Guatemala is bracing for the cyclone season. Meanwhile, the Taiwanese Naval Squadron of Friendship arrived in Puerto Quetzal, strengthening ties between Taiwan and Guatemala, showcasing naval cooperation.
In 1900, Guatemala had a population of 885,000.
In 1904, Estrada Cabrera signed a contract with UFCO's Minor Cooper Keith that gave the company tax exemptions, land grants, and control of all railroads on the Atlantic side.
In 1906, Estrada Cabrera faced serious revolts against his rule that were supported by the governments of some of the other Central American nations, but Estrada succeeded in putting them down. Elections were held by the people against the will of Estrada Cabrera and thus he had the president-elect murdered in retaliation.
In 1907, Estrada Cabrera narrowly survived an assassination attempt when a bomb exploded near his carriage. It has been suggested that the extreme despotic characteristics of Estrada did not emerge until after an attempt on his life in 1907.
In 1917, Guatemala City was badly damaged in the Guatemala earthquake.
In 1919, the National Football Federation of Guatemala was established.
In April 1920, Estrada Cabrera was removed from office after the national assembly charged that he was mentally incompetent, and appointed Carlos Herrera in his place on 8 April 1920.
In 1920, Carlos Herrera became President of Guatemala.
On September 9, 1921, Guatemala joined with El Salvador and Honduras in the Federation of Central America.
In 1921, Carlos Herrera was succeeded by José María Orellana as the President of Guatemala.
In 1921, the census records for the year were used as scrap paper.
On January 14, 1922, Guatemala left the Federation of Central America. They were part of the Federation with El Salvador and Honduras.
In 1926, José María Orellana was succeeded by Lázaro Chacón González as the President of Guatemala.
In 1929, The Great Depression began and badly damaged the Guatemalan economy, causing a rise in unemployment, and leading to unrest among workers and laborers.
In 1931, Jorge Ubico won the election, in which he was the only candidate. After his election his policies quickly became authoritarian.
In 1931, Lázaro Chacón González term as president of Guatemala ended.
The 1940 census of Guatemala was burned.
In 1941, when the US declared war against Germany, Ubico acted on American instructions and arrested all people in Guatemala of German descent. He also permitted the US to establish an air base in Guatemala, with the stated aim of protecting the Panama Canal.
On July 1, 1944 Ubico was forced to resign from the presidency in response to a wave of protests and a general strike inspired by brutal labor conditions among plantation workers.
On October 20, 1944, General Juan Federico Ponce Vaides, Ubico's chosen replacement, was forced out of office by a coup d'état led by Major Francisco Javier Arana and Captain Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán. About 100 people were killed in the coup.
In 1944, authoritarian leader Jorge Ubico was overthrown by a pro-democratic military coup. This event initiated a decade-long revolution in Guatemala that led to social and economic reforms.
Manuel Barillas was unique among liberal presidents of Guatemala between 1871 and 1944, because he handed over power to his successor peacefully. In 1944, When election time approached, he sent for the three Liberal candidates to ask them what their government plan would be.
In 1945, the Guatemalan government founded The Institute Indigents ta National (NH) to teach literacy to Mayan children in their mother tongue.
In 1947, the Guatemalan Olympic Committee was founded and recognized by the International Olympic Committee.
In 1950, the largely free and fair elections were won by Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán, Arévalo's defense minister.
Up to 1950, Guatemala was the Central American country that received the most immigrants, behind Costa Rica.
Guatemala participated in the 1952 Summer Olympics.
In 1952, US President Harry Truman authorized Operation PBFortune to topple Árbenz, with the support of Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza García, but the operation was aborted when too many details became public.
In 1952, the SIL (Summer Institute of Linguistics) partnered with the Guatemalan Ministry of Education, leading to the printing and publishing of numerous written works in Mayan languages and advancement in the translation of the New Testament.
In 1952, Árbenz's most important policy was Decree 900, a sweeping agrarian reform bill which transferred uncultivated land to landless peasants.
In August 1953, Eisenhower authorized the CIA to carry out Operation PBSuccess.
On June 27, 1954, Árbenz resigned. The resignation followed an invasion of Guatemala on June 18, 1954 by a force of 480 men led by Carlos Castillo Armas, backed by a heavy campaign of psychological warfare.
On July 7, 1954, Carlos Castillo Armas became president following negotiations in San Salvador.
In 1954, a U.S.-backed military coup ended the decade-long revolution in Guatemala and installed a dictatorship.
On July 26, 1957, Carlos Castillo Armas was assassinated by Romeo Vásquez, a member of his personal guard.
