| Date | Event | Modern department (or Mexican state) |
|---|---|---|
| February – March 1524 | Spanish defeat the K'iche' | Retalhuleu, Suchitepéquez, Quetzaltenango, Totonicapán and El Quiché |
| 8 February 1524 | Battle of Zapotitlán, Spanish victory over the K'iche' | Suchitepéquez |
| 12 February 1524 | First battle of Quetzaltenango results in the death of the K'iche' lord Tecun Uman | Quetzaltenango |
| 18 February 1524 | Second battle of Quetzaltenango | Quetzaltenango |
| March 1524 | Spanish under Pedro de Alvarado raze Q'umarkaj, capital of the K'iche' | El Quiché |
| 14 April 1524 | Spanish enter Iximche and ally themselves with the Kaqchikel | Chimaltenango |
| 18 April 1524 | Spanish defeat the Tz'utujil in battle on the shores of Lake Atitlán | Sololá |
| 9 May 1524 | Pedro de Alvarado defeats the Pipil of Panacal or Panacaltepeque near Izcuintepeque | Escuintla |
| 26 May 1524 | Pedro de Alvarado defeats the Xinca of Atiquipaque | Santa Rosa |
| 27 July 1524 | Iximche declared first colonial capital of Guatemala | Chimaltenango |
| 28 August 1524 | Kaqchikel abandon Iximche and break alliance | Chimaltenango |
| 7 September 1524 | Spanish declare war on the Kaqchikel | Chimaltenango |
| 1525 | The Poqomam capital falls to Pedro de Alvarado | Guatemala |
| 13 March 1525 | Hernán Cortés arrives at Lake Petén Itzá | Petén |
| October 1525 | Zaculeu, capital of the Mam, surrenders to Gonzalo de Alvarado y Contreras after a lengthy siege | Huehuetenango |
| 1526 | Chajoma rebel against the Spanish | Guatemala |
| 1526 | Acasaguastlán given in encomienda to Diego Salvatierra | El Progreso |
| 1526 | Spanish captains sent by Alvarado conquer Chiquimula | Chiquimula |
| 9 February 1526 | Spanish deserters burn Iximche | Chimaltenango |
| 1527 | Spanish abandon their capital at Tecpán Guatemala | Chimaltenango |
| 1529 | San Mateo Ixtatán given in encomienda to Gonzalo de Ovalle | Huehuetenango |
| September 1529 | Spanish routed at Uspantán | El Quiché |
| April 1530 | Rebellion in Chiquimula put down | Chiquimula |
| 9 May 1530 | Kaqchikel surrender to the Spanish | Sacatepéquez |
| December 1530 | Ixil and Uspantek surrender to the Spanish | El Quiché |
| April 1533 | Juan de León y Cardona founds San Marcos and San Pedro Sacatepéquez | San Marcos |
| 1543 | Foundation of Cobán | Alta Verapaz |
| 1549 | First reductions of the Chuj and Q'anjob'al | Huehuetenango |
| 1551 | Corregimiento of San Cristóbal Acasaguastlán established | El Progreso, Zacapa and Baja Verapaz |
| 1555 | Lowland Maya kill Francisco de Vico | Alta Verapaz |
| 1560 | Reduction of Topiltepeque and Lakandon Ch'ol | Alta Verapaz |
| 1618 | Franciscan missionaries arrive at Nojpetén, capital of the Itzá | Petén |
| 1619 | Further missionary expeditions to Nojpetén | Petén |
| 1684 | Reduction of San Mateo Ixtatán and Santa Eulalia | Huehuetenango |
| 29 January 1686 | Melchor Rodríguez Mazariegos leaves Huehuetenango, leading an expedition against the Lacandón | Huehuetenango |
| 1695 | Franciscan friar Andrés de Avendaño attempts to convert the Itzá | Petén |
| 28 February 1695 | Spanish expeditions leave simultaneously from Cobán, San Mateo Ixtatán and Ocosingo against the Lacandón | Alta Verapaz, Huehuetenango and Chiapas |
| 1696 | Andrés de Avendaño forced to flee Nojpetén | Petén |
| 13 March 1697 | Nojpetén falls to the Spanish after a fierce battle | Petén |
Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean Sea to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually defined as consisting of seven countries: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama. Within Central America is the Mesoamerican biodiversity hotspot, which extends from southern Mexico to southeastern Panama. Due to the presence of several active geologic faults and the Central America Volcanic Arc, there is a high amount of seismic activity in the region, such as volcanic eruptions and earthquakes, which has resulted in death, injury, and property damage.
