El Salvador, 1948 — military coup
Event Summary
On December 14, 1948, junior officers of the Salvadoran Army, mostly majors and lieutenant colonels of the self-styled Military Youth, overthrew President General Salvador Castaneda Castro in what became known as the Majors' Coup. The trigger was Castaneda's maneuver a day earlier, when he pushed a decree through the National Assembly to convene a Constituent Assembly and lift the constitutional ban on re-election so he could extend his term. Rebel officers seized the El Zapote artillery fort in San Salvador and, after several hours of intermittent fire, forced Castaneda to surrender.
They established the Revolutionary Council of Government, abrogated the 1886 constitution, and opened the reformist period of military rule that produced the 1950 constitution and the presidency of Major Oscar Osorio.
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
09212141948
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Salvador Castaneda Castro, President of El Salvador (deposed, imprisoned).
Baseline coding: Incumbent executive removed from power. Recorded leader fate: deposed; 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
CSP
Luttwak
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 →