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Augusto Nicolás Calderón Sandino was born in the village of Niquinohomo in 1895 (Nicaragua). Son of Gregorio Sandino (wealthy coffee grower) and the peasant worker in the employment of the Sandino's, Margarita Calderón.

1904 Abandoned by mother, goes to live with maternal grandmother. He then moves into the home of his father and his family. 1921 Shoots Dagoberto Rivas, son of a prominent town Conservative. Flees Niquinohomo to avoid justice and for fear of retribution. His flight takes him to the Pacific Coast of Nicaragua and then to La Ceiba, Honduras, where he became employed at a sugar processing plant. In 1922 Moved to Guatemala and then to Mexico, finally stopping at Cerro Azul, near the port of Tampico. He gains employment in the oil fields.

In May 1926 he leaves for Nicaragua as the Statute of Limitations on his attempted murder charge expires. His plan to return to the home village and to open his own business are foiled by Dagoberto Rivas, who is now a Member of the National Assembly, and by a plague of Locust invading the country from the Northeast. He wonders on to the city of León. June: Meets with a troop of migrating workers and travels to the mining areas in the North, finally stopping at the San Albino mine in July, where he finds employment. Sandino begins to agitate and incite the miners into sabotage and theft. November: With guns acquired in Honduras, Sandino and a band of miners attack the garrison at El Jícaro. The attack is repelled. After the defeat Sandino realises that he needs better weapons and travels to Puerto Cabezas to meet with the rebelling Liberal troops against the US-backed Conservatives.
He hopes to obtain weapons and men. On December he eets with Liberal rebel Commander General José María Moncada, who denies weapons and a military commission to the unknown Sandino. By a struck of fortune and with the help of some prostitutes, Sandino recuperates some weapons from the fleeing Conservative rebels, which ingratiates him with other Liberal Commanders who figure they have nothing to loose by letting the eager stranger go harass government troops in the Northeast.

On february 1927 Sandino is back in the Segovia mountains, having recruited many peasants into his ranks. April: Sandino's troops rescue the Liberal columns advancing toward the Capital from a seemingly certain defeat. Sandino begins to have visions of himself entering the Managua victorious. May: The United States force the warring parties to come to an agreement at Tipitapa (a little village near Managua) The Espino Negro Accords is signed under the sponsorship of Colonel Henry Stimson.
Sandino accepts the agreement and convinces Moncada he will lay his guns down once he reaches Jinotega in the North, then reneges and cries foul because he had not been consulted for the agreement. He declares the agreement a betrayal of the fatherland.

Then on may 18th. Sandino moves further into the mountains, to San Rafael del Norte, where he marries the telegraphists daughter on his birthday. As his troops began to desert him, he moved even further into the hills. May 24: Sandino proposes to surrender to the USMC Field Commander if the United States names a Military Governor to rule Nicaragua, who will then supervise new elections. He obtains no response. June: Presents new conditions for his surrender: the establishment of an honorable Liberal government. No response. Sandino begins to act as constituted authority in the region, appointing civil authorities,and renames El Jícaro, site of his failed attack after himself, Ciudad Sandino (Sandino City).
July: Sandino issues his first two political manifestos proclaiming a mystical tie with the Indian race and his intention to shed the blood of others for the sake of his cause. September: Sandino names his army of peasants The Army in Defense of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua, and elaborates guidelines for his fighters. He transforms his own name and becomes Augusto "César" Sandino. November: Sandino issues a decree identifying those he calls the "traitors to the motherland." Anyone against Sandino would be for the enemy and anyone for the enemy would be against him. 1928 January: Sandino demands the evacuation of the American Forces, the resignation of President Adolfo Diaz and elections supervised by Latin American countries.

