Hugo Chavez rode a wave of popular fury against Venezuelan inequality into the presidency, funded a social revolution with oil money, and positioned himself as the Western hemisphere's most visible challenger to American hegemony. When oil prices collapsed, the economy he had built on petroleum revenues collapsed with them, and the Bolivarian Revolution devolved into authoritarian rule, hyperinflation, and one of the worst humanitarian crises in Latin American history.

This episode traces Chavez from his rural childhood through the failed 1992 coup, the democratic election, the oil-funded social programs, and the economic catastrophe his model produced.

• Chavez's rural poverty, his military career, and the failed 1992 coup that made him famous
• The 1998 election, the Bolivarian Revolution, and the social programs funded by  ...