Salvador Allende was confirmed as president on October 24, 1970. He had won the election in September with the largest share of a divided vote, and the congress ratified the result on this day. He was the first Marxist to come to power by the ballot.
The victory was narrow and contested. Allende took about a third of the vote, and his opponents in congress tried to block him, and he won confirmation only by promising to respect the constitution. The world watched closely, for good and ill.
He promised a peaceful road. Allende nationalized the copper industry and carried out land reform, and he said socialism could be built without the violence and dictatorship that had marked it elsewhere. The program was bold and deeply divisive.
The pressure mounted fast. The economy deteriorated, and strikes and shortages spread, and the United States, determined to stop a socialist government in the hemisphere, worked against him through money and covert action. The country split into hostile camps.
The end came in 1973. The military, led by Augusto Pinochet, seized power on September 11, and Allende died in the presidential palace as it was bombed, and the democracy he had won by vote was crushed by force. The experiment in a peaceful road to socialism ended in gunfire.