General Confederation of Labour (Argentina)
The General Confederation of Labor of the Argentine Republic is a national trade union federation in Argentina founded on September 27, 1930, as the result of the merger of the USA and the COA trade unions. Nearly one out of five employed - and two out of three unionized workers in Argentina - belong to the CGT, one of the largest labor federations in the world; the CGT was founded on September 27, 1930, the result of an agreement between the Socialist Confederación Obrera Argentina and the Revolutionary Syndicalist Unión Sindical Argentina, which had succeeded to the FORA IX. The COA, which included the two unions covering rail transport in Argentina, was the larger of the two with 100,000 members. During the Infamous Decade of the 1930s and subsequent industrial development, the CGT began to form itself as a strong union, competing with the anarchist FORA V. Centered around the railroad industry, the CGT was headed in the 1930s by Luis Cerruti and José Domenech; the CGT became the Argentine affiliate of the International Federation of Trade Unions.
The CGT split in 1935 over a conflict between Socialists and Revolutionary Syndicalists, leading to the creation of the CGT-Independencia and the CGT-Catamarca. The latter reestablished the Unión Sindical Argentina in 1937; the CGT again split in 1942, creating the CGT n°1, headed by the Socialist railroader José Domenech and opposed to Communism. After the coup d'état of 1943, its leaders embraced the pro-working class policies of the Labour Minister, Col. Juan Perón; the CGT was again unified, due to the incorporation of many unionists who were members of the CGT n°2, dissolved in 1943 by the military government. When Perón was separated from the government and confined on Martín García Island, the CGT called for a major popular demonstration at the Plaza de Mayo, on October 17, 1945, succeeding in releasing Perón from prison and in the call for elections. Founding on the same day the Labour Party, the CGT was one of the main support of Perón during the February 1946 elections; the Labor Party merged into the Peronist Party in 1947, the CGT became one of the strongest arms of the Peronist Movement, as well as the only trade union recognized by Perón's government.
Two CGT delegates, the Socialist Ángel Borlenghi and Juan Atilio Bramuglia were nominated Minister of Interior and Minister of Foreign Affairs, respectively. Colonel Domingo Mercante, the military officer with the closest ties to labor, was elected Governor of Buenos Aires; the number of unionized workers grew markedly during the Perón years, from 520,000 to over 2.5 million. His administration enacted or extended numerous landmark social reforms supported by the CGT, including: minimum wages. After the Revolución Libertadora military coup in 1955, which ousted Perón and outlawed Peronism, the CGT was banned from politics and its leadership replaced with government appointees. In response, the CGT began a destabilization campaign to end Perón's proscription and to obtain his return from exile. Amid ongoing strikes over both declining real wages and political repression, AOT textile workers' leader Andrés Framini and President Arturo Frondizi negotiated an end to six years of forced government receivership over the CGT in 1961.
This concession, as well as the lifting of the Peronists' electoral ban in 1962, led to Frondizi's overthrow, however. During the 1960s, the leaders of the CGT attempted to create a "Peronism without Perón" - that is, a form of Peronism that retained the populist ideals set forth by Juan Perón, but rejected the personality cult that had developed around him in the 1940s and 1950s; the chief exponents of this strategy were the Unión Popular, founded by former Foreign Minister Juan Atilio Bramuglia, UOM steelworkers' leader Augusto Vandor, who endorsed the CGT's active participation in elections against Perón's wishes and became the key figure in this latter movement. Vandor and Perón both supported President Arturo Illia's overthrow in 1966, but failed to reach an agreement with dictator Juan Carlos Onganía afterward. While membership in CGT unions remained well below their peak before Perón's 1955 overthrow, they enjoyed unprecedented resources during the 1960s; the CGT diversified their assets through investment
Trial of the Juntas
The Trial of the Juntas was the judicial trial of the members of the de facto military government that ruled Argentina during the dictatorship of the Proceso de Reorganización Nacional, which lasted from 1976 to 1983. The trial took place in 1985 and is so far the only example of such a large scale procedure by a democratic government against a former dictatorial government of the same country in Latin America; those on trial were: Jorge Rafael Videla, Emilio Eduardo Massera, Roberto Eduardo Viola, Armando Lambruschini, Orlando Ramón Agosti, Omar Graffigna, Leopoldo Galtieri, Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo The Trial of the Juntas began on 22 April 1985, during the presidential administration of Raúl Alfonsín, the first elected government after the restoration of democracy in 1983. The main prosecutors were his assistant Luis Moreno Ocampo; the trial was presided over by a tribunal of six judges: León Arslanián, Jorge Torlasco, Ricardo Gil Lavedra, Andrés D'Alessio, Jorge Valerga Aráoz, Guillermo Ledesma.
