170 years ago today, the Ayutla Revolution changed Mexico forever

170 years ago today, the Ayutla Revolution changed Mexico forever

On Aug. 12, 1855 — 170 years ago today — Antonio López de Santa Anna officially resigned from his sixth term as Mexico’s president in Perote, Veracruz. Three days earlier, he had slipped out of Mexico City at dawn and fled for his home state, where he would board a ship and leave for yet another exile. Santa Anna had lost and returned to power many times before, and he may have imagined that afternoon that he would soon be back again. But though…