After days of naval bombardment threats and military uprisings across Argentina, President Juan Perón resigned and fled aboard a Paraguayan gunboat as General Eduardo Lonardi's self-styled 'Liberating Revolution' took control of Buenos Aires. Perón's fall ended a populist government that had reshaped Argentine politics through labor rights and mass mobilization, but it also began an eighteen-year exile marked by continued Peronist loyalty among the working class.
By September 1955, Perón's support had eroded following economic troubles, conflict with the Catholic Church, and the death of his enormously popular wife Eva three years earlier. A military rebellion launched from Córdoba on September 16 spread quickly, and naval forces threatened to shell Buenos Aires and its oil facilities at La Plata unless Perón stepped down.
Facing the collapse of military loyalty, Perón resigned on September 19 and sought asylum, eventually boarding a Paraguayan naval vessel on the Río de la Plata that carried him into exile. General Lonardi took power promising to 'neither victors nor vanquished' reconcile the nation, a promise quickly abandoned as the new government banned Peronism outright. Perón would spend eighteen years in exile across Paraguay, Panama, Venezuela, and Spain before returning to Argentina in 1973 to be elected president once more, a testament to the durability of the movement he built.
Key people: Juan Perón, Eduardo Lonardi