Early settlements In 1570 the
Viceroy of Peru,
Francisco de Toledo, entrusted the Spanish settler
Jerónimo Luis de Cabrera with the task of founding and populating a settlement in the
Punilla Valley. Cabrera sent an expedition of 48 men to the territory of the
Comechingones. He divided the principal column that entered through the north of the provincial territory at
Villa María. The expedition of one hundred men set foot on what today is Córdoba on 24 June 1573. Cabrera called the nearby river San Juan (today
Suquía). The settlement was officially founded on 6 July of the same year and named , possibly in honour of ancestors of the founder's wife, who originally came from
Córdoba, Spain. The foundation of the city took place on the left bank of the river on the advice of Francisco de Torres. The area was inhabited by
aboriginal people called
Comechingones, who lived in communities called
ayllus. After four years, having repelled attacks by the aborigines, the settlement's authorities moved it to the opposite bank of the Suquía River in 1577. The Lieutenant Governor at the time, Don Lorenzo Suárez de Figueroa, planned the first layout of the city as a grid of 70 blocks. Once the city core had been moved to its current location, the population stabilized. The city's economy blossomed due to trade with the cities in the north. In 1599, the religious order of the
Jesuits arrived in the settlement. They established a
Novitiate in 1608 and, in 1610, the Colegio Maximo, which became the University of Córdoba in 1613 (today
National University of Córdoba), the fourth-oldest in the Americas. The local
Jesuit church remains one of the oldest buildings in South America and contains the Monserrat Secondary School, a church, and residential buildings. To maintain such a project, the Jesuits operated five
Reducciones in the surrounding fertile valleys, including Caroya,
Jesús María, Santa Catalina,
Alta Gracia and Candelaria. The farm and the complex (started in 1615, had to be vacated by the Jesuits following the 1767 decree by King
Charles III of Spain that expelled the Jesuit order from the continent.
Franciscans then operated the Jesuits' foundations until 1853, when the Jesuits returned to the Americas. Nevertheless, the university and the high-school were nationalized a year later. Each
estancia has its own church and set of buildings, around which towns grew, such as
Alta Gracia, the closest to the Block.
Early European settlement In 1776,
King Carlos III created the
Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata, in which Córdoba stays in 1785 as the Government Intendency of Córdoba, including the current territories of the provinces of Córdoba,
La Rioja and the region of
Cuyo. According to the 1760 census, the population of the city was 22,000 inhabitants. During the May Revolution in 1810, the widespread opinion of the most notable citizens was of continuing respecting the orders of
Fernando VII, attitude assumed by the local authorities, which led to the
Liniers Counter-revolution. This position was not shared by the
Dean Gregorio Funes, who was adhering to the revolutionary ideas, beside supporting contact with
Manuel Belgrano and
Juan José Castelli. In March 1816, the Argentine Congress met in
Tucumán for an independence resolution. Córdoba sent
Eduardo Pérez Bulnes, Jerónimo Salguero de Cabrera,
José Antonio Cabrera, and to the Canon of the cathedral Michael Calixto of the Circle, all of them of autonomous position. The 1820s belonged to
caudillos, since the country was in full process of formation. Until 1820 a central government taken root in Buenos Aires existed, but the remaining thirteen provinces felt that after 9 July 1816 what had happened it was simply a change of commander. The Battle of Cepeda pitted the commanders of the Littoral against the inland forces. Finally, the Federales obtained the victory, for what the country remained since then integrated by 13 autonomous provinces, on the national government having been dissolved. From this way the period known like about the Provincial Autonomies began. From this moment the provinces tried to create a
federal system that was integrating them without coming to good port, this mainly for the regional differences of every province. Two Córdoba figures stood out in this period: Governor
Juan Bautista Bustos, who was an official of the Army of the North and in 1820 was supervised by the troops quartered in Arequito, a town near Córdoba, and his ally and later enemy, General
José María Paz. In 1821, Bustos repelled the invasion of Córdoba on the part of Francisco Ramírez and his
Chilean ally, General
José Miguel Carrera. The conflict originated in a dispute with the power system that included the provinces of
Buenos Aires, Córdoba and
Santa Fe; according to the 1822 census the total population of Córdoba was of 11,552 inhabitants.
Contemporary history At the end of the 19th century the process of national industrialization began with the height of the economic agro-exporting model, principally of meats and cereals. This process is associated with the
European immigration who began to settle the city, generally possessing the education and enterprising capacity appropriate for the development of industry. The majority of these European immigrants came from Italy (initially from
Piedmont,
Veneto and
Lombardy; later from
Campania and
Calabria), and Spain (mostly
Galicians and
Basques) At the beginning of the 20th century the city had 90,000 inhabitants. The city's physiognomy changed considerably following the construction of new avenues, walks and public squares, as well as the installation of an electrified tram system, in 1909. In 1918, Córdoba was the epicentre of a movement known as the
University Reform, which then spread to the rest of the Universities of the country, Americas and
Spain. The development of the domestic market, the
British investments that facilitated European settlement, the development of the railways on the
pampas rapidly industrialized the city. Córdoba's industrial sector first developed from the need to transform
raw materials such as leather,
meats and
wool for export. In 1927, the Military Aircraft Manufacturer (FMA) was inaugurated. The facility would become one of the most important in the world after
World War II with the arrival of German technical personnel. From 1952, its production began to diversify, to constitute the base of the former Institute Aerotécnico, the state-owned company Aeronautical and Mechanical Industries of the State (IAME). Córdoba was chosen as the site of The
Instituto Aerotécnico that later became the
Fábrica Militar de Aviones. It employed the Focke Wulf men until President
Juan Perón was ousted by a
coup in 1955.
Lockheed Martin purchased FMA in 1995. Córdoba, according to the census of 1947, had almost 400,000 inhabitants (a quarter of the province's total). Subsequent industrial development led thousands of rural families to the city, doubling its population and turning Córdoba into the second largest city in Argentina, after Buenos Aires, by 1970. The city's population and economic growth moderated, afterwards, though living standards rose with the increase in the national consumption of Córdoba's industrial products, as well as the development of other sectors of economic activity. At times rivaling Buenos Aires for its importance in national politics, Córdoba was the site of the initial mutiny leading to the 1955
Revolución Libertadora that deposed President
Juan Perón and the setting for the 1969
Cordobazo, a series of violent labor and student protests that ultimately led to
elections in 1973. Córdoba's current economic diversity is due to a vigorous services sector and the demand for agro-industrial and railway equipment and, in particular, the introduction of U.S. and European automakers after 1954. == Geography ==