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The 1972 Nicaragua earthquake refers to the incident that occurred in Managua, the capital of Nicaragua. With a magnitude of 6.2, it occurred at a depth of approximately five kilometers beneath the center of the city. Within an hour after the main shock, two aftershocks occurred. The earthquake caused widespread damage and approximately 5,000 of the 400,000 population of Managua were killed, leaving 20,000 injured and over 250,000 homeless.

Managua has a long history of volcanic and seismic activity which arises from the relative movements of two crustal plates. Rather than a simple crustal movement between the two plates, the earthquake was believed to have been caused by a shallow adjustment to geological pressure. The earthquake severely damaged an area of 27 square kilometers and destroyed 13 square kilometers in the city center. Much of the damage arose from seismic ground movement.

The water and electrical power network was affected to the extent that a week after the earthquake only 10% of the city had any working water service. Two-thirds of Managua’s 325,000 residents were displaced and faced famine and disease. The earthquake destroyed all the fire-fighting equipment available and fires were prevalent in some areas for several days. Due to the extent of the damage, the Managua city center was never rebuilt.

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Granma is the yacht that was used to transport the fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in 1956 fro the purpose of overthrowing the regime of Fulgencio Batista. The 60-foot diesel-powered cabin cruiser was built in 1943 and designed to accommodate 12 people.

The yacht was purchased on October 10, 1956 for $15,000 by a Mexican citizen secretly representing Fidel Castro. Shortly after midnight on November 25, 1956 in the Mexican port of Tuxpan, Veracruz, the Granma was surreptitiously boarded by 82 members of the 26th of July movement including their leader, Castro, his brother Raul, and Che Guevara. After a series of misadventures, including the near foundering of their heavily overladen and leaking craft, disembarked on the shores of what is now Granma Province on December 2.

The location was chosen to emulate the voyage of national hero Jose Marti, who had landed in the same region 61 years earlier during the wars of independence from Spanish colonial rule. Soon after the revolutionary forces triumphed, the cabin cruiser was transferred to Havana Bay in 1959. Since 1976, the yacht has been on permanent display in a glass enclosure at the Granma Memorial adjacent to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana. December 2 is celebrated as the “Day of the Cuban Armed Forces” and the replica has been paraded at state functions.

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The Zapatista Army of National Liberation is an armed revolutionary group based in Chiapas, one of the poorest states of Mexico. Since 1994, they have been in a declared war “against the Mexican state.” Their social base is most indigenous but they have supporters in urban areas as well as an international web of support.

Their main spokesperson is Subcomandante Marcos. The group takes their name form Emiliano Zapata, the anarchist commander of the Liberation Army of the South during the Mexican Revolution, and thus see themselves as his ideological heirs. In reference to inspirational figures, in nearly all EZLN villages exist murals accompanying images of revolutionaries Emiliano Zapata, Che Guevara, and Subcomandante Marcos.

Some consider the Zapatista movement the first “post-modern” revolution: an armed revolutionary group that has abstained from using their weapons since their 1994 uprising was countered by the overpowering military might of the Mexican Army. The Zapatistas try to garner support by making use of the Internet to disseminate their communiqués. Awareness has also been raised due to the support by the band Rage Against the Machine. The Zapatista feature prominently in the band’s songs, in particular “People of the Sun.”

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