Plutarco Elías Calles, Mexican general and politician, 40th President of Mexico (b. 1877)
Plutarco Elías Calles (25 September 1877 – 19 October 1945) was a general in the Mexican Revolution and a Sonoran politician, serving as President of Mexico from 1924 to 1928.
The 1924 Calles presidential campaign was the first populist presidential campaign in Mexico's history, as he called for land redistribution and promised equal justice, expanded education, further labor rights, and democratic governance. After Calles' populist phase (1924–1926) he was committed to separating church from state (1926–1928), passing several anticlerical laws that resulted in the Cristero War.
Calles is most noted for his founding of the Institutional Revolutionary Party in 1929, which ensured political stability in the wake of the assassination of president-elect Alvaro Obregón in 1928. Including its two subsequent incarnations, the party held power continuously from 1929 to 1997, and was not defeated in a presidential election until 2000. His remains are buried in the Monument to the Revolution in Mexico City.