Soldiers supporting the coup led by General Augusto Pinochet take cover as bombs are dropped on the presidential palace of La Moneda on September 11, 1973 (AP Photo/Enrique Aracena)

Bombs rained over Santiago, Chile, on September 11, 1973. That morning, after months of political chaos, the country’s military launched a coup. Holed up in La Moneda, the presidential palace, Salvador Allende, the country’s socialist president, recorded a final, defiant radio address to the country. Then he took his AK-47, a gift from Fidel Castro, and shot himself.

Chile’s coup introduced 17 years of repressive military dictatorship under Augusto Pinochet, in which thousands were killed, tortured or “disappeared”.