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Recent history

On 7 August 1956, at around 1 a.m., seven Colombian army trucks filled with 42 tons of dynamite exploded near the train station, destroying eight city blocks. The nearby army barracks was instantly destroyed. Windows were shattered for miles. More than 1,000 people were killed and several thousand injured (see Cali explosion). The following year, the government decided to organize a fair in order to lift up the spirits of citizens as well as generate economic reactivation, which came to be known as the Cali Fair.

In 1971, Santiago de Cali hosted the Pan American Games, an event which is considered by many as the height of the city's golden age as a model of civic orderliness: following it, Cali was named the Sports Capital of Colombia. In 1982, the government of Cali inaugurated what is now the city's largest building and the third-largest in the Republic of Colombia—"La Torre de Cali", or The Cali Tower. It stands 42 stories tall and houses a hotel, offices and apartment complexes.

Cali became a focus center of the 2021 Colombian protests, which started on 28 April 2021. While most demonstrations held in the city were peaceful, there was also strong rioting, looting, and clashes between protesters and police officers. The statue of Spanish conquistador and founder of the city Sebastián de Belalcázar was torn down by Misak protesters, while several buses and stations of the mass transit system MIO were vandalized and burned, causing the MIO network to be destroyed by 60%. Reports of multiple human rights violations and police abuse in the city were received by organizations such as Human Rights Watch. During the night and early morning of 3 May 2021, 5 people died and 33 were injured due to clashes between protesters and the police and ESMAD in the city. In the Siloé neighborhood, a peaceful demonstration was violently broken up by members of the public force, with that sector being also affected by an unexpected internet crash, which occurred twice on 4 and 5 May.