According to businesscarriers, Paraguay is a country in South America. It borders Brazil to the northeast, Bolivia to the northwest, and Argentina to the south and southwest. The country has no access to the sea other than for cargo ships through the river Río Paraguay, which empties into the Río de la Plata near Buenos Aires in Argentina. The capital is Asuncion.
Largest cities (by population): Asuncion, San Lorenzo, Capiata, Lambare, Fernando de la Mora, Limpio, Nemby.
On the surface, Paraguay seemed to be a potentially valuable Spanish dominion, but without gold, no silver to be mined, or no local Indians to be forced into slavery, this isolated colony remained peaceful and remained mostly out of the spotlight of the Spanish crown. .
Paraguay is i.a. member of the UN, WTO and OAS.
TIMELINE:
1516 – Conqueror Juan Díaz de Solís leads an unsuccessful expedition to what later became known as Paraguay.
1524 – Portuguese adventurer Alejo Garcia visits Paraguay. He leads an army of 200 -strong Gurani Indians across Gran Chaco. It is estimated that the Gurani Indians consisted of about 400,000 when they first met the Europeans.
1526 – When the Italian adventurer Sebastian Cabot first sailed up what is today the Parana River, establishing a colony known as Sancti Spiritu.
1530 – Conqueror Don Pedro de Mendoza tries to reach the area, but fails on the banks of the Rio de la Plata. His second-in-command, Juan de Ayolas, sails up Rio Paraguay and finds Cabot’s abandoned colony. The city of Ayolas, is named after the deputy commander who was killed along with his men in 1837 by the Payagua tribe
1537 – Spain’s famous navigator, Juan de Salazar, later founded the present capital, Asuncion, on 15 August, under the name Nuestra Señora de la Asunción.
1542 – Spanish colonists settle in Asuncion.
1544-1555 – Domingo Martinez de Irala modernizes Paraguay by introducing agriculture and local industry. He restores a good relationship with the natives. He died in 1556.
1588 – Jesuits begin their work of establishing Jesuit settlements for indigenous guarantors in the Paraguayan government.
1609 – Spanish Jesuits convert the locals to Roman Catholicism.
1731 – One of the first revolts against Spanish rule, led by José de Antequera y Castro, executed on 15 June.
1750 – Jesuits lose support from the Spanish Crown.
Guarani War. Spanish-Portuguese forces defeat the Jesuit colonies and kill about 1,500 Guaraní Indians.
1767 – Suppression of the Jesuits. The last Jesuits are expelled from colonial Paraguay.
1776 – The Viceroyalty of Rio de la Plata, which includes the province of Paraguay, is established.
1796-1806 – Governor Espinoza leads the country. Heavy taxes imposed by the Spanish provocateurs a popular uprising, which he suppresses in many executions.
1810 – Royalism falls in South America, when the King of Spain is deposed by Napoleon.
The May Revolution, was a week-long series of events that took place from 18-25. May in Buenos Aires. This Spanish colony largely covered the territories of present-day Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and parts of Brazil. The result was the removal of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros and the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta (First Junta) on 25 May. It was the first successful revolution in the South American independence process.
1811 – Paraguay declares independence on May 14, but this was not recognized until November 25, 1842.
1836 – First public library opens.
1864-1870 – Paraguay loses 90% of the adult male population and large tracts of land in the war against Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay over access to the sea. ( Triple Alliance Wars )
1866 – Battle of Tuyuti, the largest battle ever fought on South American soil. The advance of the Allies was stopped by Paraguay at Curupayty.
1869 – Paraguayan army defeated at the Battle of Acosta, 16 August.
1874 – Juan Bautista Gill is elected president.
1877 – President Gill is assassinated in the middle of the street on April 12 at the behest of Juan Silvano Godoi. After the murder, Godoi lived a long exile of eighteen years in Buenos Aires.
Higinio Uriarte, President Gill’s cousin, was elected president the same day, and served until November 25, 1878.
1889 – National University is founded. It is the oldest and most traditional university in the country.
