Domingo Faustino Sarmiento is the target of…

Domingo Faustino Sarmiento is the target of an unsuccessful killing attempt, when two Italian anarchist brothers shoot at his coach on August 22, 1873.

They had been hired by federal caudillo Ricardo López Jordán.

Sarmiento seeks to create basic freedoms, and wants to ensure civil safety and progress for everyone.

His tour of the United States had given him many new ideas about politics, democracy, and the structure of society, especially when he was the Argentine ambassador to the country from 1865 to 1868.

He had found New England, specifically the Boston-Cambridge area, to be the source of much of his influence.

Not only had Sarmiento evolved political ideas, but also structural ones, by helping Argentina to make the transition from a primarily agricultural economy to one focused on cities and industry.

Sarmiento has established 800 educational and military institutions, and his improvements to the educational system have enabled 100,000 children to attend school.

He also pushed forward modernization more generally, installing five thousand kilometers (thirty-one hundred miles) of telegraph line across the country for improved communications, modernizing the post and train systems which he believed to be integral for interregional and national economies, as well as building the Red Line, a train line that will bring goods to Buenos Aires in order to better facilitate trade with England.

By the end of his presidency, the Red Line will extended thirteen hundred and thirty-one kilometers (eight hundred and twenty-seven miles).

In 1869, he had conducted Argentina's first national census.

Though Sarmiento will be well known historically, he is not a popular president.

During his presidency, Argentina had conducted an unpopular war against Paraguay; at the same time, people are displeased with him for not fighting for the Straits of Magellan from Chile.

Though he increases productivity, he increases expenditures, which also negatively affect his popularity.

In addition, the arrival of a large influx of European immigrants is blamed for the outbreak of Yellow Fever in Buenos Aires and the risk of civil war.

Moreover, Sarmiento's presidency is further marked by ongoing rivalry between Buenos Aires and the provinces.

Sarmiento, whose adopted son had been killed on the war against Paraguay, suffers from immense grief and is thought to never have been the same again