Rafael Trujillo in the context of "Servicio de Inteligencia Militar"

The Dominican Republic is a country in the Caribbean located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles of the Caribbean Sea in the North Atlantic Ocean. It shares a maritime border with Puerto Rico to the east and a land border with Haiti to the west, occupying the eastern five-eighths of Hispaniola which, along with Saint Martin, is one of only two islands in the Caribbean shared by two sovereign states. In the Antilles, the country is the second-largest nation by area after Cuba at 48,671 square kilometers (18,792 sq mi) and second-largest by population after Haiti with approximately 11.4 million people in 2024, of whom 3.6 million reside in the metropolitan area of Santo Domingo, the capital city.

The native Taíno people had inhabited Hispaniola prior to European contact, dividing it into five chiefdoms. Christopher Columbus claimed the island for Castile, landing there on his first voyage in 1492. The colony of Santo Domingo became the site of the first permanent European settlement in the Americas. In 1697, Spain recognized French dominion over the western third of the island, which became the independent First Empire of Haiti in 1804. A group of Dominicans deposed the Spanish governor and declared independence from Spain in November 1821, but were annexed by Haiti in February 1822. Independence came 22 years later in 1844, after victory in the Dominican War of Independence. The next 72 years saw several civil wars, failed invasions by Haiti, and a brief return to Spanish colonial status, before permanently ousting the Spanish during the Dominican Restoration War of 1863–1865. From 1930, the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo ruled until his assassination in 1961. Juan Bosch was elected president in 1962 but was deposed in a military coup in 1963. The Dominican Civil War of 1965 preceded the authoritarian rule of Joaquín Balaguer (1966–1978 and 1986–1996). Since 1978, the Dominican Republic has moved towards representative democracy.

Santo Domingo, formerly known as Santo Domingo de Guzmán, is the capital and largest city of the Dominican Republic and the largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean by population. As of 2022, the city center had a population of 1,029,110 while its metropolitan area, Greater Santo Domingo, had a population of 4,274,651. The city is coterminous with the boundaries of the Distrito Nacional (D.N.), itself bordered on three sides by Santo Domingo Province.

Santo Domingo was founded in 1496 by the Spanish Empire and is the oldest continuously inhabited European settlement in the Americas. It was the first seat of Spanish colonial rule in the New World, the Captaincy General of Santo Domingo. Santo Domingo is the site of the first university, cathedral, castle, monastery, and fortress in the New World. The city's Colonial Zone was declared as a World Heritage Site by UNESCO. Santo Domingo was called Ciudad Trujillo (Spanish pronunciation: [sjuˈðað tɾuˈxiʝo]), from 1936 to 1961, after the Dominican Republic's dictator, Rafael Trujillo, named the capital after himself. Following his assassination, the city resumed its original designation.

Juan Emilio Bosch y Gaviño (30 June 1909 – 1 November 2001), also known as El Profesor (Spanish for the Teacher), was a Dominican politician, historian, writer of short stories and novels, essayist, educator, and the first democratically elected president of the Dominican Republic for seven months in 1963.

Previously he had been the leader of the Dominican opposition in exile to the dictatorial regime of Rafael Trujillo for over 25 years. He is remembered as an honest politician and regarded as one of the most prominent writers in Dominican literature. He helped found the Dominican Revolutionary Party (PRD) in 1939, and left it in 1973 to found the Dominican Liberation Party (PLD).

The 1963 Dominican coup d'état was a coup d'état that took place on 25 September 1963 against President Juan Bosch in the Dominican Republic. Juan Bosch had been the first democratically elected president after the assassination of the former dictator Rafael Trujillo, but he faced criticism due to his policies, which were seen as leftist. This led to a coup that replaced his government with a military junta; which itself would be replaced with a civilian junta.

Joaquín Antonio Balaguer Ricardo (1 September 1906 – 14 July 2002) was a Dominican politician, scholar, writer, and lawyer who was the 41st, 45th and 49th president of the Dominican Republic serving three non-consecutive terms from 1960 to 1962, 1966 to 1978, and 1986 to 1996. He previously served as the 24th vice president under President Héctor Trujillo from 1957 to 1960.

His enigmatic, secretive personality was inherited from the Trujillo era, as well as his desire to perpetuate himself in power through dubious elections and state terrorism, and he was considered to be a caudillo. His regime of terror claimed 11,000 victims who were either tortured or forcibly disappeared and killed. Nevertheless, Balaguer was also considered to be instrumental in the liberalization of the Dominican government, and his time as leader of the Dominican Republic saw major changes such as legalized political activities, surprise army promotions and demotions, promoting health and education improvements and instituting modest land reforms.

The Concordat of 1954 is a concordat of the Catholic Church, signed on 16 June 1954 by the Dominican Republic (then governed by the Third Republic, under the rule of Rafael Trujillo) with the Vatican (during the pontificate of Pope Pius XII).

Operation PBFortune, also known as Operation Fortune, was a covert United States operation to overthrow the democratically elected Guatemalan President Jacobo Árbenz in 1952. The operation was authorized by U.S. President Harry Truman and planned by the Central Intelligence Agency. The United Fruit Company had lobbied intensively for the overthrow because land reform initiated by Árbenz threatened its economic interests. The US also feared that the government of Árbenz was being influenced by communists.

The coup attempt was planned with the support of the United Fruit Company and of Anastasio Somoza García, Rafael Trujillo and Marcos Pérez Jiménez, the US-backed right-wing dictators of Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, and Venezuela respectively, who felt threatened by the democratic Guatemalan Revolution, and had sought to undermine it. The plan involved providing weapons to the exiled Guatemalan military officer Carlos Castillo Armas, who was to lead an invasion from Nicaragua.

The Third Dominican Republic was a predecessor of the Dominican Republic and existed from 12 July 1924 with the departure of American troops after the end of the first American occupation, until 1 July 1966 when Joaquín Balaguer became President of the Dominican Republic. De facto the Third Republic ended on 28 April 1965 with the US occupation. This period is also known as the Age of Trujillo, because of the strong influence exerted by the totalitarian and autocratic Trujillo regime over much of these 41 years.