Item: i101367

Authentic Coin of:

Mexico – Centennial of Carranza’s Birth
1959 Silver 5 Pesos 36mm (18.00 grams) 0.720 Silver (0.4178 oz. ASW)
Reference: KM# 471
CINCO PESOS ESTADOS UNIDOS MEXICANOS 18.055 G · LEY .720 · 1959, Eagle with snake in beak standing on cactus.
AÑO DE CARRANZA Mo 1859-1959, Venustiano Carranza facing left.

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José Venustiano Carranza De La Garza (29 December 1859 – 21 May 1920) was one of the main leaders of the Mexican Revolution, whose victorious northern revolutionary Constitutionalist Army defeated the counter-revolutionary regime of Victoriano Huerta (February 1913 – July 1914) and then defeated fellow revolutionaries after Huerta’s ouster. He secured power in Mexico, serving as head of state from 1914 to 1916. With the promulgation of a new revolutionary Mexican Constitution of 1917, he was elected president, serving from 1916 to 1920.

Known as the “Primer Jefe” or “First Chief” of the Constitutionalists, Carranza was a shrewd politician rather than a military man. He supported Francisco I. Madero’s challenge to the Díaz regime in the 1910 elections and Madero’s Plan de San Luis Potosí to nullify the elections and overthrow Díaz by force. He was appointed the governor of his home state of Coahuila by Madero. When Madero was murdered in February 1913, Carranza drew up the Plan de Guadalupe, a purely political plan to oust Huerta. Carranza became the leader of northern forces opposed to Huerta. He went on to lead the Constitutionalist faction to victory and become president of Mexico.

Carranza was from a rich, northern landowning family; despite his position as head of the northern revolutionary movement, he was concerned that Mexico’s land tenure not be fundamentally restructured by the Revolution. He was far more conservative than either southern peasant leader Emiliano Zapata or northern revolutionary general Pancho Villa. Once firmly in power in Mexico, Carranza sought to eliminate his political rivals. Carranza won recognition from the United States but took strongly nationalist positions. During his administration, the current constitution of Mexico was drafted and adopted. Carranza did not implement its most radical elements, such as empowerment of labor, use of the state to expropriate foreign enterprises, land reform in Mexico, or suppression of the Roman Catholic Church in Mexico.

In the 1920 election, in which he could not succeed himself, he attempted to impose a virtually unknown, civilian politician, Ignacio Bonillas, as president of Mexico. Northern generals, who held real power, rose up against Carranza under the Plan of Agua Prieta, and Carranza was assassinated as he fled Mexico City.

Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a federal republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of Mexico. Covering almost two million square kilometres (over 760,000 sq mi), Mexico is the fifth largest country in the Americas by total area and the 13th largest independent nation in the world. With an estimated population of over 113 million, it is the eleventh most populous and the most populous Spanish-speaking country in the world and the second most populous country in Latin America. Mexico is a federation comprising thirty-one states and a Federal District, its capital and largest city.

In pre-Columbian Mexico many cultures matured into advanced civilizations such as the Olmec, the Toltec, the Teotihuacan, the Zapotec, the Maya and the Aztec before first contact with Europeans. In 1521, the Spanish Empire conquered and colonized the territory from its base in Mexico-Tenochtitlan, which was administered as the Viceroyalty of New Spain. This territory would eventually become Mexico following recognition of the colony’s independence in 1821. The post-independence period was characterized by economic instability, the Mexican-American War that led to the territorial cession to the United States, the Pastry War, the Franco-Mexican War, a civil war, two empires and a domestic dictatorship. The latter led to the Mexican Revolution in 1910, which culminated with the promulgation of the 1917 Constitution and the emergence of the country’s current political system. In March 1938, through the Mexican oil expropriation private U.S. and Anglo-Dutch oil companies were nationalized to create the state-owned Pemex oil company.

Mexico has one of the world’s largest economies, it is the tenth largest oil producer in the world, the largest silver producer in the world and is considered both a regional power and middle power. In addition, Mexico was the first Latin American member of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD (since 1994), and considered an upper-middle income country by the World Bank. Mexico is considered a newly industrialized country and an emerging power. It has the fifteenth largest nominal GDP and the tenth largest GDP by purchasing power parity. The economy is strongly linked to those of its North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners, especially the United States. Mexico ranks sixth in the world and first in the Americas by number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites with 32, and in 2010 was the tenth most visited country in the world with 22.5 million international arrivals per year. According to Goldman Sachs, by 2050 Mexico is expected to become the world’s fifth largest economy. PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) estimated in January 2013 that by 2050 Mexico could be the world’s seventh largest economy. Mexico has membership in prominent institutions such as the UN, the WTO, the G20 and the Uniting for Consensus.