Miss Peru send her representative, Mary Núñez, to the Miss Universe Pageant, because she was prevented from participating by the president of the republic, Juan Velasco Alvarado. He considered the contest was the product of American capitalism, and a country with which he did not have good relations. This was the only occasion in which a Miss Peru did not participate in the Miss Universe except for the 1955 and 1974, when no contest was held. Given the refusal of Alvarado, Mary Núñez was sent to Miss World 1973 in London, England. In 1982, Peru became the first South American country to
Juan Bautista Alvarado Frémont arrived in Monterey at the beginning of 1846. Afraid of foreign aggression, Castro assembled his militia, with Alvarado second in command, but Frémont went north to Oregon instead. An unstable political situation in Mexico strained relations among the Californios and it seemed that civil war would break out between north and south. On July 7, Commodore John D. Sloat occupied Monterey, declaring to the citizenry that the Mexican–American War had begun. Pico, Castro, and Alvarado set aside their differences to focus on the American threat, but by the end of August, Pico and Castro fled to Mexico, and Alvarado