Chile, which lies on the Western coast of the continent of South America, was first populated around 10,000 years ago by migrating indigenous Americans. The area which is now northern Chile was briefly controlled by the Incas at the height of their empire, but the geography of the land made permanent settlement difficult for a pre-industrial civilisation.

The first Europeans to enter Chile were the Spanish conquistadors in the mid 16 th Century. Although they did not encounter the amount of gold they had hoped for, the agricultural potential of the central valley, which supported hundreds of thousands of culturally diverse Native Indian tribes, was sufficient for the Spanish to remain. Inter-marriage and breeding across the centuries has produced the predominantly mixed race native/Spanish population.

When Napoleon's brother Joseph overthrew the Spanish monarch in the 1800s, Chile began a struggle for autonomy from Spain. The deposed heir to the Spanish throne formed a junta in 1810, proclaiming Chile an independent republuic within the Spanish monarchy. Sporadic warfare continued until 1817 when the Royalists were defeated and Chile was declared an autonomous republic. Presidential rule eventually predominated over the church and wealthy landowners, who had dominated the country under the monarchy.

The War of the Pacific (1879-83) with Peru and Bolivia expanded Chile's territory into the north, furnishing the country with extensive mineral wealth which lead to a period of national affluence.

In the late 19 th century Chile adopted a parliamentary-style democracy, but corruption caused it to protect the interests of the wealthy and powerful at the expense of the people. By the 1920s, the disenchantment of the working and middle classes was such that their strength of opposition to the status quo was enough to elect a reformist president, and Marxism won popular support.

Economic struggles led to the emergence of the semi-dictatorial rule of General Carlos Ibáñez from 1924-32. When Chile returned top democratic rule in 1932, a middle-class party called the Radicals emerged and became the strongest element of the coalition governments for the next 20 years.

In 1964 the Christian Democrat Eduardo Frei Montalva was elected President. He began a period of major reform, but was hindered by the left weing, who thought his progress too slow and inadequate, and by the right wing, who found them too fast and too excessive.

In 1970 Frei was succeeded as President by Salvador Allende, of the Popular Unity coalition. He instigated more reforms, primarily the large-scale expropriation of private land, collectivisation (a communist style of farming in which peasants are not paid to work, but receive a share of the farm's produce) and nationalisation of private industries and banks. One of the most significant changes he instigated was to nationalise the US-owned copper mines in the north of the country.

Elected by a minority, Allende's government never had a large amount of support in congress, and the US, vehemently opposed to Marxist idealogioes and further enraged by the nationalisation of the copper mines, were openly hostile towards him. Without international and domestic support, the economy faltered and strikes and shortages became commonplace. In 1973 The United States financed the now infamous lorry drivers' strike, which tipped the balance and began a series of events that ultimately led to the imprisonment, torture and death of thousands of Chileans. See the section on the Military Coup for more information.