Word: guatemala
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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What the eagle is to the U. S., the quetzal is to Guatemala. The quetzal (rhymes with pretzel) is a rare, lovely bird with bright green plumage, blood-red breast, fuzzy topknot, yard-long tail feathers. Quetzal is also the name of the Guatemalan money unit, and the bird's graven image appears on the national seal, coins, stamps. The quetzal was venerated by the ancient Aztecs, Toltecs and Mayas as a colleague of the plumed serpent god, Quetzalcoatl (rhymes with pretzelcowatle), god of metallurgy, agriculture, wisdom, health. Only priests and nobles could wear quetzal plumes in their headdress...
First white man to see, accurately describe a quetzal was Robert Owen of England in 1840. Plume-hunters nearly exterminated the birds, which are now protected by the Guatemalan Government. The first live, baby quetzals were taken out of Guatemala by Explorer von Hagen three years ago. Three, all of which have since died, went to The Bronx Zoo. Six went to London. When last heard from two of these were still living. Chicago also acquired two young quetzals last...
General Almazán was obviously getting ready to push the shaky civil peace a notch closer to open war. Ever since election day he had left his followers dangling and disorganized while he "vacationed" in Havana, then in Guatemala. Fortnight ago he was still on tour, turned up in Mobile, two days later in Baltimore, where he took a modest apartment on quiet 32nd Street with his wife and 17-year-old daughter. He insisted that he was just a tourist. He visited friends, walked in Wyman Park, went to the movies, read U. S. and Mexican newspapers, answered...
Claimant Almazán, "vacationing" in Havana since the election, announced in a broadcast that he would return to Mexico when the time was ripe for assuming the Presidency. Then he embarked for Guatemala where, his followers announced, he would set up revolutionary headquarters in "an anti-Communist atmosphere." There he was also certain of the good will of Napoleonesque President-Dictator Jorge Ubico, who once bragged that with 300,000 trained troops he could invade and conquer the whole of sprawling Mexico. No friend of the Cardenas regime, Dictator Ubico has treated Mexican labor agitators to firing squads...
...resolution calling for "a just, peaceful and prompt solution of the dispute over Belize [British Honduras] between Guatemala and Great Britain...