by Index Page © 2011 MEXICAN PRESIDENTS & HEADS OF STATE INDEPENDENCE PERIOD and EARLY REPUBLIC Emperor Agustín de Iturbide Agustín Itúrbide, Unappreciated Unknown 1822-23 Guadalupe Victoria (Felix Fernández) 1824-29 Vicente Guerrero 1829 José María Bocanegra (interim) 1829 Pedro Vélez, Luis Quintanar and Lucas Alamán, triumvirate 1829 Anastasio Bustamante 1830-32, 1837-39 and 1842 Melchor Múzquiz […]
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On a balmy summer evening in August 1940, a young man gained admittance to the study of Leon Trotsky’s heavily guarded house near Mexico City. He asked Trotsky to read something he had written. While Trotsky was poring over his article, the visitor removed an alpine climbing axe from his overcoat and sank it into […]
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I am not now, nor have I ever been a member of the Communist Party (although I did subscribe to the Daily World during the wild and woolly Sixties), but a visit to Leon Trotsky´s house in Coyoacán has affected me beyond all my expectations. It reminded me of my youth when I imagined, however […]
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“I am from Mexico, but it is like (being) from another country that no longer exists,” says famed potter Juan Jorge Wilmot Mason. Born in Monterrey 77 years ago, Wilmot eventually made his way to his long-time residence of Tonalá in the late 1950s. He says that Tonalá had far fewer inhabitants back then and […]
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“For me, art means freedom of internal expression, which is everything for me.” Drenched in color, the paintings of Chihuahua artist H. Ramírez pulse with energy and emotion. These elements form the core of Ramírez’s work; his very brushstrokes are informed by the artist’s inner sentiments. “For me, art means freedom of internal expression, which […]
Continue ReadingA lo largo de los años, hemos viajado por carretera desde México a diferentes partes de los Estados Unidos. Las rutas varían, y algunas son más escénicas que otras. Uno de los viajes más bonitos pasó por el estado de Hidalgo, en el norte de México central. Ahí, los paisajes todavía asemejan al arte de […]
Continue ReadingDid you know that the word “cigar” originates from the Mayan word xigar? The word was used to describe the action of aspirating or sucking which later came to signify the act of smoking tobacco. The Spaniards adopted the word from the Mayans and morphed it into cigarro to mean rolled smoking tobacco, and now the word is […]
Continue ReadingDid you know that the first people known to have used the peanut were the Mayans of Mexico? International explorers first recorded the peanut in Haiti, but were told it had originally been taken from the Mayan lands. The Mayans called it ” cocoa de la tierra“, because it is harvested from the ground. In fact […]
Continue ReadingDid you know that peanuts, vanilla, guavas, tomatoes, some forty different chiles, avocados, and papayas originally came from Mexico? Pineapple also grew wild in Mexico, as well as Peru and along the Orinoco River in South America, but it was through Mexico that the pineapple became cultivated throughout the world. Explorers found the fruit in […]
Continue ReadingDid you know that among the many things Mexico has given to the world, chewing gum is one of them? El Tzictlil, a Nahuatl word for resin from the Zapote Blanco tree, caught the attention of three American travellers, Thomas Adams, John Colgan and William Wrigley who noticed that the resin hardened when exposed to […]
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