Events in Guatemalan History
- 1773-07-29 Santa Marta earthquakes destroy much of the capitol city of Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala, New Spain (now Antigua, Guatemala); over 500 killed instantly, and 600 more die later from resulting disease and starvation
- 1821-09-15 Act of Independence of Central America: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras & Nicaragua declare their independence from the Spanish Empire
- 1839-04-17 Guatemala forms a republic
- 1871-06-30 Guatemala revolts for agrarian reforms
- 1902-10-24 Santa Maria volcano in Guatemala erupts, killing 6,000 people and becoming one of the three largest eruptions of the 20th century
- 1902-10-25 Santa Maria, Guatemala hit by Earthquake, killing an estimated 6,000 people
- 1913-03-28 Guatemala becomes a signatory to the Buenos Aires copyright treaty
- 1921-01-19 Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras & El Salvador sign Pact of Union
- 1921-09-09 Guatemala, Honduras and San Salvador agree to Central American Union
- 1922-01-29 Union of Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador dissolved
- 1944-10-01 Newspaper editor Alejandro Córdova assassinated in Guatemala
- 1944-10-20 Revolution by workers & students in Guatemala
- 1945-04-19 Diplomatic relations between the Soviet Union and Guatemala are established
President of Guatemala Elected
1950-11-10 Jacobo Árbenz elected President of Guatemala
- 1952-04-21 56th Boston Marathon won by Doroteo Flores of Guatemala in 2:31:53
Event of Interest
1954-06-17 CIA exile army lands in Guatemala. Organised by John Foster Dulles and United Fruit Co.
- 1954-06-27 CIA-sponsored rebels overthrow the democratically elected government of Guatemala and force President Jacobo Árbenz to resign
- 1954-07-08 Military junta selects colonel Armas President of Guatemala
- 1957-07-26 Carlos Castillo Armas, Dictator and President of Guatemala, is assassinated by a palace guard with leftist sympathies
- 1958-02-12 General Miguel Ydegoras Fuentes elected President of Guatemala
- 1960-07-14 Fire rages through a Guatemala City insane asylum killing 225 and severely injuring 300
- 1960-10-30 Guatemala's "La Hora" reports plan for invasion on Cuba
Asturias Nobel Literature Prize
1967-12-10 Guatemalan author Miguel Ángel Asturias is awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in Stockholm
- 1976-02-04 7.5 earthquake kills 22,778 in Guatemala & Honduras
- 1980-01-31 Police storm occupied Spanish embassy in Guatemala City, killing 41
Coup d'état
1982-03-23 Guatemala military coup under General Efraín Ríos Montt, President Romeo Lucas flees
- 1982-06-09 General Efraín Ríos Montt declares himself President of Guatemala
- 1982-12-07 Dos Erres massacre in Guatemala during country's civil war, 171 people killed led by Santos López Alonzo
Guatemala Arms Embargo Ends
1983-01-07 President Reagan ends US arms embargo against Guatemala
- 1983-08-08 Military coup in Guatemala, Dictator and former General Efraín Ríos Montt flees
- 1985-05-31 Guatemala adopts constitution
- 1986-01-14 Constitution of Guatemala takes effect
- 1986-01-14 Vinicio Cerezo becomes only the second freely elected President of Guatemala since CIA-sponsored coup in 1954
- 1987-08-07 5 Central American presidents sign peace accord in Guatemala
- 1989-06-17 US beats Guatemala 2-1 in 3rd round of 1990 world soccer cup
- 1991-01-06 Jorge Serrano Elias elected President of Guatemala
- 1991-01-14 Jorge Serrano Elias sworn in as President of Guatemala
- 1993-06-01 Guatemala president Jorge Serrano overthrown by army
- 1993-06-06 Ramiro de Leon Carpio elected President of Guatemala
- 1996-05-06 Guatemala's leftist guerrillas sign key accord with government of President Alvaro Arzu aimed at ending 35 years of civil war
- 1996-10-16 Eighty-four people are killed and more than 180 injured as 47,000 football fans attempt to squeeze into the 36,000-seat Estadio Mateo Flores in Guatemala City.
- 1997-07-28 Guatemala becomes a member of the Berne Convention copyright treaty
- 2001-12-01 Nicaraguan baseball team wins the Central American Games; Ramon Padilla ends 15 year stint with the national team with 2 homers in the 9-0 finale against Guatemala
- 2007-02-19 Three Salvadoran deputies to the Central American Parliament and their driver are murdered in Guatemala
- 2012-03-21 Five former Guatemalan paramilitaries are sentenced to 7,710 years in jail for their role in the Plan de Sanchez massacre in 1982
- 2012-09-13 33,000 people are evacuated after Guatemala's Volcano of Fire erupts
- 2012-11-07 48 people are killed by a magnitude 7.3 earthquake in Guatemala
- 2012-12-09 6 people are killed and 41 are injured after a bus plunges 30 metres down a gorge in Guatemala
- 2013-09-08 11 people are killed and 18 are injured after a gunfire attack in Guatemala City
- 2013-09-09 44 people are killed and 45 are injured after a bus crashes into a ravine in Northern Guatemala
- 2015-10-01 Mudslide on the outskirts of Guatemala City leaves at least 131 dead and 300 missing
- 2016-03-01 Two Guatemalan military officers are convicted of sexual slavery during country's civil war - first ever prosecution of sexual slavery during an armed conflict
- 2017-03-07 19 girls killed in a fire at a government-run care center in San José Pinula, Guatemala
- 2018-02-01 Archaeologists announce discovery of thousands of undetected structures in Mayan lowland civilisation, Guatemala, using Lidar, suggests population of 10 million
- 2018-06-03 Guatemala's Fuego volcano erupts killing at least 110, with 332 missing and forcing the evacuation of over 3,100
- 2018-10-15 Caravan of up to 4,000 Central American migrants that started in Honduras reaches Guatemala, heading for Mexico and the US
- 2018-11-21 Former Guatemalan soldier Santos López Alonzo sentenced to 5,160 years for killing 171 people in Dos Erres during the civil war
- 2019-08-12 Conservative Alejandro Giammattei elected president of Guatemala
- 2020-11-03 Hurricane Eta makes landfall in Nicaragua as a Category Four storm with winds of 140 km, killing at least 235 people across Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico and Panama
Event of Interest
2021-06-07 US Vice President Kamala Harris visiting Guatemala on her first foreign trip announces task forces on corruption and human trafficking
- 2023-08-20 Guatemala presidential elections won by anti-corruption candidate Bernardo Arévalo, defeating former first lady Sandra Torres [1]
Famous Guatemalans
Efraín Ríos Montt
Jacobo Árbenz
Miguel Ángel Asturias
Oscar Isaac
Rigoberta Menchú