Daughter of Juan Duarte and Juana Ibarguren, María Eva Duarte (Eva Perón) was born in the small town of Los Toldos, in the province of Buenos Aires, in May 1919. She was the youngest of five siblings: Blanca, Elisa, Juan Ramón, and Erminda Luján. Her parents had been living together as husband and wife for many years, but Juan was legally married to another woman in a different town and already had three daughters from that union. The year after Eva was born – as she became known – Juan Duarte abandoned Juana and their five children and returned to his hometown. At the age of eight, Evita enrolled in the only school in the town, but the Duarte family later moved to Junín, a small urban center, where she completed her primary education. Evita lived there between 1930 and early 1935. From a very young age, she showed an enormous passion for public speaking and theater. She loved to dress up and said that when she grew up, she would be an actress. In 1935, Evita decided to leave Junín for the big city: Buenos Aires, where she could leave her poor past behind and work in the world of entertainment. In March, she joined the Argentine Comedy Company, and by the end of that month, she made her debut at the Comedia Theater. This marked the beginning of her artistic career, which would develop over the next ten years in theater and radio.

But Evita’s life would take a radical turn starting in 1944. That year, the capital of the province of San Juan, in the Cuyo region, was shaken by a violent earthquake. While the army took charge of the situation, the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, led by then-Colonel Juan Domingo Perón, centralized efforts to collect funds for the affected and to rebuild the city. One of the aid committees was made up of actors and actresses: Evita was part of this committee, and it was here that she met Perón. This romance became one of the reasons that enraged the oligarchic opposition, which viewed Perón’s rise to power with suspicion: they saw him not only as pro-Nazi and populist, but also as the lover of a second-rate radio soap opera actress, the illegitimate daughter of a family from the countryside, and poor. In October 1945, a political crisis erupted, and Perón was forced to resign from the public offices he held – vice president of the nation, minister of war, and secretary of labor and welfare – and was imprisoned. However, on October 22, 1945, just five days after Perón was freed due to immense popular pressure, María Eva Duarte married him in Junín. From that moment on, Evita embraced the cause of Peronism and politics.

Since Perón took office in June 1946, Evita accompanied him as First Lady and concentrated on social issues, managing the relationship with workers. By 1947, her works had gained such importance that no one could ignore her. Her image—young, beautiful, adorned with jewelry, and dressed by the best designers—embodied the dream of the humble: the possibility of social ascent. But it also instigated the implacable hatred of conservatives and the great landowners of Argentina. This intransigence was met by Evita with fiery speeches in the name of her “descamisados” (the working poor).

In 1947, she traveled to Europe, a journey known as the “Rainbow tour.” Planned by Perón, the trip aimed primarily to offer economic assistance to Spain, devastated and isolated after the Civil War. Evita was received with full honors by dictator Francisco Franco. She then visited Italy, where she briefly met with Pope Pius XII, and also stopped in Portugal, France, and Geneva. Upon returning to Argentina, she continued her work at the Ministry of Labor. In September 1947, having embraced the long-standing demands of Argentine socialist and communist suffragists, the law granting women’s suffrage was passed. With this, Argentina further solidified its democratic republic status.

In mid-1949, Evita became president of the Women’s Peronist Party. Shortly afterward, the Eva Perón Foundation, formally established in 1948, began its work, centralizing the social assistance activities Evita had been conducting for years. Its goals included providing economic aid, offering work tools and scholarships, building homes for indigent families, as well as schools, hospitals, and charitable institutions. The reform of the National Constitution in 1949 included workers’ rights, child welfare, and senior citizens’ rights, while also enabling presidential re-election.

In August 1951, the General Confederation of Labor (CGT) requested Perón to nominate Evita as his vice-president. Thousands of Argentines supported this proposal. However, Evita, by then very ill, had to renounce due to military and civilian pressures opposing the idea. Her uterine cancer had progressed. In the 1951 elections, she voted for the first and only time in her life, from the hospital bed where she would undergo surgery. She passed away on July 26, 1952.

Evita remains one of the most iconic figures in both Argentine and world history. Numerous books and films have been made about her life and death.