Nicaraguan guerrilla leader, one of the most controversial figures of 20th-century Central American history. In Nicaragua he became a popular hero and gave his name to the Sandinistas, a revolutionary group that formed the government from 1979 to 1990.

Sandino first gained national recognition in 1926, when he took up arms in support of Vice President Juan Bautista Sacasa's (Sacasa, Juan Bautista) claim to the presidency. Upon the intervention of U.S. Marines in 1927, Sandino withdrew with several hundred men to the mountains of northern Nicaragua, and his success in eluding capture by the U.S. forces and the Nicaraguan National Guard attracted widespread sympathy for him throughout the hemisphere. The resulting anti-American feeling was partly responsible for President Franklin D. Roosevelt's “Good Neighbor Policy,” an announced reformulation of U.S. foreign relations with Latin America. Following the withdrawal of the Marines in January 1933 and the inauguration of Sacasa as president, Sandino was invited to meet with Anastasio Somoza (Somoza, Anastasio), the head of the National Guard, for an apparent peace conference but was abducted and murdered instead by National Guardsmen.