Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Feast on tasty steaks or more exotic cuisine in Palermo's
Las Cañitas
(
Click
Marvel at amazingly high leg kicks and sexy moves at a
tango show
(
Click here
)
Shop in the fun and stylish designer boutiques of
Palermo Viejo
(
Click here
)
Party all night long in BA's chic and super-happening
nightclubs
(
Click here
)
in
Palermo
Attend a loud, exciting and always passionate
fútbol
game
(
Click here
)
Strolling, shopping and people-watching on always-bustling
Calle Florida
(
Click
a Wander
El Caminito
(
Click here
) and watch weekend buskers in La Boca
History
Buenos Aires was first settled in 1536 by Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza, but food short-
ages and attacks by indigenous groups prompted his hasty departure in 1537. Meanwhile,
other expedition members left the settlement, sailed 1600km upriver and founded Asun-
ción (now capital of Paraguay). Then in 1580, a new group of settlers moved back south
and repopulated Mendoza's abandoned outpost.
For the next 196 years BA was a backwater and smuggler's paradise due to trade re-
strictions imposed by mother Spain. All the same, its population had grown to around
20,000 by 1776, the year Spain decreed the city as capital of the new viceroyalty of Río
de la Plata.
BA's
cabildo
(town council) cut ties with its mother country on May 1810, but decades
of power struggles between BA and the other former viceregal provinces ensued, escalat-
ing into civil war. Finally, in 1880 the city was declared the federal territory of Buenos
Aires and the nation's capital forevermore.
Agricultural exports soared for the next few decades, which resulted in great wealth
accumulating in the city. Well-heeled
porteños
(BA citizens) built opulent French-style
mansions and the government spent lavishly on public works. But the boom times didn't
last forever: the 1929 Wall Street crash dealt a big blow to the country's markets, and
soon the first of many military coups took over. It was the end of Argentina's Golden
Age.
Poverty, unemployment and decaying infrastructure became constant problems in the
following decades. Extreme governments and a roller-coaster economy have also been
recurring plagues, but despite this Argentina continues to bounce back every few years.
