[en] Abstract from English Wikipedia: The term Latin America primarily refers to the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking countries in the New World. Before the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, the region was home to many indigenous peoples, a number of which had advanced civilizations, most notably from South; the Olmec, Maya, Muisca and Inca. The region came under control of the crowns of Spain and Portugal, which imposed both Roman Catholicism and their respective languages. Both the Spanish and the Portuguese brought African slaves to their colonies, as laborers, particularly in regions where indigenous populations who could be made to work were absent. In the early 19th century nearly all of areas of Spanish America attained independence by armed struggle, with the exceptions of Cuba and Puerto Rico. The Spanish American wars of independence (1808-33) were a complex series of conflicts, primarily fought between opposing groups of colonists and only secondarily against Spanish forces. Brazil, which had become a monarchy separate from Portugal, became a republic in the late 19th century. The Spanish-American War (1898) ended the Spanish colonial presence in the Americas. Political independence resulted in political and economic instability in Latin America immediately after independence. Great Britain and the United States exercised significant influence in the post-independence era, resulting in a form of neo-colonialism, whereby a country's political sovereignty remained in place, but foreign powers exercised considerable power in the economic sphere. The 26th of July Movement, led by Fidel Castro, seized power in Cuba on 1 January 1959, overthrowing Fulgencio Batista's pro-US government. Castro nationalized Cuba's fruit resources, driving the United Fruit Company out, and his purchase of oil from the USSR led to a deterioration of relations with the USA, leading to the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion by Cuban exiles, and in 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis almost sparked World War III. The crisis' end left Cuba blockaded by the US, which was also obligated to not invade Cuba. Castro's revolution was only the first of its kind in Latin America. Leftist governments rose to power across the region (both in Central America and South America), so the United States resorted to backing coups, such as the 1954 overthrow of the popular Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala and the ouster of Juan Bosch in 1965 in the Dominican Republic, the latter of which led to the Dominican Civil War and the US occupation of the republic that year. The United States supported coups that installed dictators in Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and other countries, and they set up the School of the Americas to train future dictators like Leopoldo Galtieri of Argentina and Manuel Noriega of Panama. Some dictators' rules led to civil wars, such as the Nicaraguan Civil War, Salvadoran Civil War, and Guatemalan Civil War in the 1970s-1990s, and the United States backed governments that used death squads to massacre villagers and priests accused of siding with leftists. These civil wars would end with the end of the Cold War, resulting in the communist guerrillas becoming legal political parties, and many of them would proceed to rule over the country, such as the Sandinistas of Nicaragua and FMLN of El Salvador.

[es] Resumen extraído de Wikipedia en español: El término América Latina se refiere principalmente a los países de habla española y portuguesa en el Nuevo Mundo. Antes de la Colonización europea de América a fines del siglo XV y principios del XVI, la región albergaba a muchos pueblos indígenas, algunos de los cuales tenían civilizaciones avanzadas, principalmente de norte a sur; los Olmeca, Maya, Muisca e Inca. La región quedó bajo el control de las coronas de España y Portugal, que impusieron tanto el catolicismo como sus respectivos idiomas. Tanto los españoles como los portugueses trajeron esclavos africanos a sus colonias, como jornaleros, particularmente en las regiones donde las poblaciones indígenas que podían hacerse trabajar estaban ausentes. A principios del siglo XIX, casi todas las áreas de Hispanoamérica lograron la independencia mediante la lucha armada, con la excepción de Cuba y Puerto Rico. Brasil, que se había convertido en una monarquía separada de Portugal, se convirtió en una república a fines del siglo XIX. La independencia política de las monarquías europeas no resultó en la abolición de la esclavitud negra en las nuevas naciones soberanas. La independencia política dio lugar a la inestabilidad política y económica en Hispanoamérica inmediatamente después de la independencia. Gran Bretaña y Estados Unidos ejercieron una influencia significativa en la era posterior a la independencia, lo que dio como resultado una forma de neocolonialismo, por el cual la soberanía política de un país permaneció en su lugar, pero las potencias extranjeras ejercieron un poder considerable en la esfera económica.