Rafael Leonidas Trujillo Molina was born on 24 October 1891 in San Cristóbal, Dominican Republic, into a lower-middle-class family. His father was José Trujillo Valdez, the son of Silveria Valdez Méndez of colonial Dominican

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In 1916, the United States began its occupation of the Dominican Republicfollowing 28 revolutions in 50 years. At the time, Trujillo was twenty-five and worked as a guardacampestre,

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Three and a half weeks after Trujillo ascended to the presidency, the destructive Hurricane San Zenonhit Santo Domingo and left 2,000

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In 1936, at the suggestion of Mario Fermín Cabral, the Congress of the Dominican Republic voted overwhelmingly to change the name of the capital from Santo Domingo to Ciudad Trujillo. The province of San Cristóbal was renamed to "Trujillo" and the nation's highest peak,

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Trujillo was known for his open-door policy, accepting Jewish refugees from Europe, Japanese migration during the 1930s, and exiles from Spain following its civil war.

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The Trujillo regime greatly expanded the Vedado del Yaque, a nature reserve around the Yaque del Sur River. In 1934 he banned the slash-and-burnmethod of clearing land for agriculture, set up a forest warden agency to protect the park system, and banned the logging of pine

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Brutal oppression of actual or perceived members of the opposition was the key feature of Trujillo's rule from the very beginning in 1930 when

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