Bartolome Martinez Mitre (26 June 1821-19 January 1906) was President of Argentina from 12 December 1861 to 12 October 1868, succeeding Juan Esteban Pedernera and preceding Domingo Faustino Sarmiento.
Biography[]
Bartolome Martinez Mitre was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina to a family of Greek descent; his family's original surname was Mitropoulos. Due to his participation in the liberal exile to Juan Manuel de Rosas' regime, he was forced into exile, and he served as a Colonel in the Uruguayan army under Fructuoso Rivera. He returned to Argentina after the 1852 Battle of Caseros, and he defeated Justo Jose de Urquiza's army at the 1861 Battle of Pavon and seized the presidency for the Unitarios. In October 1862, he finally achieved national political unity and founded the Liberal Party of Argentina, becoming its first President. He commanded the Allied forces at the start of the Paraguayan War, but he was defeated in the 1874 presidential election, and he was spared after launching a failed coup. Following the 1890 Revolution of the Park, he founded the Civic Union, which splintered into his National Civic Union and Leandro Alem's Radical Civic Union a year later. Mitre led the party until his death in 1906.