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José Figueres Ferrer
Sign in to saveAlso known as Jose Figueres Ferrer, Figueres Ferrer, José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer
Costa Rican politician (1906–1990)
Key facts
- Vice president
- Manuel Aguilar Bonilla, Jorge Rossi Chavarría
- Preceded by
- José Joaquín Trejos Fernández
- Succeeded by
- Daniel Oduber Quirós
- President
- Santos León Herrera (acting)
- Born
- José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer , ( 1906-09-25 ) 25 September 1906, San Ramón , Alajuela , Costa Rica
- Died
- 8 June 1990 (1990-06-08) (aged 83), San José , Costa Rica
- Party
- PLN (from 1951)
- Other political affiliations
- Social Democratic (1945–1951), Democratic (1941–1945)
- Spouse s
- Henrietta Boggs ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1941 ; divorced</span>"}]]}'>div. 1951 ) , Karen Olsen Beck ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1954 )
- Children
- 6, including José María and Christiana
- Relatives
- Dyalá Jiménez Figueres (granddaughter)
- Alma mater
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Occupation
- Landowner politician farmer businessman writter
- Nickname
- Don Pepe
via Wikipedia infobox
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- Costa Rica
- Place of birth
- San Ramón
- Place of death
- San José
- Spouse
- Karen Olsen Beck
- Occupation
- engineer
- Position held
- President of Costa Rica
- Educated at
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Political party
- National Liberation Party
- Languages spoken
- Catalan
- Native language
- Catalan
- Image
- José Figueres Ferrer 1.png
- Number of children
- 6
Show 4 more facts
- date of birth
- 1906-09-25
- date of death
- 1990-06-08
- second family name in Spanish name
- Ferrer
- Commons category
- José Figueres Ferrer
via Wikidata · CC0
~20 min read
Encyclopedic overview
José María Hipólito Figueres Ferrer (25 September 1906 – 8 June 1990) was a Costa Rican farmer, revolutionary leader, and statesman who served as the 32nd and 36th President of Costa Rica from 1953 to 1958 and from 1970 to 1974. He was also the head of the Founding Junta of the Second Republic from 1948 to 1949 and the founder of the National Liberation Party.
As the victorious leader of the Costa Rican Civil War and principal architect of the Second Republic, one of Figueres's most notable achievements was the abolition of the Costa Rican army, making Costa Rica one of the first countries to permanently eliminate its standing armed forces, though the motivations for the decision have been widely debated. His junta government also nationalized the banking system, secured suffrage for women and Afro–Costa Ricans, and extended Costa Rican nationality rights to people of African descent.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “José Figueres Ferrer” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.