The dictatorship was a series of several military governments under four military juntas. The fourth junta, before calling for elections and relinquishing power to the democratic authorities, enacted a Self-Amnesty Law on April 18, 1983, as well as a secret decree that ordered the destruction of records and other evidence of their past crimes. Three days after his inauguration, on 13 December 1983), President Alfonsín signed Decree No. 158, which mandated the initiation of legal proceedings against the nine military officers of the first three juntas, but not the fourth. The National Commission on the Disappearance of Persons was established two days to collect testimonies from thousands of witnesses, presented 8,960 cases of forced disappearances to the president on 20 September 1984. Following the refusal of a military court to try former junta members, Alfonsín established a National Criminal Court of Appeals for the purpose on 14 October; this trial, which began on 22 April 1985, is so far the only example of such a large scale procedure by a democratic government against a former dictatorial government of the same country in Latin America.
It was the first major trial held for war crimes since the Nüremberg Trials in Germany following World War II, the first to be conducted by a civilian court. It succeeded in prosecuting the crimes of the juntas, which included kidnapping, forced disappearance, murder of an estimated 15,000 to 30,000 people during what was called the Dirty War against political dissidents. Opposition to the trial was limited to critical commentary by politicians and media figures sympathetic to the dictatorship; some protest became violent: during the sentencing phase of the trial, 29 bomb threats were made to several Buenos Aires schools, a number of bombs were detonated in key government installations, including the Ministry of Defense. On October 25, President Alfonsín declared a 60-day state of emergency. Prosecutors presented 709 cases. A total of 833 witnesses testified during the cross-examination phase. Witnesses included former President Alejandro Lanusse, writer Jorge Luis Borges, Estela Barnes de Carlotto, President of Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo.
Closing arguments were heard on September 18. Chief prosecutor Strassera concluded by declaring that: I wish to waive any claim to originality in closing this indictment. I wish to use a phrase, not my own, because it belongs to all the Argentine people. Your Honors: Never again! Sentencing was read on 9 December: General Jorge Videla and Admiral Emilio Massera were sentenced to life imprisonment, General Roberto Viola: seventeen years, Admiral Armando Lambruschini: eight years, General Orlando Agosti: four and a half years. Omar Graffigna, Leopoldo Galtieri, Jorge Anaya and Basilio Lami Dozo were acquitted, though the latter three were concomitantly court martialed for malfeasance in waging the Falklands War of 1982. Charges against 600 others were brought to court, but these lawsuits were hampered by the Full Stop Law of 1986, which limited suits to those indicted within 60 days of the law's enactment, the Law of Due Obedience of 1987, which halted most remaining trials of Dirty War perpetrators.
Between 1989 and 1990, President Carlos Menem pardoned the men, sentenced or court-martialed. President Néstor Kirchner obtained an Argentine Supreme Court ruling permitting extraditions in cases of crimes against humanity in 2003, that same year the Congress repealed the Full Stop Law. In 2005 the Supreme Court ruled that the 1986 and 1987 laws shielding officers accused of crimes were unconstitutional. In 2006 the government tried Miguel Etchecolatz, the first to be prosecuted of 600 defendants. Witnesses and the judges were threatened, after the sentencing, Julio Jorge López disappeared. A victim of state violence and witness for the prosecution, he was feared dead and has never been found; the original video tapes of the trial have been in Norway since 1988. All of the Trial's judges traveled to Oslo on April 25 of that year with 147 VHS tapes which were given to the Norwegian Parliament in order to keep them safe and avoid any commercial use, they are kept next to the original text of the Constitution of Norway.
