Juan Domingo Peron

Juan Domingo Perón was elected President of Argentina on three occasions, in 1946, 1951 and 1973, and had such a lasting impact that the word "Peronist" remains the label of a major political party. Perón's public career began in the military. Following a coup in 1943, he became head of the Department of Labor and developed strong ties to the syndicalist movement, which catapulted him into national prominence. In 1945 he married his second wife, Eva Duarte, who became a darling of the masses. Perón's was immensely popular but highly divisive, and his idiosyncratic governing style brought him into conflict with the military and the Catholic Church. His second administration was cut short by a coup in 1955, triggered in part by his excommunication by Pope Pius XII. After eighteen years in exile, Perón returned to serve for a third term, but his death in 1974 brought this to a premature end and his third wife, Isabel, to power.