Question: When did the continent where the largest country within it held the football tournament become a collection of independent states?

The Copa América 1989 football tournament was hosted by Brazil, from 1 to 16 July. All ten CONMEBOL member nations participated. <SEP> Simón Bolívar (Greater Colombia, Peru, Bolivia), José de San Martín (United Provinces of the River Plate, Chile, and Peru), and Bernardo O'Higgins (Chile) led their independence struggle. The Spanish colonies won their independence in the first quarter of the 19th century, in the Spanish American wars of independence. Although Bolivar attempted to keep the Spanish - speaking parts of the continent politically unified, they rapidly became independent of one another. <SEP> africa is the world's second largest and second most - populous continent (behind asia in both categories). at about 30.3 million km (11.7 million square miles) including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of earth's total surface area and 20% of its land area. with 1.2 billion people as of 2016, it accounts for about 16% of the world's human population. the continent is surrounded by the mediterranean sea to the north, the isthmus of suez and the red sea to the northeast, the indian ocean to the southeast and the atlantic ocean to the west. the continent includes madagascar and various archipelagos. it contains 54 fully recognised sovereign states (countries), nine territories and two de facto independent states with limited or no recognition. the majority of the continent and its countries are in the northern hemisphere, with a substantial portion and number of countries in the southern hemisphere. <SEP> At 8.5 million square kilometers (3.2 million square miles) and with over 208 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth - largest country by area and the sixth most populous. Brazil (Portuguese: Brasil Portuguese pronunciation: (bɾaˈziw)), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: República Federativa do Brasil, listen (help info)), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. The capital is Brasília, and the most populated city is São Paulo. The federation is composed of the union of the 26 states, the Federal District, and the 5,570 municipalities. It is the largest country to have Portuguese as an official language and the only one in the Americas; it is also one of the most multicultural and ethnically diverse nations, due to over a century of mass immigration from around the world. <SEP> ice hockey is a sport that is contested at the winter olympic games. a men's ice hockey tournament has been held every winter olympics (starting in 1924); an ice hockey tournament was also held at the 1920 summer olympics. from 1920 to 1968, the olympics also acted as the ice hockey world championships, and the two events occurred concurrently. from 1920 until 1984, only amateur athletes were allowed to compete in the tournament, and players from the national hockey league (nhl) were not allowed to compete. the countries that benefited most were the soviet bloc countries of eastern europe, where top athletes were state - sponsored while retaining their status as amateurs. in 1970, after a disagreement over the definition of amateur players, canada withdrew from the tournament and did not send a team to the 1972 or 1976 winter olympics. in 1986, the international olympic committee (ioc) decided to allow professional athletes to compete in the olympics, and starting in 1998, the nhl allowed its players to participate. women's ice hockey was added in 1992 and the first tournament was held at the 1998 winter olympics. both events have been held at every olympic games since.