September 15, 1830 - Porfirio Díaz
His early career as a Liberal military hero — fighting French intervention and conservative reaction — gave little indication of what three decades of near-absolute rule would look like. The regime known as the Porfiriato maintained order through a combination of co-optation, political repression, and rurales enforcement, suppressing indigenous land rights and labor organizing while opening Mexico to foreign capital. The inequalities it entrenched contributed directly to the conditions that ignited the Mexican Revolution of 1910.
From Wikipedia
José de la Cruz Porfirio Díaz Mori (; Spanish: [poɾˈfiɾjo ˈði.as]; baptized 15 September 1830 – 2 July 1915) was a Mexican general and politician who was the dictator of Mexico from 1876 until his overthrow in 1911. Seizing power in a military coup, he served as president of Mexico on three occasions, a total of over thirty years, the longest of any Mexican ruler. This period is known as the Porfiriato and has been called a de facto dictatorship.
Díaz was born to a Oaxacan family of modest means. He initially studied to become a priest but eventually switched his studies to law, and among his mentors was the future President of Mexico, Benito Juárez. Díaz increasingly became active in Liberal Party politics fighting with the Liberals to overthrow Santa Anna in the Plan of Ayutla, and also fighting on their side against the Conservative Party in the Reform War.
During the second French intervention in Mexico, Díaz fought in the Battle of Puebla in 1862, which temporarily repulsed the invaders, but was captured when the French besieged the city with reinforcements a year later. He escaped captivity and made his way to Oaxaca de Juárez, becoming political and military commander over all of Southern Mexico, and successfully resisting French efforts to advance upon the region, until Oaxaca City fell before a French siege in 1865.
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