On November 13, 1960, a group of left-wing junior military officers led a failed revolt against Ydigoras' government. The rebels formed MR-13.
In 1960, Guatemala entered a bloody civil war fought between the U.S.-backed government and leftist rebels. The civil war was characterized by genocidal massacres of the Maya population perpetrated by the Guatemalan military and lasted for 36 years.
In 1961, Ydigoras authorized the training of 5,000 anti-Castro Cubans in Guatemala. He also provided airstrips in the region of Petén for what later became the US-sponsored, failed Bay of Pigs Invasion.
On February 6, 1962, the offices of the United Fruit Company were attacked. The attack sparked sympathetic strikes and university student walkouts throughout the country.
On March 31, 1963, the Guatemalan Air Force attacked several military bases. The coup was led by his Defense Minister, Colonel Enrique Peralta Azurdia.
In 1965, Spanish became the official language of Guatemala, leading to programs to accelerate the move of Mayan students to Spanish.
In 1966, Julio César Méndez Montenegro was elected president of Guatemala under the banner "Democratic Opening". During this time, rightist paramilitary organizations, such as the "White Hand" (Mano Blanca), and the Anticommunist Secret Army (Ejército Secreto Anticomunista) were formed.
In 1967, the Guatemala national football team won the CONCACAF Championship.
Guatemala participated in every edition of the Summer Olympics since 1968.
In 1970, Colonel Carlos Manuel Arana Osorio was elected president of Guatemala.
In 1972, members of the guerrilla movement entered Guatemala from Mexico and settled in the Western Highlands.
In 1974, General Kjell Laugerud García defeated General Efraín Ríos Montt in the election. Ríos Montt claimed the victory was fraudulent.
On February 4, 1976, a 7.5 magnitude earthquake struck Guatemala, killing more than 25,000 people. The earthquake was caused by the Motagua Fault, part of the boundary between the Caribbean and North American tectonic plates.
On February 4, 1976, a major earthquake destroyed several cities and caused more than 25,000 deaths, especially among the poor, whose housing was substandard.
In 1978 General Romeo Lucas García assumed power in Guatemala in a fraudulent election.
In 1979, US President Jimmy Carter, due to widespread human rights abuses, ordered a ban on all military aid to the Guatemalan Army.
On January 31, 1980, indigenous K'iche' activists occupied the Spanish Embassy to protest army massacres, leading to a deadly assault by Guatemalan forces and a fire that killed almost everyone inside. The Spanish ambassador disputed the government's version of events, leading Spain to sever diplomatic ties with Guatemala.
In 1980, an experimental program was created in which children were instructed in their mother tongue until they were fluent enough in Spanish.
On July 18, 1982, the Plan de Sanchez Massacre occurred, where 188 Achi-Maya people were killed.
In 1982, four guerrilla groups merged to form the URNG, influenced by guerrilla movements in El Salvador, Nicaragua, and Cuba. Due to the Army's "scorched earth" tactics, over 45,000 Guatemalans fled to Mexico.
In 1982, the Guatemalan government was overthrown and General Efraín Ríos Montt became president of the military junta, continuing a campaign of violence and repression.
The government presented evidence of over 100 incidents involving at least 1,771 deaths, 1,445 rapes, and the displacement of nearly 30,000 Guatemalans during his 17-month rule from 1982 to 1983.
The government presented evidence of over 100 incidents involving at least 1,771 deaths, 1,445 rapes, and the displacement of nearly 30,000 Guatemalans during Efrain Rios Montt's 17-month rule from 1982 to 1983.
In 1984, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had 40,000 members in Guatemala.
In 1986, after Ríos Montt was overthrown, Óscar Humberto Mejía Victores called for an election, which was won by Vinicio Cerezo Arévalo of the Christian Democracy Party.
In 1987, bilingual education was made official in Guatemala.
Guatemala appeared in a single Winter Olympics edition in 1988.
On September 6, 1991, Guatemala recognized Belize's independence, but the territorial dispute between the two countries is not resolved.
In 1992, Rigoberta Menchú was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for her efforts in raising international awareness about the government-sponsored genocide against the indigenous population of Guatemala.
In 1995, the Catholic Archdiocese of Guatemala initiated the Recovery of Historical Memory (REMHI) project to document and confront the history of the country's civil war.
In 1996, the Guatemalan Civil War concluded with a peace accord between the guerrillas and the government, negotiated by the United Nations. The agreement involved disarmament of guerrilla fighters and land allocation.
In 1996, the peace accords that ended the decades-long civil war removed a major obstacle to foreign investment, leading to increased tourism revenue.
Since the end of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1997, the Ministry of Health has extended healthcare access to 54% of the rural population.