Ley de Obediencia Debida Ley de Punto Final Carapintadas CONADEP Decree No. 158 - Presidential decree that mandated the prosecution of the juntas. Interview with Julio César
May Revolution
The May Revolution was a week-long series of events that took place from May 18 to 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, capital of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. This Spanish colony included the territories of present-day Argentina, Paraguay and parts of Brazil; the result was the removal of Viceroy Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros and the establishment of a local government, the Primera Junta, on May 25. It was the first successful revolution in the South American Independence process; the May Revolution was a direct reaction to Spain's Peninsular War. In 1808, King Ferdinand VII of Spain abdicated in favor of Napoleon, who granted the throne to his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. A Supreme Central Junta led resistance to Joseph's government and the French occupation of Spain, but suffered a series of reversals that resulted in the Spanish loss of the northern half of the country. On February 1, 1810, French troops gained control of most of Andalusia; the Supreme Junta retreated to Cadiz and dissolved itself, the Council of Regency of Spain and the Indies replaced it.
News of these events arrived in Buenos Aires on May 18, brought by British ships. Viceroy Cisneros tried to maintain the political status quo, but a group of criollo lawyers and military officials organized an open cabildo on May 22 to decide the future of the Viceroyalty. Delegates denied recognition to the Council of Regency in Spain and established a junta to govern in place of Cisneros, since the government that had appointed him Viceroy no longer existed. To maintain a sense of continuity, Cisneros was appointed president of the Junta. However, this caused much popular unrest, so he resigned under pressure on May 25; the newly formed government, the Primera Junta, included only representatives from Buenos Aires and invited other cities of the Viceroyalty to send delegates to join them. This resulted in the outbreak of war between the regions that accepted the outcome of the events at Buenos Aires and those that did not; the May Revolution began the Argentine War of Independence, although no formal declaration of independence was issued at the time and the Primera Junta continued to govern in the name of the deposed king, Ferdinand VII.
As similar events occurred in many other cities of the continent, the May Revolution is considered one of the early events of the Spanish American wars of independence. Historians today debate whether the revolutionaries were loyal to the Spanish crown or whether the declaration of fidelity to the king was a necessary ruse to conceal the true objective—to achieve independence—from a population, not yet ready to accept such a radical change. A formal declaration of independence was issued at the Congress of Tucumán on July 9, 1816; the United States' declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1776 led criollos to believe that revolution and independence from Spain were feasible. Between 1775 and 1783, the American patriots of the Thirteen Colonies waged the American Revolutionary War against both the local loyalists and the Kingdom of Great Britain establishing a popular government in the place of the British monarchy; the fact that Spain aided the colonies in their struggle against Britain weakened the idea that it would be a crime to end one's allegiance to the parent state.
The ideals of the French Revolution of 1789 spread across Europe and the Americas as well. The overthrow and execution of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette ended centuries of monarchy and removed the privileges of the nobility. Liberal ideals in the political and economic fields developed and spread through the Atlantic Revolutions across most of the Western world; the concept of the divine right of kings was questioned by the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, by the oft-quoted statement that "all men are created equal" in the United States Declaration of Independence and by the Spanish church. However, the spread of such ideas was forbidden in the Spanish territories, as was the sale of related books or their unauthorized possession. Spain instituted those bans when it declared war on France after the execution of Louis XVI and retained them after the peace treaty of 1796. News of the events of 1789 and copies of the publications of the French Revolution spread around Spain despite efforts to keep them at bay.
Many enlightened criollos came into contact with liberal authors and their works during their university studies, either in Europe or at the University of Chuquisaca. Books from the United States found their way into the Spanish colonies through Caracas, owing to the proximity of Venezuela to the United States and the West Indies; the Industrial Revolution started in Britain, with the use of plateways and steam power. This led to dramatic increases in the productive capabilities of Britain, created a need for new markets to sell its products; the Napoleonic Wars with France made this a difficult task, after Napoleon imposed the Continental System, which forbade his allies and conquests to trade with Britain. Thus Britain needed to be able to trade with the Spanish colonies, but could not do so because the colonies were restricted to trade only with their parent state. To achieve their economic objectives, Britain tried to invade Rio de la Plata and conquer key cities in Spanish America; when that failed, they chose to promote the Spanish-American aspirations of emancipation from Spain.
The mutiny of Aranjuez in 1808 led King Charles IV of Spain to abdicate in favor of his son, Ferdinand VII. Charles IV requested.
