Bogotazo
The aftershock of Gaitan's murder continued extending through the countryside and escalated a period of violence which had begun eighteen years before, in 1930, and was triggered by the fall of the conservative party from government and the rise of the liberals.
The 1946 presidential elections brought the downfall of the liberals allowing conservative Mariano Ospina Pérez to win the presidency.
The struggle for power between both again triggered a period in the history of Colombia known as La Violencia ("The Violence") that lasted until approximately 1958; the civil conflict that continues to this day originated from that event.
At the time, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán was the leader of the Liberal Party, and the most prominent politician in the country after President Ospina.
At the end of it, he delivered a speech known as the Prayer for Peace, addressed to President Ospina Pérez: On February 15, Gaitán expressed himself again in Manizales, this time with a speech called "Prayer for the Humble", as a tribute to 20 Liberals massacred in the department of Caldas: Gaitán, a practicing attorney, arrived home early on the morning of the 9th of April after the successful ending to a case that he had been involved with.
A bystander, Gabriel Restrepo, collected the remains of his clothes and found some personal documents, which identified him as 26-year-old Juan Roa Sierra.
There have been a number of theories concerning Gaitán's murder, some claiming that the assassination was planned and undertaken by other persons in addition to Juan Roa Sierra; or that the latter was not the real killer.
Some people who knew Roa Sierra stated that he never learned to shoot a gun, although Gaitán's assassin had fired accurate shots.
Break into the hardware stores and take the dynamite, gunpowder, tools, machetes...[citation needed]After that, instructions to make Molotov cocktails were broadcast.
After dumping the body of Roa outside the Casa de Nariño, the crowd attacked the palace with stones and bricks.
The major in charge, Benicio Arce Vera, came out unarmed to plead with the crowd, and gave orders to his men not to shoot.
According to Arce, in an interview years later to Bohemia magazine, among those who took the weapons was Fidel Castro, (La Habana, April 21, 1983, issue 16).
Some writers say that this event influenced Castro at the age of 21, who had the opportunity to witness the initial violence and take views about the viability of an electoral route for political change.
They received a phone call from the presidential palace, inviting them to a meeting to try to resolve their differences and find a solution.
[5] The rioting also extended to private property with 157 buildings in the downtown area suffering serious damage, 103 of these were a total loss.
As reported some days later by Semana magazine (issue #78, April 24/1948), people started to sell the stolen objects at extremely low prices, or just exchanged the merchandise for alcohol.
In the following days, a market for selling the stolen goods was set up, which was known as the "Feria Panamericana" (Pan-American Fair).
They broadcast information about the constitution of this council and announced severe punishment to those who took advantage of the riots to commit crimes.
The Central Government, after defeating the mobs that were attacking the Justice Palace, showed little interest in the violence over the rest of the city.
