About one hundred years ago a roaring hurricane swept along the Mexican border with such fury that it radically changed the course of the Rio Grande—and consequently altered the international boundary. When the storm finally subsided, the village of El Paso, Texas, was about 630 acres larger, and the bawdy little pueblo of Juárez, Mexico, was that many acres smaller.

This accidental “land grab” caused prolonged and acrimonious litigation in several international tribunals, but some of the bitterness and resentment vanished on December 13, 1968, when President Lyndon Johnson and President Gustavo Díaz Ordaz simultaneously pressed buttons to dynamite the river back into a channel that restores the 630 acres to Mexico. Surrounded by cool, elegant diplomatic aides and decoratively accompanied by their wives, the two heads of state gave each other a cordial abrazo and exchanged assurances of eternal friendship between their two countries.

Full Story >>