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires is the capital and largest city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the estuary of the Río de la Plata, on the South American continent's southeastern coast. "Buenos Aires" can be translated as "fair winds" or "good airs", but the former was the meaning intended by the founders in the 16th century, by the use of the original name "Real de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre". The Greater Buenos Aires conurbation, which includes several Buenos Aires Province districts, constitutes the fourth-most populous metropolitan area in the Americas, with a population of around 15.6 million. The city of Buenos Aires is the Province's capital. In 1880, after decades of political infighting, Buenos Aires was federalized and removed from Buenos Aires Province; the city limits were enlarged to include the towns of Flores. The 1994 constitutional amendment granted the city autonomy, hence its formal name: Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, its citizens first elected a chief of government in 1996.
Buenos Aires is considered an'alpha city' by the study GaWC5. Buenos Aires' quality of life was ranked 91st in the world, being one of the best in Latin America in 2018, it is the most visited city in South America, the second-most visited city of Latin America. Buenos Aires is a top tourist destination, is known for its preserved Eclectic European architecture and rich cultural life. Buenos Aires held the 1st Pan American Games in 1951 as well as hosting two venues in the 1978 FIFA World Cup. Buenos Aires hosted the 2018 the 2018 G20 summit. Buenos Aires is a multicultural city, being home to multiple religious groups. Several languages are spoken in the city in addition to Spanish, contributing to its culture and the dialect spoken in the city and in some other parts of the country; this is because in the last 150 years the city, the country in general, has been a major recipient of millions of immigrants from all over the world, making it a melting pot where several ethnic groups live together and being considered one of the most diverse cities of the Americas.
It is recorded under the archives of Aragonese that Catalan missionaries and Jesuits arriving in Cagliari under the Crown of Aragon, after its capture from the Pisans in 1324 established their headquarters on top of a hill that overlooked the city. The hill was known to them as Bonaira, as it was free of the foul smell prevalent in the old city, adjacent to swampland. During the siege of Cagliari, the Catalans built a sanctuary to the Virgin Mary on top of the hill. In 1335, King Alfonso the Gentle donated the church to the Mercedarians, who built an abbey that stands to this day. In the years after that, a story circulated, claiming that a statue of the Virgin Mary was retrieved from the sea after it miraculously helped to calm a storm in the Mediterranean Sea; the statue was placed in the abbey. Spanish sailors Andalusians, venerated this image and invoked the "Fair Winds" to aid them in their navigation and prevent shipwrecks. A sanctuary to the Virgin of Buen Ayre would be erected in Seville.
In the first foundation of Buenos Aires, Spanish sailors arrived thankfully in the Río de la Plata by the blessings of the "Santa Maria de los Buenos Aires", the "Holy Virgin Mary of the Good Winds", said to have given them the good winds to reach the coast of what is today the modern city of Buenos Aires. Pedro de Mendoza called the city "Holy Mary of the Fair Winds", a name suggested by the chaplain of Mendoza's expedition – a devotee of the Virgin of Buen Ayre – after the Sardinian Madonna de Bonaria. Mendoza's settlement soon came under attack by indigenous people, was abandoned in 1541. For many years, the name was attributed to a Sancho del Campo, said to have exclaimed: How fair are the winds of this land!, as he arrived. But Eduardo Madero, in 1882 after conducting extensive research in Spanish archives concluded that the name was indeed linked with the devotion of the sailors to Our Lady of Buen Ayre. A second settlement was established in 1580 by Juan de Garay, who sailed down the Paraná River from Asunción.
Garay preserved the name chosen by Mendoza, calling the city Ciudad de la Santísima Trinidad y Puerto de Santa María del Buen Aire. The short form "Buenos Aires" became the common usage during the 17th century; the usual abbreviation for Buenos Aires in Spanish is Bs. As, it is common as well to refer to it as "B. A." or "BA". While "BA" is used more by expats residing in the city, the locals more use the abbreviation "Baires", in one word. Seaman Juan Díaz de Solís, navigating in the name of Spain, was the first European to reach the Río de la Plata in 1516, his expedition was cut short when he was killed during an attack by the native Charrúa tribe in what is now Uruguay. The city of Buenos Aires was first established as Ciudad de Nuestra Señora Santa María del Buen Ayre after Our Lady of Bonaria on 2 February 1536 by a Spanish expedition led by Pedro de Mendoza; the settlement founded by Mendoza was located in what is today the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires, south of the city centre. More attacks by the indigenous
Central Bank of Argentina
The Central Bank of the Argentine Republic is the central bank of Argentina. Established by six Acts of Congress enacted on May 28, 1935, the bank replaced Argentina's currency board, in operation since 1899, its first president was Ernesto Bosch, who served in that capacity from 1935 to 1945. The Central Bank's headquarters on San Martín Street, was designed in 1872 by architects Henry Hunt and Hans Schroeder. Completed in 1876, the Italian Renaissance-inspired building housed the Mortgage Bank of the Province of Buenos Aires; the Central Bank's offices were transferred to an adjacent address upon its establishment, were expanded to their present size by the purchase of the Mortgage Bank building in 1940, as well as by the construction of a twin building behind it. Drawing from a 1933 study on Argentine finance by Bank of England director Sir Otto Niemeyer, the institution's charter was drafted by Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch; the Central Bank was a private entity during its first decade, British Empire interests held a majority stake.
