Chilean economist, lawyer, and politician, 33rd President of Chile

Ricardo Lagos

Ricardo Froilán Lagos Escobar is a Chilean lawyer, economist and social-democratic politician who served as president of Chile from 2000 to 2006. During the 1980s he was a well-known opponent of the Chilean military dictatorship and astounded contemporaries in 1988 by openly denouncing dictator Augusto Pinochet on live television. He served as Minister of Education from 1990 to 1992 and Minister of Public Works from 1994 to 1998 under President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle before narrowly winning the 1999–2000 presidential election in a runoff against Independent Democrat Union (UDI) candidate Joaquín Lavín. Lagos was the third president from the centre-left Coalition of Parties for Democracy to have governed Chile since 1990.

Born

1938

March 2

Died

Living

Era

1930s

Country

—

About

Ricardo, in brief

Source: Wikipedia · CC BY-SA 4.0

Life timeline

Key dates

1938 Born

Also on March 2

What else happened on this day, through history

537 Siege of Rome: The Ostrogoth army under king Vitiges begins the siege of the capital. Belisarius conducts a delaying action outside the Flaminian Gate; he and a detachment of his bucellarii are almost cut off.
986 Louis V becomes the last Carolingian king of West Francia after the death of his father, Lothaire.
1331 Fall of Nicaea to the Ottoman Turks after a siege.
1444 Skanderbeg organizes a group of Albanian nobles to form the League of Lezhë.

See all of March 2 →

The world in 1938

When Ricardo arrived

april 18 Superman debuts in Action Comics #1 (cover dated June 1938).
april 25 U.S. Supreme Court delivers its opinion in Erie Railroad Co. v. Tompkins and overturns a century of federal common law.
april 5 Spanish Civil War: Two days after the Nationalist army occupied the Catalan city of Lleida, dictator Francisco Franco decrees the abolition of the Generalitat (the autonomous government of Catalonia), the self-government granted by the Republic, and the official status of the Catalan language.
august 18 The Thousand Islands Bridge, connecting New York, United States, with Ontario, Canada, over the Saint Lawrence River, is dedicated by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Read the year 1938 →

Same-day contemporaries

Also born on March 2

Arike Ogunbowale 1997– American basketball player Bedřich Smetana 1824–1884 Czech pianist and composer (died 1884) Camille Desmoulins 1760–1794 French journalist, lawyer, and politician (born 1760) Carl Schurz 1829–1906 German-American general, lawyer, and politician, 13th United States Secretary of the Interior (died 1906) Geoffrey Grigson 1905–1985 English poet and critic (died 1985) James Purnell 1970– English politician, Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Lou Reed 1942–2013 American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, and actor (died 2013) Marc Blitzstein 1905–1964 American pianist and composer (born 1905) Margaret Sibella Brown 1866– Canadian bryologist (died 1961)

See everything on March 2 →

Same-year contemporaries

Also born in 1938

Alan Bond 1938–2015 English-Australian businessman (died 2015) Alberto Fujimori 1938–2024 Peruvian engineer, academic, and politician, President of Peru (died 2024) Andrew Clennel Palmer 1938–2019 British engineer (born 1938) Anthony Giddens 1938– English sociologist and academic Anthony James Leggett 1938– English-American physicist and academic, Nobel Prize laureate (died 2026) Billy Shaw 1938–2024 American football player (died 2024) Caryl Churchill 1938– English-Canadian playwright Claudia Cardinale 1938– Italian actress (died 2025) Daniel Buren 1938– French sculptor and painter

Read about the year 1938 →

Keep going

More to explore

Ricardo's birthday March 2 Ricardo's zodiac Pisces When Ricardo arrived 1938