Venezuela, 1947 — dissident coup attempt
Event Summary
On 12 September 1947 dissident plotters made a further failed attempt against Venezuela's trienio government under junta president Romulo Betancourt, two months after the new constitution was signed into law on 5 July 1947 and three months before the December presidential election. The Accion Democratica program, including the 50 50 oil tax regime, aggressive public education expansion, and labor mobilization, had built a hostile front of business interests, the Catholic Church, conservative parties, and displaced officers, and conspiracies recurred throughout the trienio. The September attempt was put down and the transition stayed on track: on 14 December 1947 Romulo Gallegos won the presidency with roughly three quarters of the vote in what is generally considered Venezuela's first honest election.
The reprieve lasted under a year, as the military overthrew Gallegos on 24 November 1948 and ended the democratic experiment.
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
10109121947
How the match is made is described in crossref-report.md.
Outcome and Target
Coup Atlas research identifies the target as: Junta president Romulo Betancourt survived the attempt unharmed and the junta completed the transition to the elected Gallegos government.
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
New York Herald Tribune
New York Times
South China Morning Post
The Washington Post
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 →