Laura Chinchilla
Laura Chinchilla Miranda (born 28 March 1959; is a Costa Rican politician and the first female President of Costa Rica. She was one of Óscar Arias Sánchez's two Vice-Presidents and his administration's Minister of Justice. She was the governing PLN candidate for President in the 2010 general election, where she won with 46.76% of the vote.[She is the sixth woman to be elected president of a Latin American country and the first woman to become president of Costa Rica. She was sworn in as president of Costa Rica on May 8, 2010.
Chinchilla was born in Carmen Central, San José in 1959. Her father was Rafael Ángel Chinchilla Fallas (a former comptroller of Costa Rica) and her mother was Emilce Miranda Castillo. She married Mario Alberto Madrigal Díaz on 23 January 1982 and divorced on 22 May 1985. She had a son in 1996 with José María Rico Cueto, a Spanish lawyer who also holds Canadian citizenship; Chinchilla married him on 26 March 2000.
Chinchilla was one of two vice-presidents elected under the second Arias administration (2006–2010). She resigned the vice-presidency in 2008 in order to prepare her run for the presidency in 2010. On 7 June 2009 she won the Partido Liberación Nacional (PLN) primary with a 15% margin over her nearest rival, and was thus endorsed as the party's presidential candidate.
Chinchilla opposes any amendment of the constitution aimed at separation of church and state in Costa Rica. The constitution currently defines the Republic of Costa Rica as a Roman Catholic nation. Her position contrasts with that of former President Óscar Arias Sánchez, who supports establishing a secular state.
She is against legalizing the morning after pill, which is banned in Costa Rica. Many pro-life supporters in Latin American countries oppose the morning after pill because they believe it to be an abortifacient. This position contradicts the World Health Organization's (WHO) statement that emergency contraception cannot be an abortifacient, because it will not work in cases when the woman is already pregnant.
Environmental protection and sustainability is very important for the President, and she continues Costa Rica's level of leadership in these areas, for example, in May 2011 she declared Odyssey 2050 The Movie of 'Public and Cultural Interest'.
Jose Maria Castro Madriz
September 1, 1818 – April 4, 1892
José María Castro Madriz (September 1, 1818 – April 4, 1892) was a Costa Rican lawyer, academic, diplomat, and politician. He served twice as President of Costa Rica, from 1847 to 1849, and from 1866 to 1868. On both occasions he was prevented from completing his term of office by military coups. During his first administration, on 31 August 1848, he formally declared Costa Rica an independent republic, definitively severing Costa Rica's ties to the moribund Federal Republic of Central America.
Castro was born in Jamaica and educated at the University of León, in Nicaragua, where he graduated as bachelor of philosophy and doctor of law. He occupied many public offices throughout his life, both before and after serving as President. He was the rector of the national University (which he had helped to create) for sixteen years, and served several administrations as cabinet minister and ambassador. He also presided over the judiciary (as chief judge of the Supreme Court of Justice from 1860 to 1866 and from 1870 to 1873) and the legislature (as president of the Congress of Deputies in 1844-1845 and of the fourth Constitutional Convention in 1859), making him the only other Costa Rican besides Ricardo Jiménez to have headed all three branches of the government.
An active Freemason, Castro was consistently critical of the political influence of the Roman Catholic Church. He was also a strong defender of freedom of the press at a time when many Costa Rican governments practiced widespread censorship. His constitutional reform of 1848, however, established the most restricted suffrage that ever existed in independent Costa Rica. As president his lack of a committed political base made him an easy target for overthrow by the military. As the minister of foreign affairs, education, justice, public aid, and religious affairs, Castro was the most influential figure in the government of his brother-in-law, President Próspero Fernández (1882–1885), and he was largely responsible for the anti-clerical legislation adopted by that government.
He was married to Pacífica Fernández, who designed the Costa Rican flag. Their grandson, Rafael Yglesias, served as President of Costa Rica from 1894 to 1902.
Was once the president of the Congress and the Supreme Court of Costa Rica. He co-founded the Santo Tomas University and started one of the first newspapers of the country, “El Mentor Costarricense”. He was elected chief of state in 1847 and made Costa Rica an independent nation on 1848 and became the first president of the Independent Republic from 1848 to 1849. During his presidency he created a school for girls and established the actual Costa Rica flag.
Juan Santamaria
August 29, 1831 - April 11, 1856
Juan Santamaría (August 29, 1831 - April 11, 1856), is officially recognized as the national hero of the Republic of Costa Rica. A national holiday in Costa Rica, Juan Santamaría Day, is held every April 11 to commemorate his death.