Pursuant to the Roca–Runciman Treaty of 1933, Central Bank reserves accrued from Argentine trade surpluses with the United Kingdom were deposited in escrow at the Bank of England, this clause, which had led to nearly US$1 billion in inaccessible reserves by 1945, prompted the BCRA's nationalization by order of Juan Perón on March 24, 1946. Subordinate to the Economy Ministry in matters of policy, the Central Bank took a more prominent role during the Latin American debt crisis when, in April 1980, it enacted Circular 1050; this measure, enacted to shield the financial sector from the cost of receiving payments in devalued pesos, bankrupted thousands of homeowners and businesses by indexing mortgages to the value of the US dollar locally, which had risen around fifteenfold by July 1982 when Central Bank President Domingo Cavallo rescinded the policy. During the years of Cavallo's Convertibility Law, which established a 1:1 fixed exchange rate between the Argentine peso and the United States dollar on April 1, 1991, the BCRA was in charge of keeping foreign currency reserves in synch with the monetary base.
The policy deprived the Central Bank of exchange-rate flexibility and ended at the depth of a record economic crisis a decade later. The repeal of the Convertibility Law in January 2002 was accompanied by a 70% devaluation and depreciation of the peso to nearly 4 pesos, the Central Bank's role afterward was the accumulation of reserves in order to gain a measure of control of the exchange rate; the BCRA buys and sells dollars from the market as needed to absorb large foreign trade surpluses and keep the official exchange rate at internationally competitive levels for Argentine exports and to encourage import substitution. As part of a wider debt restructuring effort that brought Argentina out of its default three years earlier, in December 2005 President Néstor Kirchner announced the payment of Argentina's IMF debts in a single, anticipated disbursement; the payment was effected on January 2006, employing about US$9.8 billion from BCRA reserves. This decreased the amount of reserves by one third, but did not cause adverse monetary effects, save from an increased reliance on the local bond market, which requires somewhat higher interest rates.
The BCRA continued to intervene in the exchange market buying dollars, though selling small amounts. Its reserves reached US$28 billion in September 2006, recovering the levels prior to the IMF payment, rose to US$32 billion at the close of the year; the exchange rate was maintained undervalued, prompted by the BCRA's market intervention as a buyer. While fiscal policy remained tight, monetary policy was expansionary with growth in Argentina's money supply of over 23% annually from 2003 to 2007. Citing its disapproval of this policy, the influential Global Finance magazine gave Martín Redrado, President of the Central Bank, a D grade in its October 2006 survey of global central bankers; the magazine held that Redrado "missed the opportunity to act to curb inflation when the economy was expanding at its fastest, with inflation expected to reach 12% in 2006, up from 7.7% in 2005 and 4.4% in 2004." Price controls helped keep inflation that year to 9.8%, though the public's perception of it was higher due to the sample composition used to measure the index.
The BCRA, obtained exceptionally high returns on investment funded by its reserves, for a total of US$1.4 billion in 2006, continued to do so in subsequent years. Fallout from the 2008 financial crisis forced President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner's administration to seek domestic financing for growing public spending, as well as for foreign debt service obligations; the president ordered a US$6.7 billion account opened at the Central Bank for the latter purpose in December 2009, implying the use of the Central Bank's foreign exchange reserves, drawing direct opposition from Redrado. He was dismissed by presidential decree on January 7, 2010
Casa Rosada
The Casa Rosada is the executive mansion and office of the President of Argentina. The palatial mansion is known as Casa de Gobierno; the President lives at the Quinta de Olivos, the official residence of the President of Argentina, located in Olivos, Greater Buenos Aires. The characteristic color of the Casa Rosada is baby pink, is considered one of the most emblematic buildings in Buenos Aires; the building houses a museum, which contains objects relating to former presidents of Argentina. It has been declared a National Historic Monument of Argentina; the Casa Rosada sits at the eastern end of the Plaza de Mayo, a large square which since the 1580 foundation of Buenos Aires has been surrounded by many of the most important political institutions of the city and of Argentina. The site at the shoreline of the Río de la Plata, was first occupied by the "Fort of Juan Baltazar of Austria", a structure built on the orders of the founder of Buenos Aires, Captain Juan de Garay, in 1594, its 1713 replacement by a masonry structure complete with turrets made the spot the effective nerve center of colonial government.
