Pedro Abelino Aguirre Cerda (; February 6, 1879 – November 25, 1941) was a Chilean political figure, educator, and lawyer who served as the 22nd president of Chile from 1938 until his death in 1941. A member of the Radical Party since 1906, he was chosen by the left-wing Popular Front coalition as its candidate for the 1938 presidential election and won. He had previously served as deputy for San Felipe, Putaendo and Los Andes from 1915 to 1918, Minister of the Interior from January to September 1918 under president Juan Luis Sanfuentes, deputy for Santiago from 1918 to 1921, Minister of Justice and Public Instruction from 1920 to 1921 under president Arturo Alessandri, and senator for Concepción from 1921 to 1927. He died two years and eleven months into his presidency on November 25, 1941, at the age of 62, from tuberculosis. Early life Pedro Aguirre Cerda was born on February 6, 1879, in Pocuro, a small village near the city of Los Andes, Chile. He was the seventh of eleven children born to parents Juan Bautista Aguirre Campos and Clarisa Cerda Escudero. His father, a farmer, died in 1887 when he was eight years old, leaving his widowed mother to run the farm and raise the eleven children on her own. His family was of Basque descent. He completed his initial tertiary studies at the Pedagogical Institute of the University of Chile in Santiago, becoming a Spanish teacher. He continued his studies at the university's Faculty of Law, becoming a lawyer in 1904. In 1910, he received a government grant to study administrative and financial law at the Sorbonne in Paris and political economy and social legislation at the Collège de France. He returned to Chile in 1914 and took a position as a teacher at the Instituto Nacional and was elected as president of the National Society of Teachers. In 1916, he married his first cousin Juana Rosa Aguirre Luco, with whom he had no children. He was a very distinguished teacher, attorney, deputy and senator. He was also the first dean of the new school of economy of the University of Chile. As a member of the Radical Party, he was minister of Public Instruction and of the Interior during the administrations of Juan Luis Sanfuentes and Arturo Alessandri. During the period of military domination, he was persecuted and became an active opposition leader to the