In early 1819, the struggle for independence in northern South America was locked in a stalemate. Patriot leaders like Simon Bolivar and Santiago Marino had large armies, but weren't strong enough to deliver a knockout blow to the Spanish. Bolivar himself was pinned down in southwestern Venezuela, stuck between Spanish armies he did not want to fight on one side and the Andes on the other. Bolivar made a rash move: he would attack the Spanish where they least expected it: in Bogota. In his way were raging rivers, desolate highlands and the frosty passes of the Andes. Crossing would be suicide...or would it be genius?

Venezuela has two independence days: April 19, 1810, when the nation declared a provisional independence from Spain (they remained loyal to King Ferdinand, then a prisoner of Napoleon), and July 5, 1811, when they declared absolute independence, making them the first Latin American nation to make a clean break with Spain. This July 5, Venezuela will celebrate the bicentennial of its true independence from Spain!

On July 1, 1974, Juan Domingo Peron, President of Argentina, died of a heart attack in Buenos Aires. It was an anticlimactic end to a twenty-year saga: after years of exile in Spain he had returned only a year or so before to once again rule his nation. His selection of his inept wife, Isabel, as his Vice-President had disastrous consequences: after his death, her actions would indirectly lead the nation into the horrors of the so-called "Guerra Sucia," Or "Dirty War."

On June 23, 1914, Revolutionary Pancho Villa launched an assault on the entrenched forces of usurper president Victoriano Huerta outside of the city of Zacatecas. At stake was a railway junction that led right to Mexico City. Could Villa's legendary cavalry win the day against Huerta's entrenched soldiers and artillery?