President of Chile (1946 to 1952). The oldest of eighteen children, after studying at Liceo de La Serena, he entered the University of Chile Law School. While at the university, he was exposed to Manuel Antonio Matta and became a member in the Radical Party. After completing his military service, he received his law degree in 1922. He returned to his home town to practice law for the next seven years. While there he was arrested in 1925 after a heated exchange at a Radical Assembly meeting. This arrest made him popular among the radical assemblies and he was elected in 1930 as a deputy of the Thermal Congress and served for four years. During the economic and political upheaval in 1931, he demanded the resignation of President Ibanez which prompted a new arrest warrant. After the fall of Presidents Ibanez and Montero, he was elected president of the Radical Central Board party. The following year, he was urged to run for president but declined, giving his support to Abraham Oyanedel who became president in 1932. In the same election, he was returned as deputy for the Fourth Departmental Group and was ambassador to Portugal in 1933. By 1937, he was head of the Radical Party and president of the National Executive Committee of the Popular Front. He again won a third term as deputy. He was sent to France as an ambassador two years later and while there studied sociology and economics at the Sorbonne. At the outbreak of World War II, he was reassigned back to Portugal for diplomatic duties there and by 1942, he was fulfilling that same function in Brazil. He was elected senator for the First Provincial Group for eight years beginning in 1945. He was also a member of the delegation from Chile to the Peace Conference that saw the creation of the United Nations. One year later, he would finally run for president and be elected to that post in 1947. After the first months of his presidency, he began to distance from the communists which would eventually lead to the "Cursed Law" in 1947 which banned the existence of the Communist Party. In 1949, he would grant women full political rights, and appoint the first woman as Minister of State. He formed a cabinet known as the National Concentration from a mix of both conservatives, liberals, radicals, democrats and a few socialists. The radical wing of this cabinet wanted to increase fiscal spending and they supported an illegal strike by public employees in 1950. This caused many conservatives to leave the cabinet. Videla again called on a collection of various factions to form a new government and now formed as the Social Sensitivity Cabinet. His administration saw rapid growth in the field of power plants and oil pipelines. The University of Santiago de Chile and the University of Atacama were founded. The Pan-American highway was built. He visited both the Antarctica and the United States at the invitation of the president. When his term expired in 1952, he left politics for several years, resigning from his party in 1971 when it merged into the Unidad Popular. After the military coup in 1973, he served as Vice President of the Council of State and published his memoirs in 1975. After his death, the square in the center of La Serena was named after him. Three years later, an eponymous museum was also established. He was the only Chilean president who governed across political ideologies infusing his mandates with voices from the left, right and center.