Borinquen MadePeriod
1950-1999
The entries in this magazine that fall in these years, in the order the events occurred. Freeze 2026-08-22. Not current events in these History essays; News is. Not original historical research.
The 1979 Pan American Games
The first Pan American Games ever held on the island, and the athletic leap that came with them.
The north coast karst
The mogotes and the caves of the north coast, a geology that shapes everything that happens there.
Hurricane Hugo, 1989
Hugo crossed the island in September 1989, a preview of the modern storm era.
Spanish official, 1991
Law 1 of 1991; Law 1 of 1993. The complete history of the language laws lives here.
Caguana, Utuado, a National Historic Landmark
NRIS 92001671; ball courts of the Capa phase, 1200–1500.
The status plebiscites of 1993 and 1998
Puerto Rico voted twice more on its status, and the second time a narrow majority chose an option that was not even a real status.
Status plebiscite, November 14, 1993
Estado Libre Asociado by a narrow margin; statehood close behind.
When Washington switched off the tax break
The ten-year phase-out of a federal exemption, completed in 2006, is one of the least-told root causes of Puerto Rico's debt crisis.
Georges, 1998
A Category Three crossing of Puerto Rico, September 21, with a public-health record that treated the deaths as a countable local list.
Status vote, December 13, 1998: none of the above
None of the above won, near 50.3 percent.
The Navy leaves Vieques
A Navy bombing range that lasted six decades on Vieques ended in 2003, after a civil disobedience movement forced the full withdrawal.
David Sanes, Vieques, April 19, 1999
An accident on the Navy range killed a civilian security guard. The island's live-fire politics changed that afternoon.
Vieques: from bombing range to protest movement
The death of a civilian security guard on a Navy bombing range reignited a protest movement that had first won its fight on neighboring Culebra.