Santamaría was born in the city of Alajuela. When U.S. filibuster William Walker overthrew the government of Nicaragua and attempted to conquer the other nations in Central America, including Costa Rica, in order to form a private slave-holding empire, Costa Rican president Juan Rafael Mora Porras called upon the general population to take up arms and march north to Nicaragua to fight against the foreign invader. Santamaría, a poor laborer and the illegitimate son of a single mother joined the army as a drummer boy. The troops nicknamed him "el erizo" ("the Porcupine") on account of his spiked hair.
After routing a small contingent of Walker's soldiers at Santa Rosa, Guanacaste, the Costa Rican troops continued marching north and reached the city of Rivas, Nicaragua, on April 8, 1856. The battle that ensued is known as the Second Battle of Rivas. Combat was fierce and the Costa Ricans were not able to drive Walker's men out of a hostel near the town center from which they commanded an advantageous firing position.
According to the traditional account, on April 11, Salvadoran General José María Cañas suggested that one of the soldiers advance towards the hostel with a torch and set it on fire. Some soldiers tried and failed, but finally Santamaría volunteered on the condition that, in the event of his death, someone would look after his mother. He then advanced and was mortally wounded by enemy fire. Before expiring he succeeded, however, in setting fire to the hostel, thus contributing decisively to the Costa Rican victory at Rivas.
This account is apparently supported by a petition for a state pension filed on November 1857 by Santamaría's mother, as well as by government documents showing that the pension was granted. Various historians, however, have questioned whether the account is accurate, and if Santamaria died or not during that battle or another one. At any rate, towards the end of the 19th century, Costa Rican intellectuals and politicians seized on the war against Walker and on the figure of Juan Santamaría for nationalist purposes.
Juan Santamaría is honored by a statue in a park bearing his name in the central canton of Alajuela one block south of the Central Park, and by a museum that was a former garrison in the same city. Two statues of Juan Santamaria larger than the life are in Costa Rica: one in Alajuela and other in the front of the Congress in San Jose. The Statue was commissioned by the Costa Rican Government in 1891, under sworn statement or affidavit of several witness of his deed in Rivas, a perpetual memorial archive has been preserved. As a drummer of the armed forces he wore a uniform, that evidently was of French design, since in the 19th century most the of the high-ranking officers were trained in France.
The main international airport in Costa Rica is named after him.
Oscar Arias Sanchez
He is also a recipient of the Albert Schweitzer Prize for Humanitarianism and a trustee of Economists for Peace and Security. In 2003, he was elected to the Board of Directors of the International Criminal Court's TrustFund for Victims. He is also currently a member of the Club de Madrid, a nonprofit composed of 81 former leaders of democratic states, that works to strengthen democratic institutions.
Raised by an upper class family in the province of Heredia, Óscar Arias concluded his secondary schooling at the Saint Francis College in the capital city of San José. He then went to the United States and enrolled in Boston University with the intention of studying medicine, but he soon returned to his home country and completed degrees in law and economics at the University of Costa Rica. In 1967, Arias traveled to the United Kingdom and enrolled in the London School of Economics. He receive a doctoral degree in political science from the University of Essex in 1974. Arias has received over fifty honorary degrees, including doctorates from Harvard University, Princeton University, Dartmouth College, Oberlin College, Wake Forest University, Ithaca College and Washington University in St. Louis.
Arias joined the National Liberation Party (PLN), Costa Rica's main social democratic party. In 1986 he ran successfully for president on that party's ticket. Arias's presidency saw the transformation of Costa Rica's economy from one based on the traditional cash crops (coffee and bananas) to one more focused on non-traditional agriculture (e.g., of exotic flowers and fruits) and tourism. Some within the PLN criticize his administration for abandoning the party's social democratic teachings and promoting a neoliberal economic model. He is now often regarded as a neoliberal although he is a member of a nominally social democratic party.
Arias received the 1987 Nobel Peace Prize with the help of John Biehl, his peer in England, and Rodrigo Madrigal Nieto for his work towards the signing of the Esquipulas II Accords. This was a plan intended to promote democracy and peace on the Central American isthmus during a time of great turmoil: leftist guerrillas were fighting against the governments in El Salvador and Guatemala, which were backed by the United States under the auspices of the Cold War; the Contras, supported by the United States, were fighting an insurgency against the Sandinista government in Nicaragua; Honduras, only recently wresting political power from its military, was caught in the middle as a base for U.S. military forces; and on Costa Rica's other border, Panama faced the oppression of Manuel Noriega's military dictatorship. With the support of Arias, the various armed conflicts ended within the decade (Guatemala's civil war finally ended in 1996).
