High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! El Bogotazo (from "Bogota" and the -azo suffix of violent augmentation) refers to the massive riots that followed the assassination in Bogota, Colombia of Liberal leader and presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on April 9, 1948 during the government of President Mariano Ospina Perez. The 10 hour riot left 3,000 to 5,000 dead and thousands injured, with much of downtown Bogota destroyed. The aftershock of Gaitan's murder continued extending through the countryside and enhanced a period of violence which had begun ten years prior, in 1930, and was triggered by the fall of the conservative party from government and the rise of the liberals. The 1946 presidential elections brought the downfall of the liberals allowing conservative Mariano Ospina Perez to win the presidency. The struggle for power between both again triggered a period in the history of Colombia known as La Violencia ("The Violence") that lasted until approximately 1958,...