Following independence, President Bernardino Rivadavia had a Neoclassical portico built at the entrance in 1825, the building remained unchanged until, in 1857, the fort was demolished in favor of a new customs building. Under the direction of British Argentine architect Edward Taylor, the Italianate structure functioned as Buenos Aires' largest building from 1859 until the 1890s; the old fort's administrative annex, which survived the construction of Taylor's Customs House, was enlisted as the Presidential offices by Bartolomé Mitre in the 1860s and his successor, Domingo Sarmiento, who beautified the drab building with patios and wrought-iron grillwork, had the exterior painted pink in order to defuse political tensions by mixing the red and white colors of the country's two opposing political parties: red was the color of the Federalists, while white was the color of the Unitarians. An alternative explanation suggests that the original paint contained cow's blood to prevent damage from the effects of humidity.
Sarmiento authorized the construction of the Central Post Office next door in 1873, commissioning Swedish Argentine architect Carl Kihlberg, who designed this, one of the first of Buenos Aires' many examples of Second Empire architecture. Presiding over an unprecedented socio-economic boom, President Julio Roca commissioned architect Enrique Aberg to replace the cramped State House with one resembling the neighboring Central Post Office in 1882. Following works to integrate the two structures, Roca had architect Francesco Tamburini build the iconic Italianate archway between the two in 1884; the resulting State House, still known as the "Rose House", was completed in 1898 following its eastward enlargement, works which resulted in the destruction of the customs house. A Historical Museum was created in 1957 to display presidential memorabilia and selected belongings, such as sashes, books and three carriages; the remains of the former fort were excavated in 1991, the uncovered structures were incorporated into the Museum of the Casa Rosada.
Located behind the building, these works led to the rerouting of Paseo Colón Avenue, unifying the Casa Rosada with Parque Colón behind it. Plans were announced in 2009 for the restoration of surviving portions of Taylor's Customs House, as well; the Casa Rosada itself is undergoing extensive renovation delayed by the 2001 economic crisis. The work is scheduled for completion on the 2010 bicentennial of the May Revolution that led to independence. In 1536, Don Pedro de Mendoza established a settlement near the mouth of the Riachuelo de los Navíos, called Nuestra Señora del Buen Ayre. In 1580, Juan de Garay founded the city at the place, to be the Plaza Mayor, naming it Santísima Trinidad while the port retained the name of the original settlement, it was replaced in 1713 by a more solid construction with turrets, sentry boxes, a moat and a drawbridge that upon being completed in 1720 was given the name of "Castillo San Miguel". President Bernardino Rivadavia modified the fort in 1820, the drawbridge was replaced by a neoclassical portico.
The site, for defence purposes at that time and seat of the Spanish and Home governments, is where Government House stands. In the Pink House Museum one of its cannon holes can be found in part of a storage room of the Royal Treasury's warehouse. Under the direction of the English architect, Edward Taylor, the New Customs House was built in 1855 back to back with the rear walls of the Fort, facing the river, it is the first public building of great size built by the young mercantile State of Buenos Aires. From the central tower at the top of which there was a clock and a beacon, stretched out a 300 m pier providing wharfaging for ships of greater draught to cast their anchors. Via two side ramps carts, loaded with goods, accessed the manoeuvring dock, it was used for forty years and it was demolished down to the first floor by the Madero Port project and its foundations are buried under what is today Colón Park. President Domingo Sarmiento ordered the construction of the Postal headquarters in 1873 on open ground that had remained after the south wing of the Buenos Aires Fort had been demolished.
