguana" starred Richard Burton, Ava Gardner, Deborah
Kerr, Sue Lyon and Elizabeth Taylor. It was filmed in Puerto
Vallarta, Mexico and featured the work of cinematographer Gabriel
Figueroa (1908-1997).
   (SFC, 4/29/97, p.A20)(USAT, 1/16/04, p.1D)
1964Â Â Â Â Â Â Pres. John F. Kennedy
ended the bracero program, begun in 1942, that allowed Mexican guest
workers to work in the US.
  Â
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_program)(Econ, 2/4/17, p.26)
1964Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico began producing its
own version of the Volkswagen Beetle, known as the el vocho.
   (SSFC, 9/14/08, p.A10)
1964Â Â Â Â Â Â The Moctezuma River in
Sonora state was dammed.
   (SFC, 5/15/99, p.A11)
1965Â Â Â Â Â Â Mexico’s Border
Industrialization Program (BIP) was first introduced. It led to the
construction of foreign-owned maquiladoras (assembly plants) to
produce goods for export.
   (MT, summer 2003, p.22)
1966Â Â Â Â Â Â In Mexico the
Nezahualcoyotl reservoir was completed in southern Chiapas state.
   (SSFC, 10/18/15, p.A5)
1967Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
Feb 14, The first nuclear weapons free zone was established in Latin
America and the Caribbean. The Treaty of Tiatelolco was signed in
Mexico City. It banned the manufacture, storage or testing of
nuclear weapons and the devices for launching them.
  Â
(http://cyberschoolbus.un.org/dnp/sub2.asp?ipage=timeline)
1967Â Â Â Â Â Â May 18, Schoolteacher
Lucio Cabanas began a guerrilla campaign in Atoyac de Alvarez, west
of Acapulco in the state of Guerrero. The government responded with
widespread repression and hundreds of civilians were killed or
disappeared.
   (SFEC, 9/30/96, p.A12)
1967Â Â Â Â Â Â May 29, Geronimo Baqueiro
Foster (b.1898), Mexican musicologist and composer, died.
   (www.dolmetsch.com/cdefsb.htm)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 4, Neal Cassidy
(b.1926), friend of Jack Kerouac and one of the Merry Pranksters,
died on a Mexican highway.
   (SFC, 7/2/97,
p.E5)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neal_Cassady)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 2, In Mexico soldiers
under Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz used automatic weapons and killed
some 300 students in the Mexico City Tlatelolco massacre prior to
the start of the summer Olympics. The government said only 50
students were killed during gunfire that lasted 5 hours. Luis
Echeverria, later president, was the interior minister and the man
in charge of public security. He was called before a congressional
committee in 1998. Evidence in 1999 confirmed that pre-positioned
soldiers fired on the students. In 2002 a special prosecutor said he
has found no evidence to support historians' claims that some 300
people died when army troops opened fire on demonstrators in 1968.
He put the number killed at 38. A judge dismissed other genocide
charges against Echeverria in July 2005, ruling that while he may
have been responsible for a separate 1971 student massacre, he could
not be tried because the statute of limitations had expired in 1985.
   (WUD, 1994, p.1687)(SFC, 9/1/96, p.A16)(SFEC,
4/6/97, p.C12)(WSJ, 8/13/97, p.A12)(SFC, 2/4/98, p.C2,14)(WSJ,
9/10/98, p.A1)(SFC, 6/28/99, p.A10)(AP, 8/5/02)(AP, 3/27/09)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 12, The summer Games
of the 19th Olympiad were officially opened in Mexico City by
Mexican President Gustavo Diaz Ordaz.
   (WUD, 1994, p.1687)(HN, 10/12/98)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 16, American athletes
Tommie Smith and John Carlos (23) sparked controversy at the Mexico
City Olympics by giving "black power" salutes during a victory
ceremony after they'd won gold and bronze medals in the 200-meter
race. In 2011 John Carlos with Dave Zirin authored “The John Carlos
Story: The Sports Moment That Changed the World.”
   (AP, 10/16/08)(SSFC, 10/9/11, p.G4)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 18, The US Olympic
Committee suspended two black athletes, Tommie Smith and John
Carlos, for giving a black power salute as a protest during a
victory ceremony in Mexico City. Bob Beamon soared 29 feet, 2
inches, to set a world record in the long jump. In 1976 Dick Schaap
authored “The Perfect Jump.”
   (AP, 10/18/98)(WSJ, 8/9/08, p.W8)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â Oct 27, The 19th Olympic
games closed at Mexico City, Mexico.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1968_Summer_Olympics)
1968Â Â Â Â Â Â There was a rain of
hundreds of thousands of maggots on Acapulco.
   (SFC, 5/30/98, p.E4)
1969Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 8, A meteor shower hit
Mexico creating a luminance in the night sky as bright as day. A
meteorite weighing over 1 ton fell in Chihuahua, Mexico.
  Â
(http://wapi.isu.edu/geo_pgt/Mod05_Meteorites_Ast/mod5.htm)(TMP,
KCTS-Video, 1987)
1969Â Â Â Â Â Â Feb 8, Mexican graphic
artist Leopoldo Mendez (b.1902) died. His work mostly focused on
engraving for illustrations and other print work generally connected
to his political and social activism.
  Â
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopoldo_M%C3%A9ndez)
1969Â Â Â Â Â Â Mar 26, B. Traven
(b.1890), novelist and short-story writer, died. He lived most of
his life incognito in Mexico. His work included "The Treasure of the
Sierra Madre" (1934), "The Death Ship," The Rebellion of the Hanged"
and "The General from the Jungle." In 1976 Michael L. Baumann
authored "B. Traven, An Introduction." In 2000 Michael L. Baumann
authored "Mr. Traven, I Presume."
   (SFEC, 10/15/00, BR
p.8)(www.kirjasto.sci.fi/traven.htm)
1969Â Â Â Â Â Â Pres. Gustavo Diaz Ordaz
decided to name Interior Minister Luis Echeverria Alvarez as the
next PRI presidential candidate. He then attributed the selection to
labor union chiefs, peasant leaders and party rank-and-file.
   (SFEC, 5/23/99, p.A21)
1969-1971Â Â Â Heberto Castillo (1928-1997), founder of
the Party of their Democratic Revolution (1989), was imprisoned for
his support of the student movement. He was elected to the senate in
1994. He had studied engineering and as a specialist in structural
mathematics invented a 3-dimensional construction form.
   (SFEC, 4/6/97, p.C12)