Dominican Republic, 1959 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
On 14 June 1959 an expedition of Dominican exiles and international fighters, trained in Cuba and backed by Fidel Castro's new government, invaded the Dominican Republic in a failed bid to overthrow the thirty year dictatorship of Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. A first group of 56 men led by Enrique Jimenez Moya landed by a disguised C-46 transport plane at Constanza in the central mountains, while two boats carrying about 140 more, delayed by mechanical failure, put ashore on the north coast at Maimon and Estero Hondo around 20 June. Trujillo answered with some 3,000 troops and air power, and the expeditionaries, finding no popular uprising, were swiftly overwhelmed.
Most were killed or captured, and the captured survivors were tortured and executed. Though a military failure, the June 14 expedition became a moral catalyst, inspiring the clandestine 14th of June Movement whose repression helped erode the regime before Trujillo's assassination in 1961.
Researched Details
Researched
Independent research, added record by record. Hover any label for what it means.
Sources
Editorial Note
Cross-Reference
Only one dataset carries it. One of the three reference datasets we check against carries this event; the others do not list it. That is not a contradiction — the datasets cover different periods and use different thresholds — but it means the record has had less outside corroboration.
Identifiers for finding this same event in the other datasets:
- Cline Center id
04206141959
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo survived the expedition unharmed but was assassinated two years later in 1961.
Baseline coding: Coup attempt failed to remove the incumbent. Recorded leader fate: remained in office; not physically harmed. The baseline file does not name individual targets; researched names are kept in a separate layer.
Baseline Dataset Citation
Baseline Source-Document Entries
Wikipedia
New York Times
This is the citation trail carried by the baseline dataset, grouped by outlet and rejoined from the line-wrapped original. Coup Atlas has not independently re-checked every document; read the original before citing a specific claim. URLs the import damaged beyond safe repair are shown as plain text and listed in citations-report.md. How this list is built →