In April 1998, REMHI presented the report "Guatemala: Nunca Más!", summarizing testimonies from thousands of witnesses and victims, and attributing 80% of the atrocities to the Guatemalan Army and its collaborators.
In April 1998, two days after announcing the release of the Recovery of Historical Memory Project report, Bishop Juan José Gerardi Conedera was murdered.
By 1998, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints grew to 164,000 members in Guatemala and continues to expand.
In 1998, Guatemala was affected by Hurricane Mitch.
In 1999, US President Bill Clinton acknowledged that the US was wrong to have supported the Guatemalan military forces involved in civilian killings.
In 1999, the Historical Clarification Commission concluded that actions by the Guatemalan state during the civil war constituted genocide, attributing over 93% of human rights violations to the military government and estimating that Maya Indians accounted for 83% of the victims.
In 2000, Guatemala participated for the first time in the FIFA Futsal World Cup as hosts.
Between 2001 and 2012, the Catholic Church in Guatemala declined from 55% to 47.9% of people. The Protestant population grew from 30% to 38.2%.
In 2001, three Army officers were convicted of the murder of Bishop Gerardi and sentenced to 30 years in prison. A priest was also convicted as an accomplice and sentenced to 20 years.
According to the Language Law of 2003, twenty-one Mayan languages, Xinca, and Garifuna are recognized as national languages in Guatemala.
In July 2004, the Inter-American Court condemned the July 18, 1982, massacre of 188 Achi-Maya in Plan de Sanchez. The court ruled that the Guatemalan Army had committed genocide during the 1980s scorched-earth campaign.
In October 2005, Guatemala was hit by Hurricane Stan, which caused significant flooding and mudslides, resulting in more than 1,500 deaths.
In March 2006, Guatemala's congress ratified the Dominican Republic–Central America Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA) between several Central American nations and the US.
From 2007 to 2012, Guatemala had a femicide rate of around 9.1 murders for every 100,000 women.
In 2008, Guatemala became the first country to officially recognize femicide, the murder of a female because of her sex, as a crime.
In 2008, the Guatemala national futsal team won the CONCACAF Futsal Championship as hosts.
In 2008, tourism was estimated at $1.8 billion to the Guatemalan economy.
In 2009, Guatemala experienced an economic crisis due to falling demands from the United States and other Central American markets, and the slowdown in foreign investment.
In 2009, a New York grand jury indicted ex-President Alfonso Portillo for embezzlement.
Since 2009, Guatemala has participated in every Grand Prix de Futsal.
In January 2010, ex-President Alfonso Portillo was arrested while attempting to flee Guatemala.
In May 2010, Alfonso Portillo was acquitted by a panel of judges, leading to criticism from the Guatemalan Attorney-General and the International Commission Against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG).
In 2010, Guatemala's Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in purchasing power parity (PPP) was estimated at US$70.15 billion. The service sector was the largest component of GDP at 63%, followed by the industry sector at 23.8% and the agriculture sector at 13.2%. Inflation was 3.9%.
In 2010, the Guatemalan economy grew by 3%, recovering gradually from the 2009 crisis.
In 2011, Otto Pérez Molina was elected president of Guatemala, along with Roxana Baldetti as vice-president.
In January 2012, former dictator Efrain Rios Montt appeared in a Guatemalan court on genocide charges. The government presented evidence of widespread atrocities during his rule.
On January 14, 2012, Otto Pérez Molina and Roxana Baldetti began their term in office.
At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Erick Barrondo won Guatemala's first-ever Olympic medal in the men's 20 kilometer walk.
Between 2001 and 2012, the Catholic Church in Guatemala declined from 55% to 47.9% of people. The Protestant population grew from 30% to 38.2%.
From 2007 to 2012, Guatemala had a femicide rate of around 9.1 murders for every 100,000 women.
In 2012, Guatemala's national futsal team was the runner-up in the CONCACAF Futsal Championship as hosts.
In 2012, literacy rates among the population aged 15 and above in Guatemala were 74.5%.
In 2012, the per-capita average annual healthcare spending was only $368. Guatemalan patients choose between indigenous treatments or Western medicine when they engage with the health system.
On May 10, 2013, Rios Montt was found guilty of genocide and sentenced to 80 years in prison, marking the first time a national court had convicted a former head of state of genocide.
As of 2013, the Ministry of Health in Guatemala lacked the financial means to monitor or evaluate its programs.
In 2014, Guatemala reached the semifinals in the Grand Prix de Futsal.
In 2014, the Guatemalan government was considering ways to legalize poppy and marijuana production, hoping to tax production and use tax revenues to fund drug prevention programs and other social projects.