Arias then called for a higher level of integration in the Central America region and promoted the creation of the Central American Parliament (Parlamento Centroamericano). During his current administration, Arias has declared that Costa Rica will not enter the Central American Parliament. Arias also modified the country's educational system. The most notable action in this respect was the reintroduction of standardized academic tests at the end of primary and secondary school.
The Costa Rican constitution had been amended in 1969 to include a clause which forbade former presidents seeking re-election. Arias challenged this at the Sala IV, the Constitutional Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice of Costa Rica, which initially rejected his application in September 2000. In 2003, a group of Arias supporters presented an unconstitutionality challenge against the 1969 constitutional amendment forbidding re-election, and this time the ruling in April 2003 struck down the prohibition against non-consecutive re-election. This decision was denuncied as a "state blow" or "coup d'état" by ex-president Luis Alberto Monge.
Arias announced in 2004 that he intended to run again for president in the February 2006 general elections. Though for years private polling companies and several news media published polls predicting Arias would win by a wide margin, the election was initially deemed too close to call. A month later, on 7 March, after a manual recount, the official results showed Arias beat center-left contender Ottón Solís by 18,169 votes (1.2% of valid votes cast). He took the oath of office at noon on 8 May 2006 at the National Stadium. In his speech on 15 September 2008, he admitted that he was tired because of the criticism of his opponents.
On 1 June 2007, he switched Costa Rica's diplomatic recognition from the Republic of China (Taiwan) to the People's Republic of China, making Costa Rica the 167th nation in the world to do so. Subsequently, under diplomatic and financial pressure from Beijing, he induced the Dalai Lama, a fellow Nobel Peace Prize laureate, to postpone indefinitely a proposed and much anticipated visit during Beijing's suppression of controversial riots in Tibet.
At the 5th Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, on 18 April 2009, Arias gave a speech on the topic "We've been doing something wrong". Directed at fellow Latin American leaders, he decried Latin America's lack of development compared to other parts of the world, calling for pragmatism, and more resources directed at education rather than militaries.
Franklin Chang Diaz
Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz (born April 5, 1950) is a Costa Rican American mechanical engineer, physicist and former NASA astronaut. He is currently president and CEO of Ad Astra Rocket Company. He is a veteran of seven Space Shuttle missions, making him the record holder as of 2008 for the most spaceflights (a record he shares with Jerry L. Ross). He was the third Latin American to go into space. He is the first naturalized US citizen to become an astronaut and he is a member of the NASA Astronaut Hall of Fame.
He was born Franklin Ramón Chang Díaz in San José, Costa Rica on 5 April 1950 to a father of Chinese descent, Ramón Angel Chang Morales (born 1919), an oil worker whose own father fled China during the Boxer Rebellion. His mother is Costa Rican, María Eugenia Díaz Romero (born 1927). One of six children, he has a younger sister, Sonia Rosa (born December 1952), and his mother, brothers, and sisters live in Costa Rica. His elder daughters are Jean Elizabeth (born December 1973), and Sonia Rosa (born March 1978) who is a member of the Massachusetts Senate. He married Peggy Marguerite Doncaster in the United States on 17 December 1984 and his younger daughters are Lidia Aurora (born March 1988) and Miranda Karina (July 1995), both born in Houston, Texas.
He graduated from Colegio de La Salle in San José in November 1967, then moved to the United States to finish his high school education at Hartford Public High School in Connecticut, in 1969. He went on to attend the University of Connecticut, where he earned a Bachelor of Science in mechanical engineering and joined the federal TRIO Student Support Services program in 1973. He then attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a Doctor of Plasma Physics in applied plasma physics in 1977. For his graduate research at MIT, Chang Díaz worked in the field of fusion technology and plasma-based rocket propulsion.
Chang Díaz was selected as an astronaut candidate by NASA in 1980 and first flew aboard Space Shuttle mission STS-61-C in 1986. Subsequent missions included STS-34 (1989), STS-46 (1992), STS-60 (1994), STS-75 (1996), STS-91 (1998), and STS-111 (2002). During STS-111, he performed three spacewalks with Philippe Perrin as part of the construction of the International Space Station. He was also director of the Advanced Space Propulsion Laboratory at the Johnson Space Center from 1993 to 2005. Chang Díaz retired from NASA in 2005.
Franklin Chang Díaz was inducted into the NASA Astronaut Hall of Fame on May 5, 2012 in a ceremony that took place the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex. Also, due to his career and scientific success, he has been decorated multiple times in Costa Rica and named Honor Citizen by the national legislature. The Costa Rican National High Technology Center (CeNAT), among other institutions, is named after him.
