Ramtin Arablouei and Randa Abdel-Fattah

One of six kids.

They were very, very poor.

Raised mostly by his grandmother, he was mestizo, mixed race, with African and indigenous roots.

And by all accounts, a happy, outgoing kid with a wild imagination.

Imbibing the legends of headless horsemen, of love stories, of the cowboys, of the plains.

He had dreams of becoming a professional baseball player.

Until reality set in.

In his early 20s, Chavez joined the Venezuelan army, one of the fastest ways to move up the social ladder.

Above all, he was inspired by one guy, Simón Bolívar.

I'll talk about that.

We want to wait a minute because there's a police siren going by.

By the way, this is Jennifer McCoy.

She's a professor of political science at Georgia State University.

Okay, I'm back.

Simón Bolívar is a hero to Chávez, someone he saw as a real trailblazer, a champion for the people, who uprooted the political order.

For most of the 20th century, which was the backdrop for Chávez's life, the political order of Venezuela was based around one thing.

Oil.

Oil was everything.

Was and remains in Venezuela is everything because its economy almost hinges entirely on oil.

In the 1920s, Venezuela became a major oil producer.