Honduras was inhabited by many indigenous peoples when the Spanish arrived in the 16th century. The western-central part of Honduras was inhabited by the Lencas, the central north coast by the Tol, the area east and west of Trujillo by the Pech, the Maya and Sumo. These autonomous groups traded with each other and with other populations as distant as Panama and Mexico. Honduras has ruins of several cities dating from the Mesoamerican pre-classic period that show the pre-Columbian past of the country.
Central America is commonly said to include Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and Panama. This definition matches modern political borders. Central America begins geographically in Mexico, at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Mexico's narrowest point, and the former country of Yucatán (1841–1848) was part of Central America. At the other end, before its independence in 1903 Panama was part of South America, as it was a Department of Colombia. At times Belize, a British colony until 1981, where English instead of Spanish is spoken, and where the population is primarily of African origin, has been considered not part of (Spanish-speaking) Central America.
The United Fruit Company was an American multinational corporation that traded in tropical fruit grown on Latin American plantations and sold in the United States and Europe. The company was formed in 1899 from the merger of the Boston Fruit Company with Minor C. Keith's banana-trading enterprises. It flourished in the early and mid-20th century, and it came to control vast territories and transportation networks in Central America, the Caribbean coast of Colombia, and the West Indies. Although it competed with the Standard Fruit Company for dominance in the international banana trade, it maintained a virtual monopoly in certain regions, some of which came to be called banana republics – such as Costa Rica, Honduras, and Guatemala.
The United States occupation of Nicaragua from August 4, 1912, to January 2, 1933, was part of the Banana Wars, when the U.S. military invaded various Latin American countries from 1898 to 1934. The formal occupation began on August 4, 1912, even though there were various other assaults by the United States in Nicaragua throughout this period. American military interventions in Nicaragua were designed to stop any other nation except the United States of America from building a Nicaraguan Canal.
The Captaincy General of Guatemala, also known as the Kingdom of Guatemala, was an administrative division of the Spanish Empire, under the viceroyalty of New Spain in Central America, including present-day Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala, and the Mexican state of Chiapas. The governor-captain general was also president of the Royal Audiencia of Guatemala, the superior court.
The Banana Wars were a series of conflicts that consisted of military occupation, police action, and intervention by the United States in Central America and the Caribbean between the end of the Spanish–American War in 1898 and the inception of the Good Neighbor Policy in 1934. The military interventions were primarily carried out by the United States Marine Corps, which also developed a manual, the Small Wars Manual (1921) based on their experiences. On occasion, the United States Navy provided gunfire support and the United States Army also deployed troops.
