Tlatelolco massacre

Rare card · No. 19468

The Tlatelolco massacre (Spanish: Masacre de Tlatelolco) was a military massacre committed by the Mexican Armed Forces against the students of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), the National Polytechnic Institute (IPN) and other universities in Mexico. The massacre followed a series of large demonstrations known as the Mexican Movement of 1968 and is considered part of the Mexican Dirty War when the U.S.-backed Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) government violently repressed political and social opposition. The event occurred ten days before the opening ceremony of the 1968 Summer Olympics, which were carried out as scheduled. On October 2, 1968, in the Tlatelolco section of Mexico City, the Mexican Armed Forces opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians who were protesting the upcoming Olympics in the Plaza de las Tres Culturas. The Mexican government and news media claimed the Armed Forces had been provoked by protesters shooting at them, but government documents...

Read on Wikipedia · Image Andrés Barrios, CC BY-SA 4.0