72 - Simón Bolívar and South American Independence

A Short Walk through Our Long History

In this episode, we are heading to South America, to take a look at the independence movement that started to happen there in the early 1800’s. And the key person we need to talk about is Simón Bolívar. He is kind of the South American version of George Washington, although in a way that kind of sells Bolivar short a bit, because while Washington was one of the founding fathers of the US, Bolivar was THE founding father of south American independence. There are some other differences, too. Bolivar had a tendency to want to execute his enemies, that we don’t really see with Washington. South American politics are different though, so Bolivar lived and worked in a much different environment. Most scholars still think the comparison is valid, and I agree.

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