Bilateral relations between the various countries of Latin America and the United States of America have been multifaceted and complex, at times defined by strong regional cooperation and at others filled with economic and political tension and rivalry. Although relations between the U.S. government and most of Latin America were limited prior to the late 1800s, for most of the past century, the United States has unofficially regarded parts of Latin America as within its sphere of influence, and for much of the Cold War (1947–1991), vied with the Soviet Union. The political context evolved again in the 2000s, with the election in several South American countries of socialist governments. This "pink tide" thus saw the successive elections of Hugo Chávez in Venezuela (1998), Lula in Brazil (2002), Néstor Kirchner in Argentina (2003), Tabaré Vázquez in Uruguay (2004), Evo Morales in Bolivia (2005), Michelle Bachelet in Chile (2006), Daniel Ortega in Nicaragua (2006), Rafael Correa in Ecuador (2006), Fernando Lugo in Paraguay (2008), José Mujica in Uruguay (2009), Ollanta Humala in Peru (2011), Luis Guillermo Solís in Costa Rica (2014), Salvador Sánchez Cerén in El Salvador (2014), and Andrés Manuel López Obrador in Mexico (2018). Although these leaders vary in their policies and attitude towards both Washington, D.C. and neoliberalism, while the states they govern also have different agendas and long-term historic tendencies, which can lead to rivalry and open contempt between themselves, they seem to have agreed on refusing the ALCA and on following a regional integration without the United States' overseeing the process. In particular, Chávez and Morales seem more disposed to ally together, while Kirchner and Lula, who has been criticized by the left-wing in Brazil, including by the Movimento dos Sem Terra (MST) landless peasants movement, are seen as more centered. The state of Bolivia also has seen some friction with Brazil, as well as Chile. Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics at New York University, said in a May 2006 interview: "On one side, you have a number of administrations that are committed to moderate economic reform. On the other, you've had something of a backlash against the Washington Consensus [a set of liberal economic policies that Washington-based institutions urged Latin American countries to follow, including privatization, trade liberalization and fiscal discipline] and some emergence of populist leaders." In the same way, although a leader such as Chávez verbally attacked the George W. Bush administration as much as the latter attacked him, and claimed to be following a democratic socialist Bolivarian Revolution, the geo-political context has changed a lot since the 1970s. Larry Birns, director of the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, thus stated: for influence in the Western Hemisphere.
Rail transport in Central America consists of several isolated railroad lines with freight or passenger service. The most famous one is the Panama Canal Railway, the oldest transcontinental railroad in the world, connecting Panama City with Colón since 1855. Other railroads in Belize, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama were built by private and public investors mainly to facilitate the transport of local agricultural produce to export markets and harbors. Their market share and profitability went into decline in the second half of the twentieth century and most lines have been decommissioned by the end of the 1990s. As of 2018, railroads operate locally in Honduras, Costa Rica and Panama only; all rail transport has been suspended in Belize, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua. The railways still operating do not cross national borders.
The Central American crisis began in the late 1970s, when major civil wars and communist revolutions erupted in various countries in Central America, causing it to become the world's most volatile region in terms of socioeconomic change. In particular, the United States feared that victories by communist forces would cause South America to become isolated from the United States if the governments of the Central American countries were overthrown and pro-Soviet communist governments were installed in their place. During these civil wars, the United States pursued its interests by supporting right-wing governments against left-wing guerrillas.
This is an index of Central America-related articles. This index defines Central America as the seven nations of Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
Honduras is a republic in Central America, at times referred to as Spanish Honduras to differentiate it from British Honduras, which became the modern-day state of Belize.
Authoritarian General Tiburcio Carías Andino controlled Honduras during the Great Depression, until 1948. In 1955—after two authoritarian administrations and a general strike initiated by banana workers—young military reformists staged a coup that installed a provisional junta and paved the way for constituent assembly elections in 1957. This assembly appointed Ramón Villeda Morales as president and transformed itself into a national legislature with a 6-year term.
The Nicaraguan Civil War of 1926–1927, or the Constitutionalist War, broke out after a coup d'état by Emiliano Chamorro, a member of the Conservative Party, removed Nicaragua's democratically elected government, resulting in a rebellion by members of the Liberal Party. The conflict came to an end after a military and diplomatic intervention by the United States resulted in the Pact of Espino Negro, which began the Peace of Tipitapa. Although the civil war came to an end, one Liberal general, Augusto César Sandino, refused to lay down his arms and waged the Sandino Rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and the US Marine Corps until 1933.
The National Police of Panama is the national police of Panama, under the Panamanian Public Forces. Established by the National Police Act No. 18 of June 3, 1997, it is responsible for maintaining public order nationwide. The National Police, together with the National Aeronaval Service, National Border Service, Institutional Protection Service, and National Migration Service, make up the Public Forces. Since 2010, the National Police has reported to the President through the Minister of Public Security.
This is a list of the Honduras national football team results from 1960 to 1979.
The following lists events that happened during 2020 in Central America: Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama.
