General Augusto César Sandino Day in Nicaragua Date in the current year: February 21, 2026

Augusto César Sandino was born on May 18, 1895, as Augusto Calderón. His father, Gregorio Sandino, was a wealthy landowner, and his mother, Margarita Calderón, was an indigenous servant who worked for the Sandino family. Sandino was raised by his mother until he was nine years old, when his father took him in and arranged for his education.

In 1912, when Sandino was 17, U.S. troops invaded Nicaragua. This occupation was part of the so-called Banana Wars, which the United States government initiated to enforce its interests in Central America and the Caribbean. U.S. Marines were stationed in Nicaragua to support the conservative president, Adolfo Díaz, and they remained there for over two decades.

Sandino left Nicaragua in 1921 after a conflict with an influential local family. He spent the next five years in Honduras, Guatemala, and Mexico, where he was exposed to revolutionary ideas. Shortly before the outbreak of the Nicaraguan Civil War, which pitted the conservative government backed by the United States against liberal rebels backed by Mexico, Sandino returned to his home country.

During the war, he joined the Liberal army and became a guerrilla leader. In 1927, the Liberal leaders agreed to a U.S.-mediated truce with the government whose terms included a continued U.S. military presence in Nicaragua. Sandino opposed the truce, considering it a betrayal of Nicaragua’s sovereignty.

Sandino and his supporters refused to surrender their weapons, withdrew to the mountains of northern Nicaragua, and waged an insurgency against U.S. troops and the Nicaraguan National Guard. Despite being outnumbered and outgunned, the rebels held their ground and spread a powerful message of nationalism, anti-imperialism, and Latin American unity throughout the region. Sandino’s leadership relied heavily on personal charisma and appeals to national dignity.

In 1933, newly elected U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt adopted the Good Neighbor policy, ending the Banana Wars and leading to the withdrawal of American troops from Nicaragua. Sandino then pledged loyalty to President Juan Bautista Sacasa, a former Liberal leader during the civil war, and agreed to order his men to surrender their weapons.

However, Sandino remained opposed to the Nicaraguan National Guard, which was led by General Anastasio Somoza García, and insisted on its dissolution. Consequently, García ordered Sandino’s execution. On February 21, 1934, Sandino, his brother Sócrates, and two of his favorite generals were detained by the National Guard and murdered.

Two years later, Somoza García seized power in a coup and established a dictatorial regime that lasted more than four decades. The Somoza regime was eventually overthrown by revolutionaries who called themselves Sandinistas, after Sandino. They revered him as a hero and a symbol of resistance.

In 2026, the government of Nicaragua expanded the country’s holiday calendar to recognize important figures in Nicaraguan history and create more paid days off, officially establishing General Augusto César Sandino Day. Other public holidays added to the calendar include honor Rubén Darío on January 18, Miguel Obando y Bravo on February 2, and Carlos Fonseca Amador on November 8.