US-trained military dictator Manuel Noriega seizes power in Panama: "It has been called the School for Dictators. Since 1946 the School of the Americas has trained more than 56,000 Latin soldiers in combat and counterinsurgency skills. Its goal: to professionalize Latin American armies and strengthen democracies. But its graduates include some of the region's most despicable military strongmen, dictators such as Manuel Noriega of Panama."