Thousand Days' War
The Thousand Days' War was the deadliest of the recurring civil wars between the Liberal and Conservative parties that defined nineteenth-century Colombia, which had already endured eight major internal conflicts. Fought from 1899 to 1902, it pitted Liberal insurgents against the Conservative-controlled central government in a struggle over the constitutional order and partisan dominance. The war devastated the country, killing roughly 100,000 people and exhausting the national economy. Its aftermath was compounded by national humiliation: in 1903, with the central state prostrate, Panama seceded with United States backing so Washington could build its canal. As an organised armed conflict between rival political factions contesting control of the state, the war is a paradigmatic civil war and the structural backdrop to Colombia's fragile early-twentieth-century politics.
- Year: 1899 CE
- Category: Military
