On This Day in History: June 29

Isabel Perón become president of Argentina

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In 1996 Madonna was in a musical called Evita, about Eva Perón. It has a 63% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so might be worth checking out if you’re into that sort of thing. Anyway, this isn’t about Eva Perón, because, spoiler alert: she died young. Eva was Argentine President Juan Perón’s second wife. This is about wife #3.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: June 29, 1974--

Let’s begin with Juan. He was president of Argentina from 1946 to 1955. Then there was a coup d’état and he was punted out of the country with a “Fuck you and don’t come back.” Oh, Eva died of cancer in 1952 at 33. Another aside: If you’ll note the timing, Juan was also totally into protecting fucking Nazi war criminals who fled Europe.

María Cartas dropped out of school after the fifth grade and later became a nightclub dancer, adopting the name Isabel. She met Juan in exile in Panama and he liked her a lot, possibly because she was 35 years younger than him, and rich and powerful men seem to be into that. In 1960 they moved to Spain together and after a while the local Catholics were getting huffy about him shacking up with a woman who wasn’t his wife, so he was all fine I guess she’ll be wife #3.

But Isabel became more than just a hot and much younger wife. Juan began to reinsert himself into Argentinian politics from across the pond, but he couldn’t actually travel there because the Argentinian military said, “You better fucking not.” So Isabel went in his stead, acting as a go-between.

In 1973 a Peronist won the Argentine presidency and welcomed Juan home. Then that president resigned a month later and Juan was back in with a snap election, naming Isabel as Vice President. Thing is, Juan was 78, senile, and in ill health. Isabel was mostly running the show. On June 28, 1974, less than a year into his third term as president, Juan had a series of heart attacks. On June 29 Isabel was secretly sworn in as president, and although not elected to the position, she thus became the first woman in the world to attain the title of “President” (as opposed to Prime Minister or Queen or Tsarina or whatever). Juan died two days later.

Isabel would last as president for a tumultuous two years, before being overthrown in a military coup. After the coup there was a seven-year period of U.S.-backed terror and repression in Argentina referred to as the “Dirty War.” Isabel spent five years under house arrest, then in 1981 was exiled to Spain, where she continues to live today.

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