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- In the early 16th century, Spanish conquistadores were looking for land
for them to extend their dominion.
- Cortez conquered El Salvador in 1525
- El Salvador gain it's independance on September 15,1821 from Spain
- In 1969, El Salvador invaded Honduras after Honduran landowners deported
several thousand Salvadorans. The four-day war became known as the “football war” because it broke out during
a soccer game between the two countries.
- In the 1970s El Salvador had social inequilities, poor economy and the measures
of dictatorship led to civil war between the government, ruled since 1961 by the right-wing National Conciliation Party (PCN),
and leftist antigovernment guerrilla units, whose leading group was the Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN).
The U.S. intervened on the side of the military dictatorship, despite its scores of human rights violations. Between 1979
and 1981, about 30,000 people were killed by right-wing death squads backed by the military. José Napoleón Duarte—a
moderate civilian who was president from 1984 to 1989—offered an alternative to the political extremes of right and
left, but Duarte was unable to end the war. In 1989, Alfredo Cristiani of the right-wing Nationalist Republican Alliance (ARENA)
was elected. On Jan. 16, 1992, the government signed a peace treaty with the guerrilla forces, formally ending the 12-year
civil war that had killed 75,000.
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