Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was a Cuban military officer and politician who played a dominant role in Cuban politics from his initial rise to power as part of the 1933 Revolt of the Sergeants until his overthrow in the Cuban Revolution in 1959. He served as elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944, and military dictator from 1952 to his 1959 resignation.
Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz is a Cuban retired politician and general who served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, the most senior position in the one-party communist state, from 2011 to 2021, and President of Cuba between 2008 and 2018, succeeding his brother Fidel Castro.
The Cuban Revolution was the military and political overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship, which had reigned as the government of Cuba between 1952 and 1959. The revolution began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état, which saw Batista topple the nascent Cuban democracy and consolidate power. Among those opposing the coup was Fidel Castro, then a novice attorney who attempted to contest the coup through Cuba's judiciary. Once these efforts proved fruitless, Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl led an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953.
The 26 July Movement was a Cuban vanguard revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. The movement's name commemorates the failed 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba, part of an attempt to overthrow the dictator Fulgencio Batista.
The Moncada Barracks were military barracks in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba named after General Guillermo Moncada, a hero of the Cuban War of Independence. On 26 July 1953, the barracks was the site of an armed attack by a small group of revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro. That day a simultaneous attack was carried out on the Carlos M. de Cespedes Barracks in Bayamo directed by Raúl Martínez Ararás by order of Castro. The attack failed and the surviving revolutionaries were imprisoned. This armed attack is widely accepted as the beginning of the Cuban Revolution. The date on which the attack took place, 26 July, was adopted by Castro as the name for his revolutionary movement, Movimiento 26 Julio, which eventually toppled the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959.
Manuel Urrutia Lleó was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the dictatorial second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after only seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward.
Manuel Piñeiro Losada, also known as Commander Barbarroja was a Cuban political and military figure, a leader of the Cuban Revolution, and, between 1961 and 1964, the first head of the Dirección General de Inteligencia of Cuba. Under Piñeiro, the DGI supported armed struggles in Latin America, helping radical leftist guerrilla groups in the region. Between 1964 and 1968, Piñeiro acted as the Deputy Minister of the Interior of Cuba, during this time he was in charge of the state security apparatus. A Soviet reorganization of the DGI forced Piñeiro out of his position, and he was placed in charge of the DGI's Latin American affairs division.
Hotel Tryp Habana Libre is one of the larger hotels in Cuba, situated in Vedado, Havana. The hotel has 572 rooms in a 25-floor tower at Calle 23 and Calle L. Opened in 1958 as the Habana Hilton, the hotel famously served as the residence of Fidel Castro and other revolutionaries throughout 1959, after their capture of Havana.
Plaza de la Revolución, "Revolution Square", is a municipality and a square in Havana, Cuba.
Radio Rebelde is a Cuban Spanish-language radio station. It broadcasts 24 hours a day with a varied program of national and international music hits of the moment, news reports and live sport events. The station was set up in 1958 by Che Guevara in the Sierra Maestra region of eastern Cuba, and was designed to broadcast the aims of the 26th of July Movement led by Fidel Castro.
Rafael Mario Ramón Llerena was a Cuban intellectual who worked alongside Fidel Castro to topple Fulgencio Batista but, opposing communism, broke with Castro after he gained power.
Neill W. Macaulay Jr. was a writer, professor and a former lieutenant in Fidel Castro's 26th of July Movement Army.
Felipe Pazos Roque was a Cuban economist who initially supported the Cuban Revolution of Fidel Castro, but became disillusioned with the increasingly radical nature of the revolutionary government.
Marta Fernández Miranda de Batista, also known as "Marta del Pueblo", was First Lady of Cuba from 1952 until 1959 as the second wife of Cuban president and dictator Fulgencio Batista, who was overthrown by Fidel Castro in the Cuban Revolution, which forced the couple to flee permanently into exile.
The Triumph of the Revolution is the historical term for the flight of Fulgencio Batista on January 1, 1959, and the capture of Havana by the 26th of July Movement on January 8.
The University of Havana is a public university located in the Vedado district of Havana, the capital of Cuba. Founded on 5 January 1728, the university is the oldest in Cuba, and one of the first to be founded in the Americas. Originally a religious institution, today the university has 15 faculties (colleges) at its Havana campus and distance learning centers throughout Cuba.
Coliseo de la Ciudad Deportiva is an indoor sporting arena located in Havana, Cuba. Built in 1957, the Coliseum is one of the most important works of Cuban Civil Engineering. It is located at the intersection of Boyeros and Vía Blanca avenues in the Cerro Municipality. The capacity of the arena is for 15,000 spectators.
The Tren Blindado is a national monument, memorial park, and museum of the Cuban Revolution, located in the city of Santa Clara, Cuba. It was created by the Cuban sculptor José Delarra on the site of and in memory of the capture of an armoured train on 29 December 1958, during the Battle of Santa Clara.
The early life of Cuban dictator and politician Fidel Castro spans the first 26 years of his life, from 1926 to 1952. Born in Birán, Oriente Province, Castro was the illegitimate son of Ángel Castro y Argiz, a wealthy farmer and landowner, and his mistress Lina Ruz González. First educated by a tutor in Santiago de Cuba, Fidel Castro then attended two boarding schools before being sent to El Colegio de Belén, a school run by Jesuits in Havana. In 1945 he began studying law at the University of Havana, where he first became politically conscious, becoming a staunch anti-imperialist and critic of United States involvement in the Caribbean. Involved in student politics, he was affiliated to Eduardo Chibás and his Partido Ortodoxo, achieving publicity as a vocal critic of the pro-U.S. administration of President Ramón Grau and his Partido Auténtico.
The consolidation of the Cuban Revolution is a period in Cuban history typically defined as starting in the aftermath of the revolution in 1959 and ending in 1962, after the total political consolidation of Fidel Castro as the maximum leader of Cuba. The period encompasses early domestic reforms, human rights violations, and the ousting of various political groups. This period of political consolidation climaxed with the resolution of the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, which then cooled much of the international contestation that arose alongside Castro's bolstering of power.
