This Day In Latino History

On this day in 1953, after just having graduated from the University of Buenos Aires with a medical diploma, Dr. Ernesto “Che” Guevara set out on a road trip through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Honduras, and El Salvador. Che had already taken a year off from his studies in 1951 to take the famed, Motorcycle Diaries trip across Latin America, with his friend Alberto Granado, where he decided that Latin America should be one Hispanic America united in its pursuit of liberty. This second trip affirmed for Che his disdain of the capitalist system after he had a chance to visit the “dominions” of the United Fruit Company, which convinced him “how terrible” the “Capitalist octopuses” were. At the end of this trip, Che decided to settle in Guatemala to devote himself to training to become an armed revolutionary.

And on this day in 1846, Mexico’s Congress officially declared war on the United States when American troops occupied Monterey and Yerba Buena, marking the beginning of the United States conquest of California.