21 of 21 events · showing 1–20
Sovereign state in Central America
1717
The 1717 Guatemala earthquake struck colonial Guatemala on September 29 with an estimated moment magnitude of 7.4, and a Mercalli intensity of approximately IX (Violent). The earthquake essentially destroyed much of the architecture of Antigua Guatemala, which was the colonial capital of Central America at the time.
6 September 1826 – 25 June 1829
The First Central American Civil War (Spanish: Primera Guerra Civil Centroamericana), also known as the Federal War of 1826–1829 (Guerra Federal de 1826–1829), was a civil political and military conflict within the Federal Republic of Central America which lasted from 1826 until 1829. The civil war was fought between liberals led by General Francisco Morazán and conservatives led by General Manuel José Arce, the president of Central America and a former liberal.
30 June 1871
The Guatemalan Revolution of 1871 was a revolt led by Liberals under Justo Rufino Barrios and Miguel García Granados against the Conservative leadership of President Vicente Cerna y Cerna, the hand-picked successor of Rafael Carrera.
28 February 1885 – 14 April 1885
Barrios' War of Reunification, also known as Barrios' great attempt (Spanish: intentona de Barrios), was a war initiated by Guatemalan President Justo Rufino Barrios in 1885 with the goal of reunifying Central America. Of the five Central American countries, only Honduras supported Barrios' reunification effort; Costa Rica, El Salvador, and Nicaragua opposed it, as did Mexico.
1902
The 1902 Guatemala earthquake occurred on April 18 at 8:23 pm with a moment magnitude of 7.5 and a maximum Mercalli intensity of VIII (Severe). The rupture was initiated at a depth of 25 km (16 mi) and the duration was 1 to 2 minutes.
8 April 1920 – 14 April 1920
The Tragic Week of 1920 was a civil uprising that took place in Guatemala in the week of April 8 to April 14, 1920, led by Unionist Party leaders, student leaders and those who opposed President Manuel Estrada Cabrera when the latter refused to leave office after the National Assembly declared him mentally incompetent for the presidency and named Carlos Herrera as interim president.
20 October 1944
The period in the history of Guatemala between the coups against Jorge Ubico in 1944 and Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 is known locally as the Revolution (Spanish: La Revolución). It has also been called the Ten Years of Spring, highlighting the peak years of representative democracy in Guatemala from 1944 until the end of the civil war in 1996.
June 1954 – 27 June 1954
The democratically elected Guatemalan president Jacobo Árbenz was deposed in a coup d'état in 1954, marking the end of the Guatemalan Revolution. The coup installed the military dictatorship of Carlos Castillo Armas, the first in a series of U.S.-backed authoritarian rulers in Guatemala.
30 March 1963
The 1963 Guatemalan coup d'état was a successful US-backed power grab in Guatemala by the Guatemalan military, led by Colonel Enriuqe Peralta Azurdia, which ousted the Miguel Ydígoras Fuentes administration. The military junta headed by the colonel governed the country until the restoration of civilian rule in 1966, peacefully handing power to Julio César Méndez Montenegro on July 1.
3 March 1965 – 29 December 1996
The Guatemalan Civil War (Spanish: Guerra civil de Guatemala) was fought from 1960 to 1996 between the government of Guatemala and various leftist rebel groups. The Guatemalan government forces committed genocide against the Maya population of Guatemala during the civil war and there were widespread human rights violations against civilians.
4 February 1976
The 1976 Guatemala earthquake struck on February 4 at 03:01:43 local time with a moment magnitude of 7.5. The shock was centered on the Motagua Fault, about 160 km northeast of Guatemala City at a depth of 5 kilometers (3.1 mi) near the town of Los Amates in the department of Izabal.
31 January 1980
The Burning of the Spanish Embassy (sometimes called the Spanish Embassy Massacre or the Spanish Embassy Fire) refers to an event beginning with the occupation of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City, Guatemala, on January 31, 1980, by indigenous peasants of the Committee for Peasant Unity and their allies, which was responded to by a subsequent raid by Guatemalan police that resulted in a fire which destroyed the embassy and left 37 people dead. The incident has been called "the defining event" of the Guatemalan Civil War.
23 March 1982
The 1982 Guatemalan coup d'état was a successful military overthrow in Guatemala by junior military officers, ousting the Romeo Lucas Garcia administration and installing a three-man military junta headed by General Efraín Ríos Montt. The general ruled for a brief but bloody 17 months before being overthrown by his defense minister General Oscar Mejia Victores in another coup.
18 July 1982
The Plan de Sánchez massacre took place in the Guatemalan village of Plan de Sánchez, Baja Verapaz department, on 18 July 1982. Over 250 people (mostly women and children, and almost exclusively ethnic Achi Maya) were abused and murdered by members of the armed forces and their paramilitary allies.
6 December 1982
The Dos Erres massacre of 6 December 1982 took place in Dos Erres, a small village in the municipality of La Libertad, in the northern Petén department of Guatemala. The name of the village, occasionally given as "Las Dos Erres", literally means "two Rs", originating from two brothers called Ruano who received the original land grant.
1980s
The Guatemalan genocide (Spanish: Genocidio guatemalteco), also referred to as the Maya genocide (Genocidio maya), or the Silent Holocaust (Holocausto silencioso), was the mass killing of the Maya Indigenous people during the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996) by successive Guatemalan military governments that first took power following the CIA-instigated 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état. Massacres, forced disappearances, torture and summary executions of guerrillas and especially civilians at the hands of security forces had been widespread since 1965, and was a longstanding policy of the…
7 November 2012
The 2012 Guatemala earthquake occurred on November 7 at 10:35:45 local time. The shock had a moment magnitude of 7.4 and a maximum Mercalli Intensity of VII (Very strong).
15 April 2018
A referendum on the territorial dispute with Belize was held in Guatemala on Sunday 15 April 2018. Voters were asked whether the Guatemalan government should request the International Court of Justice to resolve the territorial dispute permanently, as part of a commitment signed in December 2008 between Guatemala and Belize.
3 June 2018
The Volcán de Fuego erupted in Guatemala on Sunday 3 June 2018. The eruption produced a large ash plume fed by continuous explosions, pyroclastic flows, and lahars.
1 December 2019
The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. It spread to other parts of Asia and then worldwide in early 2020.