Bolivia

Lake Titicaca — the world's highest navigable lake

Lake Titicaca, straddling the Bolivia-Peru border at 3,812 metres above sea level, is the world's highest navigable lake — a vast inland sea 190 km long whose floating reed islands (built by the Uros people), ancient temples, and extraordinary altitude ecosystem have been central to Andean civilisation for at least 3,000 years.

Tiwanaku — the empire before the Inca

The Tiwanaku civilisation (c. 300–1000 CE) was one of the most sophisticated pre-Columbian cultures in the Americas — centred at Lake Titicaca at 3,800 metres above sea level, it developed advanced agricultural techniques (raised fields called sukakollos), monumental stone architecture, and a trading network stretching across the Andes that prefigured and influenced the Inca Empire.

Cerro Rico — the mountain that built the Spanish Empire

The discovery of silver at Cerro Rico ("Rich Hill") in Potosí in 1545 CE transformed a remote Andean mountain into the largest city in the Americas — at its 17th-century peak, Potosí had 200,000 inhabitants (larger than London, Paris, or Madrid) and its silver funded the Spanish Empire for two centuries, while killing an estimated 8 million indigenous and enslaved African workers in the mines.

The War of the Pacific — Bolivia loses the sea

The War of the Pacific (1879–1884 CE) between Chile, Bolivia, and Peru was the conflict in which Bolivia lost its coastal province to Chile — leaving it landlocked, a status that has defined Bolivian foreign policy, national grievance, and economic development ever since, and which Bolivia has never ceased demanding reversal of.

Che Guevara's last campaign — Bolivia, 1967

The capture and execution of Ernesto "Che" Guevara in Bolivia (9 October 1967 CE) ended the most famous guerrilla campaign of the Cold War era and created the most reproduced portrait in history — Alberto Korda's photograph of the revolutionary became the symbol of countercultural protest worldwide.

Evo Morales — Bolivia's first indigenous president

Evo Morales's election as Bolivia's first indigenous president in 2005 CE (inaugurated January 2006) was a historic moment for Latin America's largest indigenous population — the coca-leaf farmer turned union leader pursued "Vivir Bien" (living well) policies, nationalised hydrocarbons, reduced poverty dramatically, and won three terms before a disputed 2019 election ended his presidency.