This project was carried out by the Swedish architect Carlos
Argentine peso
The peso is the currency of Argentina, identified by the symbol $ preceding the amount in the same way as many countries using dollar currencies. It is subdivided into 100 centavos, its ISO 4217 code is ARS. Since the late 20th century, the Argentine peso has experienced a substantial rate of devaluation, reaching 25% year-on-year inflation rate in 2017; the official exchange rate for the United States dollar hovered around 3:1 from 2002 to 2008, climbing to 6:1 between 2009 and 2013. By August 2018, the rate had risen to 40:1. Amounts in earlier pesos were sometimes preceded by a "$" sign and sometimes in formal use, by symbols identifying that it was a specific currency, for example $m/n100 or m$n100 for pesos moneda nacional; the peso introduced in 1992 is just called peso, is written preceded by a "$" sign only. Earlier pesos replaced currencies called peso, sometimes two varieties of peso coexisted, making it necessary to have a distinguishing term to use, at least in the transitional period.
The peso was a name used for the silver Spanish eight-real coin. Following independence, Argentina began issuing its own coins, denominated in reales and escudos, including silver eight-real coins still known as pesos; these coins, together with those from neighbouring countries, circulated until 1881. In 1826, two paper money issues began. One, the peso fuerte was a convertible currency, with 17 pesos fuertes equal to one Spanish ounce of 0.916 fine gold. It was replaced by the peso moneda nacional at par in 1881; the non-convertible peso moneda corriente was introduced in 1826. It depreciated with time. Although the Argentine Confederation issued 1-, 2- and 4-centavo coins in 1854, with 100 centavos equal to 1 peso = 8 reales, Argentina did not decimalize until 1881; the peso moneda nacional replaced the earlier currencies at the rate of 1 peso moneda nacional = 8 reales = 1 peso fuerte = 25 peso moneda corriente. One peso moneda nacional coin was made of silver and known as patacón. However, the 1890 economic crisis ensured.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the Argentine peso was one of the most traded currencies in the world. The Argentine gold coin from 1875 was the gold peso fuerte and two-thirds of a gram of gold of fineness 900, equivalent to one and a half grams of fine gold, defined by law 733 of 1875; this unit was based on that recommended by the European Congress of Economists in Paris in 1867 and adopted by Japan in 1873. The monetary system before 1881 has been described as "anarchistic". Law 1130 of 1881 put an end to this. Gold coins of 5 and 2.5 pesos were to be used, silver coins of one peso and 50, 20, 10 and 5 centavos, copper coins of 2 and 1 centavos. The depreciated peso moneda corriente was replaced in 1881 by the paper peso moneda nacional at a rate of 25 to 1; this currency was used from 1881 until January 1, 1970 The design was changed in 1899 and again in 1942. The peso m$n was convertible, with a value of one peso oro sellado. Convertibility was maintained off and on, with decreasing value in gold, until it was abandoned in 1929, when m$n 2.2727 was equivalent to one peso oro.
The peso ley 18.188 replaced the previous currency at a rate of 1 peso ley to 100 pesos moneda nacional. The peso argentino replaced the previous currency at a rate of 1 peso argentino to 10,000 pesos ley; the currency was born just before the return of democracy, on June 1, 1983. However, it lost its purchasing power and was devalued several times, was replaced by a new currency called the austral in June 1985; the austral replaced the peso argentino at a rate of 1 austral to 1000 pesos. During the period of circulation of the austral, Argentina suffered from hyperinflation; the last months of President Raul Alfonsín's period in office in 1989 saw prices move up with a consequent fall in the value of the currency. Emergency notes of 10,000, 50,000 and 500,000 australes were issued, provincial administrations issued their own currency for the first time in decades; the value of the currency stabilized. The current peso replaced the austral at a rate of 1 peso = 10,000 australes, it was referred to as peso convertible since the international exchange rate was fixed by the Central Bank at 1 peso to 1 U.
S. dollar and for every peso convertible circulating, there was a US dollar in the Central Bank's foreign currency reserves. After the various changes of currency and dropping of zeroes, one peso convertible was equivalent to 10,000,000,000,000 pesos moneda nacional. However, after the financial crisis of 2001, the fixed exchange rate system was abandoned. Since January 2002, the exchange rate fluctuated, up to a peak of four pesos to one dollar; the resulting export boom produced a massive inflow of dollars into the Argentine economy, which helped lower their price. For a time the administration stated and maintained a strategy of keeping the excha
Argentina
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Division General, pre-1991 epaulette
