Padilla, Ezequiel

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Ezequiel Padilla (āsākyĕl´p äŧħē´yä), 1890–1971, Mexican political leader. A revolutionary under Pancho Villa, he studied law in New York City. He served as secretary of public education (1928–30) and helped found Mexico's modern school system. As foreign minister (1940–45) during World War II, he was a leader at hemispheric conferences and a forceful proponent of inter-American solidarity; he was a signer of the Charter of the United Nations at San Francisco (1945). He ran unsuccessfully for president in 1946 and was elected senator in 1964.

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