Claudia and Silvia Poll
Claudia Maria Poll Ahrens (born 21 December 1972) Costa Rican swimmer who competes in the 200 m to 800 m freestyle events. She is Costa Rica's only gold-medalist, having won the country's first Olympic gold medals at the 1996 Olympics in the 200 meter freestyle. She is a multiple national record holder in the freestyle events.
Her sister, Silvia, won Costa Rica's first Olympic medal at the 1988 Games. Also as of 2009, Claudia and Silvia are the only Costa Ricans to have won a medal at an Olympics. Claudia also competed at the 2000 Olympics, where she won two bronze medals. Moreover, she was the first person from Central America to win a gold medal, and the only until the 2008 Olympic Games when Panama won a gold medal.
Claudia Poll began swimming in 1979 under coach Francisco Rivas and quickly became one of the best in Central America, winning many regional titles.
At the 1996 Atlanta Olympics she won the gold medal in the 200 m freestyle event. The win was the first gold medal for Costa Rica in the Summer Olympic Games. It was a surprising win because she beat the favorite German Franziska van Almsick. Dagmar Hase, also from Germany, won the bronze.
In 1997, she was named by Swimming World Magazine as the Female Swimmer of the Year.
At the Sydney 2000, Poll continued with her medal run and won two bronze medals. In Athens 2004, she just missed out on the 400 m freestyle final, finishing ninth in the heats.
In 2002 she was given a four-year doping ban after a failed test for norandrosterone, a metabolite the steroid nandrolone. Her ban was later reduced by FINA to two years. Poll claimed that the test and sampling methods were flawed and protested her innocence.[1]
At the 2006 Central American and Caribbean Games, she set the Games Records in the 200 and 400 freestyles (2:00.19 and 4:15.01), bettering the time her sister Silvia set at the 1986 Central American and Caribbean Games.
Poll served as a swimming analyst for the U.S. Telemundo network's Spanish-language coverage of the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, though she and most of the Telemundo broadcast crew performed their duties at the network's studios in Hialeah, Florida, accompanied by video provided by Olympic Broadcasting Services.
Claudia graduated in Business Administration from the Universidad Internacional de las Américas, San José, Costa Rica, in 1998. Poll became a mother for the first time on August 8, 2007. Her daughter's name is Cecilia. Claudia's older sister Silvia Poll Ahrens was also a competitive swimmer who won a silver medal in 1988, Costa Rica's first ever Olympic medal.
Sylvia Poll Ahrens (born September 24, 1970) in Managua, Nicaragua) is an Olympic and National Record holding swimmer from Costa Rica. At the 1988 Olympics, she won Costa Rica's first Olympic medal, when she garnered the silver in the women's 200 free. As of 2009, she and her younger sister Claudia are Costa Rica's only Olympic medalists. Sylvia also swam for Costa Rica at the 1992 Summer Olympics.
She also won a total number of 8 medals at the 1987 Pan American Games; and 2 of her times from those Games still stand as Costa Rican Records in 2009 (100 free and 100 back).
Poll was born in Managua,Nicaragua. Her parents were Germans and they settled in Nicaragua where Sylvia and her younger sister Claudia were born. After the 1972 Nicaragua earthquake 1972 earthquake of Managua and rising political tensions, Sylvia's parents decided to move south to Costa Rica.
Sylvia Poll is a famous backstroker and freestyle swimmer for Costa Rica, who won the silver medal in the Swimming at the 1988 Summer Olympics Women's 200 meter freestyle at the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, South Korea. Her silver medal was the first medal ever for a Costa Rican athlete.
At the 1986 Central American and Caribbean Games she set the Games Records in the women's 200 and 400 frees (2:02.80 and 4:17.98). Both records would last 20 years, until her sister Claudia bettered the times at the 2006 Games. Also at the '86 CACs, Silvia set the Games Record in the 100 m and 200 m backstroke (1:04.43, 2:19.32) that also stood until 2006.
Sylvia Poll is now a member of the ‘Champions for Peace’ club, a group of 54 famous elite athletes committed to serving peace in the world through sport, created by Peace and Sport, a Monaco-based international organization.
