History of Chile

The territory of present-day Chile has been populated since at least 12,000 BC. In the 16th century Spanish conquistadors began to subdue and colonize the region of present-day Chile, and the territory became a colony from 1540 to 1818, when it gained independence from Spain. Chile's economic development was successively marked by the export of first agricultural produce, then saltpeter and later copper until the 1980s. The wealth of raw materials led to an economic upturn, but also led to dependency, and even wars with neighboring states. The country was governed during most of its first 150 years of independent life by different forms of restricted democracy, where the electorate was carefully vetted and controlled by an elite. Failure to address the economic and social disparities and increasing political awareness of the less-affluent population, as well as indirect intervention and economic funding to the main political groups by both the KGB and the CIA , as part of the Cold War, led to a political polarization under socialist President Salvador Allende which in turn resulted in the Chilean coup of 1973 and the government of General Augusto Pinochet. The 17-year military-led government was marked by severe human-rights violations and deep market-oriented economic reforms. In 1988, Chile made a peaceful