salvador-allende-image, 9-11-73, NEVER FORGET Bumper Sticker

The Chilean coup d'état of 1973 was a watershed event in the history of Chile and the Soviet-American Cold War. On 11 September 1973, the democratically elected President of Chile Salvador Allende was overthrown in a CIA-backed Chilean military coup d’état. A military junta took control of the government, composed of the heads of the Air Force, Navy, Carabineros (police force) and the Army led by General Augusto Pinochet. General Pinochet assumed power and ended Allende's democratically elected Popular Unity government. During the air raids and ground attacks that preceded the coup, Allende gave his last speech where he vowed to stay in the presidential palace. Direct witness accounts of his death agree that he committed suicide in the presidential palace. After the coup Pinochet established a military dictatorship that ruled Chile until 1990 and that was marked by severe human rights violations. A weak insurgence movement against the Pinochet government was maintained inside Chile by elements sympathetic to the former Allende government. - Wikipedia