Venezuelan War of Independence
The establishment of the Supreme Caracas Junta following the forced deposition of Vicente Emparan as Captain General of the Captaincy General of Venezuela on April 19, 1810, marked the beginnings of the war. On July 5, 1811, seven of the ten provinces of the Captaincy General of Venezuela declared their independence in the Venezuelan Declaration of Independence. The First Republic of Venezuela was lost in 1812 following the 1812 Caracas earthquake and the Battle of La Victoria (1812). Simón Bolívar led an "Admirable Campaign" to retake Venezuela, establishing the Second Republic of Venezuela in 1813; but this too did not last, falling to a combination of a local uprising and Spanish royalist reconquest. Only as part of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada in 1819-20 did Venezuela achieve a lasting independence from Spain (initially as part of Gran Colombia).
Republic of Venezuela
Luis Herrera Campins was elected to the presidency in 1979, with the country in deep debt and bound by International Monetary Fund demands. In 1983, the Venezuelan currency, the bolívar, was devalued on what became known as Black Friday, unleashing an economic crisis. The subsequent government of Jaime Lusinchi did little to counter the crisis. Corruption increased, and the Caldas Corvettes crisis in 1987, sparked by a sovereignty dispute in the Gulf of Venezuela, generated one of the biggest moments of tension between Venezuela and Colombia.