November 4: Elections take place. Moncada wins the presidency. Sandino orders his loyal personal representative abroad, the Honduran poet Froylán Turcios, to harmonise efforts with Zepeda in Mexico.January: Sandino writes to Mexican President requesting an audience to announce his "far-reaching projects" for Latin America. January 6: Sandino declares Moncada's government unconstitutional. Claims that his peasant army is the only source of legitimacy in the country. Sandino demands the withdrawal of the US troops, the abrogation of the Bryan-Chamorro treaty and the founding of a new territory under his unconditional authority for the settlement of he and his men.
He further demanded that Moncada proclaims the Union of the Central American Republics and calls for conference for the constitution of he called the "Indo-Latin American Continental and Antillean Federation." January 18: Sandino re-interprets the history of Nicaragua and creates a new calendar of his own said to have started on October 4, 1912 with Benjamín Zeledon's resistance to the occupying American troops. February: Sandino attacks the European nations for not coming to his aid against the United States. March: Sandino writes to all the Presidents of the Continent seeking support."

Moncada organises a force of "volunteers" and goes on the offensive against Sandino. June: Sandino travels to Mexico. He is relegated to Mérida, Yucatán. In January 2 1930 .
1931 January: Colonel Stimson announces the withdrawal of the US troops from Nicaragua following the election of 1932. Sandino's men make great inroads in battle and come to control almost the entire northern region of Nicaragua, with the exception of urban centers. The number of followers swelled, which brought its own logistical problems in the field. Their inability to capture cities made Sandino impatient. March: Civil War begins to brew in Honduras threatening the flow of Sandino's supplies. Sandino prepares to declare the union of the Central American Republics and expects that all the labour movements of the region will follow him. March 31:An earthquake destroys Managua and Sandino takes it to be a presage in his favour.November 12: Sandino demands withdrawal of US troops (already under way), instituting his peasant rebels as the national army, backing for Latin American Union conference and the right of the people to oust the president.

1933 January 1: Juan Bautista Sacasa is invested President; Anastasio Somoza is appointed Head of the National Guard.
The National Guard begins to encircle Sandino. Sandino recognises the difficult conditions and makes overtures, albeit still in tone of superiority. He demanded that the President made his governing plans known and resurrected his own plan to found a new territory in the north, which would be called Light and Truth. The president, recognising the crucial opportunity and plagued by internal problems, named Sandino sympathiser Sofonías Salvatierra as negotiator. Persuaded by his pleading wife, Sandino accepted to meet the presidential envoy.

February 2: Sandino announced at dawn that he has to make peace or he will kill himself. Salvatierra rushed him to Managua. A few minutes before midnight the peace was signed. February: By the peace accords, Sandino pledged his loyalty to President Sacasa and the surrender of his weapons, Sandino's men were granted amnesty for the crimes they committed since 1927 and were allowed to settle in the Rio Coco basin, where they would establish an "agricultural cooperative.
He had also convinced himself that the United States maintained control of Nicaragua through the National Guard. The Guard became thus his principal enemy. To be sure, Somoza wanted to eliminate Sandino, whose auxiliaries' existence ridiculed his Guard and his own position as the guardian of the state. Sandino and Somoza were on a collision course.

June: Sandino's wife Blanca dies giving birth to a daughter, Blanca Segovia Sandino. Sandino's own health, afflicted by malaria, deteriorates.
He travel led to Managua to reduce tensions between he and the Director of the National Guard. 1934 January: The situation became tense as the deadline to review the status of Sandino's Auxiliaries drew near. Supporters urged Sandino to resume the armed struggle.. He wrote to the President questioning the legitimacy of the Guard and hinted that he might not surrender his weapons. Angered, Sacasa summoned Sandino to the Capital. February 18: Sandino arrives in Managua and publicly challenges the constitutionality of the National Guard. Sandino remained in the capital for talks with the president. On February 20 Sandino reached an agreement with the President: the size of the National Guard would be reduced within three months, and a Sandino sympathiser would be placed in charge of the northern departments, eroding Somoza's power. As Sandino and his entourage made their way out of the Presidential compound, they were rounded up by Somoza's men and executed that same night. On the next day, the National Guard descended on the northern commune razing the cooperative and killing most of its members.

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