Argentina
Country in South America, bounded west and south by Chile, north by
Bolivia, and east by Paraguay, Brazil, Uruguay, and the Atlantic Ocean.
Government
The return of civilian rule 1983 brought a return of the 1853 constitution,
with some changes in the electoral system; in 1994 further important
revisions were made. The present constitution provides for a federal
system with a president and vice-president elected by universal suffrage
and both serving four-year terms, renewable only once. The president
is head of state and appoints a prime minister as head of government.
Argentina is a federal union of 23 provinces, one national territory,
and the Federal District. The two- chamber congress consists of a 69-
member senate chosen by provincial legislatures for a nine-year term,
and a directly elected 259-member chamber of deputies serving a four-
year term. One senator from each state is elected to represent minorities.
Each province has its own elected governor and legislature that deal
with matters not assigned to the federal government.
History
Originally inhabited by Native American peoples, the population of
Argentina numbered about 300,000 at the time of the first visit by Europeans
in the early 16th century. In 1515 a company of Spanish adventurers,
under the leadership of Juan Díaz de Solís, landed near the R ío de
la Plata in search of a passage southwestward to the East Indies. In
1520, during his voyage of circumnavigation, Magellan arrived at the
wide estuary of the River Paraná, and being convinced that there was
no passage through to the west he promptly left the country. The first
European settlements In 1526 Sebastian Cabot, once a favourite of Henry
VII of England, now the pilot-major of Charles V, Holy Roman emperor
and king of Spain, went to La Plata to make astronomical observations.
On hearing of mineral wealth in the interior, however, he abandoned
his primary object and began exploring. He explored up the rivers Paraná
and Paraguay, built a fort on the River Uruguay, and founded a settlement
a little further on, north of the River Caracarañá, which he called
San Espiritu. The Indian ornaments of heavy silver that he sent home
to Spain gave the country a reputation of great wealth, and the estuary
of the Paraná was called the Río de la Plata (`silver river´) in consequence.
In 1534 a Basque nobleman, Pedro de Mendoza, organized an expedition
on a larger scale than had been attempted before. He arrived at La Plata
in the following year and laid the foundations of a Spanish settlement
at Buenos Aires in 1536, but suffered great losses. Mendoza himself
returned to Spain in 1537. His lieutenant, Domingos Martinez de Irala,
remained in the country, and founded the first permanent Spanish settlement
in the interior of South America at Asunción, which for many years remained
the headquarters of the colonial Spanish government.
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