Joaquín Gutiérrez
Gutiérrez sympathized with Communism to the point that he arranged for a Russian spy named Iosif Grigulevich to obtain a falsified Costa Rican passport in 1949, under the name Teodoro B. Castro. Grigulevich would go on to represent Costa Rica diplomatically while remaining involved in assassination attempts against Leon Trotsky and Josip Broz Tito.[1] Gutiérrez also traveled extensively in communist countries as a journalist, even interviewing Ho Chi Minh in an article titled "With Uncle Ho," in reference to Uncle Sam.[2]
He was candidate for vice-president in two elections. His bronze statue is exhibited permanently in the National Theater.
He published six novels: "Manglar", Puerto Limón, La Hoja de Aire, Cocorí, "Murámonos Federico" and "Te Acordás, Hermano?".
Gutiérrez was also a poet; his poetry was published in the books "Poesía", "Jicaral" and "Te Conozco Mascarita". Of his many travels he wrote four journals: "Del Mapocho al Vístula", "La URSS Tal Cual", "Crónicas de Otro Mundo" and "Vietnam: Crónicas de Guerra". The author was also responsible for important translations of Shakespeare's plays into Spanish: King Lear, Hamlet, Macbeth and Julius Caesar, published several times in many Latin countries. In China he also translated works by Mao Zedong and Lu Sün.
Puerto Limón, La Hoja de Aire and Cocorí were his most popular works, translated into twelve languages, and winning him prizes in Chile, Cuba, Nicaragua, Poland and Costa Rica.
He is the grandfather of director Ishtar Yasin Gutierrez.
Chavela Vargas
Isabel Vargas Lizano (April 17, 1919 – August 5, 2012), better known as Chavela Vargas, was a Costa Rican-born Mexican singer. She was especially known for her rendition of Mexican rancheras, but she is also recognized for her contribution to other genres of popular Latin American music. She has been an influential interpreter in the Americas and Europe, muse to figures such as Pedro Almodóvar, hailed for her haunting performances, and called "la voz áspera de la ternura", the rough voice of tenderness. The Latin Academy of Recording Arts & Sciences, presented her with a Latin GRAMMY Statuette in 2007 after receiving a Lifetime Achievement Award on behalf of that organization.
Her first album, Noche de Bohemia (Bohemian Night), was released in 1961 with the professional support of José Alfredo Jiménez, one of the foremost singer/songwriters of Mexican ranchera music. Vargas recorded over eighty albums since then.[5] She was hugely successful during the 1950s, 1960s and the first half of the 70s, touring in Mexico, the United States, France and Spain and was close to many prominent artists and intellectuals of the time, including Juan Rulfo, Agustín Lara, Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, Dolores Olmedo and José Alfredo Jiménez. She partly retired in the late 1970s due to a 15 year-long battle with alcoholism, which she has described in her autobiography (Y si quieres saber de mi pasado [And if you want to know about my past], published in 2002) as "my 15 years in hell" At 81 years old, she publicly declared that she was a lesbian.
Vargas returned to the stage in 1991, performing at the venue "El Hábito" in Coyoacán, Mexico City. She debuted at Carnegie Hall in 2003 at the age of 83 at the behest and promotion of Spanish director Pedro Almodóvar, a long-time admirer and personal friend of Vargas.
She is featured in many Almodóvar's films, including La Flor de mi Secreto in both song and video. She has said, however, that acting is not her ambition, although she had previously participated in films such as 1967's La Soldadera. Vargas appeared in the 2002 Julie Taymor film Frida, singing "La Llorona" (The Weeping Woman). Her classic "Paloma Negra" (Black Dove) was also included in the soundtrack of the film. Vargas herself, as a young woman, was alleged to have had an affair with Frida Kahlo, during Kahlo's marriage to muralist Diego Rivera. She also appeared in Alejandro González Iñárritu's Babel, singing "Tú me acostumbraste" (You Got Me Used To), a bolero of Frank Domínguez.
Vargas died on August 5, 2012, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico, after she was admitted to a hospital for heart and respiratory problems.
Nery Brenes
Nery Antonio Brenes Cárdenas (born September 25, 1985) is a Costa Rican sprinter. He is one of Costa Rica's up-and-coming athletes and reached the semi-finals at the 400 m sprint in the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing.
Brenes won the gold medal at the 2012 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Istanbul, setting a new national and championship record. "Brenes improved his personal mark by approximately one second, something nobody expected on a championship, taking the gold medal", cited his personal trainer and motivator Andrés Oro Fijo Calderón.
He has participated in major events like the 2007 World Championships in Athletics in Osaka, Japan, and achieved a 4th place finish at the 2008 IAAF World Indoor Championships in Valencia, Spain. He also finished in 3rd place at the 2008 ÅF Golden League meet in Oslo, Norway.
La mierda de país que es Costa Rica
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