Juan Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán was a Guatemalan military officer and politician who served as the 25th president of Guatemala. He was Minister of National Defense from 1944 to 1950, before he became the se
Árbenz's parents, Hans Jakob Arbenz and Octavia Guzmán Caballeros
Árbenz seated next to his wife Maria Cristina Vilanova in 1944. His wife was a great ideological influence upon him, and they shared a desire for social reform.
President Jorge Ubico in the 1930s. Like his predecessors, he gave a number of concessions to the United Fruit Company and supported their harsh labor practices. He was forced out of power by a popular uprising in 1944.
Árbenz, Jorge Toriello (center), and Francisco Arana (right) in 1944. The three men formed the junta that ruled Guatemala from the October Revolution until the election of Arévalo.
The period in the history of Guatemala between the coups against Jorge Ubico in 1944 and Jacobo Árbenz in 1954 is known locally as the Revolution. It has also been called the Ten Years of Spring, high
Jacobo Árbenz
…from 1944 to 1950, before he became the second democratically elected President of Guatemala, from 1951 to 1954. He was a major figure in the ten-year Guatemalan Revolution, which represented some of the few years of representative democracy in Guatemalan history. The landmark program of agrarian reform Árbenz enacted as…
Manuel Estrada Cabrera, President of Guatemala from 1898 to 1920. Cabrera granted large concessions to the American United Fruit Company
Jorge Ubico, the dictator of Guatemala from 1931 to 1944. He passed laws allowing landowners to use lethal force to defend their property