In January 2015, Montt's trial resumed after the conviction was overturned.
In April 2015, a United Nations anti-corruption agency report implicated high-profile politicians, including Baldetti's private secretary, in corruption.
In August 2015, a Guatemalan court ruled that Rios Montt could stand trial for genocide and crimes against humanity, but that he could not be sentenced due to his age and deteriorating health.
On August 21, 2015, evidence presented by CICIG and the Attorney General led to the arrest of former vice president Baldetti and an impeachment request for President Pérez Molina. Despite public pressure, Pérez Molina initially refused to resign.
In September 2015, amid protests and accusations of corruption, President Pérez Molina resigned and was summoned to the Justice Department for the La Linea corruption case.
In September 2015, due to bribery-related accusations against legislators and members of his party, Manuel Baldizón's electoral prospects declined significantly, and he filed accusations against the CICIG leader.
On September 2, 2015, Otto Pérez Molina resigned as President of Guatemala due to a corruption scandal and was replaced by Alejandro Maldonado until January 2016.
In October 2015, Jimmy Morales, a former TV comedian, was elected as the new president of Guatemala.
In 2015, Guatemala's gold production was 6 tons.
In 2015, Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante gained international recognition with his film Ixcanul.
In January 2016, Alejandro Maldonado was replaced as president of Guatemala by Jimmy Morales. Congress appointed Alfonso Fuentes Soria as the new vice president to replace Maldonado.
In January 2016, Jimmy Morales took office as president of Guatemala.
In June 2016, a United Nations-backed prosecutor unveiled a corruption case called "Cooperacha", where officials pooled funds to buy luxurious gifts, like motorboats, for Molina.
In 2016, the Guatemala national futsal team won the bronze medal in the CONCACAF Futsal Championship.
In December 2017, President Morales announced that Guatemala would move its embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
In 2017, Guatemala signed the United Nations Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons.
According to the 2018 Census, 56% of the population of Guatemala is Ladino, and 43.6% are Indigenous Guatemalans.
In August 2019, Alejandro Giammattei won the presidential election with his "tough-on-crime" agenda.
In 2019, Guatemala had a Forest Landscape Integrity Index mean score of 3.85/10, ranking it 138th globally out of 172 countries.
In 2019, Guatemalan director Jayro Bustamante released the films Temblores and La Llorona (The Weeping Woman).
In January 2020, Alejandro Giammattei replaced Jimmy Morales as the president of Guatemala.
In January 2020, Alejandro Giammattei succeeded Jimmy Morales as president of Guatemala.
In November 2020, Guatemala was impacted by Hurricane Eta, which was responsible for more than 100 people missing or killed, with the final tally still uncertain.
In November 2020, large protests and demonstrations occurred in Guatemala against President Alejandro Giammattei and the legislature, due to cuts in educational and health spending.
In 2021, Guatemala had a population of 17,608,483.
In August 2023, Bernardo Arévalo won Guatemala's presidential election, but the outgoing administration attempted to prevent him from taking power.
In 2023, Arévalo's opposition sought to weaken his administration through prosecutions of Semilla party members and indigenous leaders of the 2023 protests that led to his election being upheld.
In 2023, Guatemala held democratic elections, which were won by Bernardo Arévalo.
In 2023, the CIA World Fact Book estimates that 56.0% of the population of Guatemala is living in poverty.
In January 2024, Bernardo Arévalo assumed the office of president of Guatemala.
In January 2024, Bernardo Arévalo was scheduled to assume the role as the 52nd president of Guatemala. His inauguration, however, was delayed due to the event's commission failing to approve a congressional delegation.
In February 2024, President Arévalo and Minister of the Interior Francisco Jiménez announced the creation of the Special Group Against Extortion (GECE), a special force within the National Civil Police (PNC) aimed at combatting violent crime and extortions. The GECE will consist of 400 motorized officers who will patrol different regions of the country.
In April 2024, President Arévalo reduced the presidential salary by 25%, fulfilling a campaign promise. Vice President Herrera also announced a 25% reduction in her salary. This made the head of state of Guatemala no longer the highest-paid president in Latin America.
By 2024, literacy rates among the population aged 15 and above increased to 82.1% due to strides in education.
In 2024, Guatemala's estimated GDP (PPP) per capita is US$10,998.
In 2024, the Guatemala national futsal team won the bronze medal in the CONCACAF Futsal Championship.
In the 2024 Global Hunger Index (GHI), Guatemala ranks 81st out of 127 countries with sufficient data, with a GHI score of 18.8, indicating a moderate level of hunger.
Guatemala was ranked 123rd in the Global Innovation Index in 2025.
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