Electricity installed for the first time in the country.
1901 -SPORT: On November 23, the first official football match was played in Ascunsion.
1926 – The population is estimated at 800,000, in addition to 30,000 Indians.
1927 – Mennonites arrive in the country. Worldwide, there are over 1 million Mennonites today.
1928 – Border disputes erupt with Bolivia, threatening a war between the two states.
1932-1935 – Paraguay gains territory west of Bolivia during the Chaco War. The victory was relatively hollow with about 40,000 dead.and an economic disaster for both countries because the large amount of oil in the area that was expected was never found.
1945 – Peru, Paraguay, Chile, Ecuador join the UN.
1947 – Paraguay is thrown into civil war from March to August. ( read here )
1954-1989 – The country suffered under the dictatorship of General Alfredo Stroessner. He came to power in a coup. The Stroessner era was also marked by growing political and economic corruption, which the country suffered severely even long after the fall of the dictatorship.
1965 – Paraguay assists the United States with the invasion of the Dominican Republic.
1970s – Paraguay is the center of the so-called ” Operation Condor “, a regional military cooperation aimed at pursuing politically different thinking. From the late 1970s, Stroessner’s dictatorship appeared more and more as a burden to the United States. He is charged in 1974 with slavery, genocide of Indians, corruption, torture and kidnapping, as well as apparently protecting former Nazis living in the country.
1982 – Flood in the country due to El Nino, which primarily flowed over the Paraná river basin in La Plata Basin in the autumn of 1982 and the beginning of 1983.
1988 – Pope John Paul II visits Paraguay, leading to rising anti- Stroessner morale.
1989 – General Andres Rodriguez launches coup against 35-year-old dictator Alfredo Stroessner, who flees to Brazil. Rodriguez was elected president in the first free presidential election in 35 years.
1992 – President Rodriguez launches new reforms, including abolition of the death penalty. He frees many political prisoners and slaves. He prosecutes and imprisons the main perpetrators of Stroessners ‘ regime.
1993 – Juan Carlos Wasmosy is elected president. He releases several of Stroessner’s aides from prison and re – employs them in their previous positions in government.
1996: – Field Marshal Lino Oveido fails in his coup against Wasmosy, and is imprisoned, much to the annoyance of the Paraguayan public.
1998 – Raul Cubas is elected amid fraud against him.
1999 – Cubas resigns on March 29 following the assassination of Vice President Luis Maria Argana on March 23. Oveido, who was betrayed by Cubas, flees first to Argentina, then to Brazil. Mass protests erupted in Asunción, with seven people killed by police. Luis Gonzalez Macchi was sworn in as president the same day.
2002 – President Gonzalez Macchi is accused of corruption for alleged role in illegal investment scandal. Congress voted on a state court case, but Macchi survived by two votes from being removed from office.
2003 – Nicanor Duarte Frutos is sworn in as president, and Macchi is banned from leaving the country and brought to justice for corruption charges. Frutos currently holds the title of Senator for Life.
2004 – A fire breaks out in the Ycuá Bolaños supermarket on August 1 in Ascunsion, killing 400 customers and injuring 500.
Cecilia Cubas, the 32-year-old daughter of former President Raul Cubas, was kidnapped by two gunmen, two blocks from her home in Ascunsion, and murdered on September 21. Her naked body was found in a house on February 16, 2005, in an underground chamber connected by tunnels, in the city almost 5 months after she was kidnapped. The body was so dissolved that the identity had to be determined by a dental test. She had been strangled with tape. It was later revealed that the kidnappers had been trained by the Colombian terrorist group FARC. ( Video )
2006 – 15 members of a radical left-wing group charged and convicted of kidnapping and murdering Cecilia Cubas.
2007 – The state declares a state of emergency due to outbreaks of dengue fever.
2008 – Former Roman Catholic bishop Fernando Lugo is consecrated, ending 61 years of one-party rule.
2012 – President Lugo is ousted from office by a federal court called a coup d’état by neighboring countries. Federico Franco was the replacement.
