Fidel Castro

Assassination Attempt

The United States made several failed attempts on Fidel Castro's life, including poisoning his cigars with Botox.

Che Guevara*

An Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, guerrilla leader, diplomat, and military theorist. A major figure of the Cuban Revolution, his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture.[

The Cuban Missile Crisis*

A 13-day confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union concerning Soviet ballistic missiles deployment in Cuba. Along with being televised worldwide, it was the closest the Cold War came to escalating into a full-scale nuclear war.

Raul Castro

A Cuban politician and a revolutionary, who has been President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba since 2008. Raul Castro is the nation's highest ranking general.

Elián González affair

A boat rescue of a Cuban child, Elián González, sparks a diplomatic row with the US. The six-year-old boy was picked up off the Florida coast after he and his mother attempted to flee Cuba. After a protracted court battle, he was sent back to Cuba to live with his father, despite a high-profile campaign by wealthy US-based Cubans for him to remain.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

A civilian foreign intelligence service of the U.S. Government, tasked with gathering, processing and analyzing national security information from around the world, primarily through the use of human intelligence.

Communism

A political theory derived from Karl Marx, advocating class war and leading to a society in which all property is publicly owned and each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

Capitalism

An economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state.

Sierra Maestra mountains

Batista's army attacked and killed most of the Granma participants - while the exact number is disputed, no more than twenty of the original eighty-two men survived the initial encounters with the Cuban army and escaped into the Sierra Maestra mountains. The group of survivors included Fidel and Raúl Castro and Che Guevara.

Cuba

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is a sovereign state comprising the island of Cuba as well as Isla de la Juventud and several minor archipelagos. Havana is the largest city and capital.

April 1959

Castro announce suspension of elections.

September 2nd. 1960

Castro makes his "First declaration of Havana' speech; all remaining US companies are nationalized, Committees for the Defense of the Revolution are set up.

October 1953*

Castro makes his "History will absolve me" speech.

Fidel Castro*

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, known as Fidel Castro, is a Cuban politician and a revolutionary, who governed the Republic of Cuba as the Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976, and as the President from 1976 to 2008.

Corruption

Form of dishonest or unethical conduct by a person entrusted with a position of authority, often to acquire personal benefit. May include many activities including bribery and embezzlement.

Fuelgencio Batista*

Fulgencio Batista Zaldívar more commonly known as Fulgencio Batista, was the elected President of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and dictator from 1952 to 1959, before being overthrown during the Cuban Revolution.

industrialization

Period of social and economic change that transforms a human group from an agrarian society into an industrial one, involving the extensive re-organization of an economy for the purpose of manufacturing.

Sugar Cane

Sugarcane, or sugar cane, is one of the several species of tall perennial true grasses and used for sugar production.

26th of July Movement*

The 26th of July Movement was a vanguard revolutionary organization led by Fidel Castro that in 1959 overthrew the Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in Cuba. The Movement fought the Batista regime on both rural and urban fronts.

The Bay of Pigs.*

The Bay of Pigs Invasion, known in Latin America as Invasión de Playa Girón, was a failed military invasion of Cuba undertaken by the CIA-sponsored paramilitary group Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961.

The Cold War

The Cold War was a state of political and military tension after World War II between powers in the Western Bloc and powers in the Eastern Bloc.

The Cuban Revolution

The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement and its allies against Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953, and continued sporadically until 1 January 1959, replacing his government with a revolutionary socialist state.

Castroism*

The political principles or actions of Fidel Castro or his adherents or imitators.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy (JFK)

Was an American politician who served as the 35th President of the United States from January 1961 until his assassination in November 1963. The Cuban Missile Crisis, The Bay of Pigs Invasion, and abolition of the federal death penalty in the District of Columbia all took place during his presidency.

US embargo on Cuba*

a commercial, economic, and financial embargo imposed by the United States on Cuba. An embargo was first imposed by the United States on Cuba on October 19, 1960 when the U.S. placed an embargo on exports to Cuba except for food and medicine after Cuba nationalized American-owned Cuban oil refineries without compensation.

Nikita Kruschev*

agreed to remove the nukes against the wishes of Castro, who was left out of the negotiations. In return, U.S. President John F. Kennedy publicly consented not to reinvade Cuba and privately consented to take American nuclear weapons out of Turkey.

Coup D'etat

also known simply as a coup, or an overthrow, is the illegal and overt seizure of a state by the military or other elites within the state apparatus. A coup d'état is considered successful when the usurpers seize and hold power for at least seven days.

Embargo

an official ban on trade or other commercial activity with a particular country.

Mikhail Gorbachev

arrives in Havana to meet with Fidel Castro. Castro's suspicions regarding Gorbachev's economic and political reform measures in the Soviet Union, together with the fact that Russia's ailing economy could no longer support massive economic assistance to Cuba, kept the meetings from achieving any solid agreements.

Communist Bloc

used to denote groupings of states aligned with the Soviet Union, although these terms might include states outside Central and Eastern Europe such as Cuba.