The Pact of Caracas was a 1958 pledge by various Cuban revolutionaries to end the Batista dictatorship and restore democracy to Cuba. [1] The signatories included Fidel Castro as leader of the 26th of July Movement, before he subsequently consolidated a dictatorship over Cuba. [2]
José Martí International Airport, sometimes known by its former name Rancho Boyeros Airport, is an international airport located 20 km (12 mi) southwest of the centre of Havana, Cuba, and is a hub for Cubana de Aviación and Aerogaviota, and former Latin American hub for the Soviet airline Aeroflot. It is Cuba's main international and domestic gateway, and serves several million passengers each year. The airport is operated by Empresa Cubana de Aeropuertos y Servicios Aeronáuticos(ECASA).
The Cuban Revolution was an armed revolt conducted by Fidel Castro and his fellow revolutionaries of the 26th of July Movement and its allies against the military dictatorship of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista. The revolution began in July 1953, and continued sporadically until the rebels finally ousted Batista on 31 December 1958, replacing his government. 26 July 1953 is celebrated in Cuba as Día de la Revolución. The 26th of July Movement later reformed along Marxist–Leninist lines, becoming the Communist Party of Cuba in October 1965.
Rómulo Ernesto Betancourt Bello, known as "The Father of Venezuelan Democracy", was the president of Venezuela, serving from 1945 to 1948 and again from 1959 to 1964, as well as leader of Acción Democrática, Venezuela's dominant political party in the 20th century.
Rómulo Ángel del Monte Carmelo Gallegos Freire was a Venezuelan novelist and politician. For a period of nine months during 1948, he governed as the first freely elected president in Venezuela's history. He was removed from power by military officers in the 1948 Venezuelan coup.
Herty Lewites Rodríguez was a Nicaraguan politician. He was Mayor of Managua and a candidate for president in the 2006 Nicaraguan general election when he died suddenly.
Raúl Leoni Otero was the president of Venezuela from 1964 until 1969. He was a member of the Generation of 1928 and a charter member of the Acción Democrática party, and the first Labor minister of Venezuela.
COPEI, also referred to as the Social Christian Party or Green Party, is a Christian democratic party in Venezuela. The acronym stands for Comité de Organización Política Electoral Independiente, but this provisional full name has fallen out of use. The party was influential during the twentieth century as a signatory of the Puntofijo Pact and influenced many politicians throughout Latin America at its peak.
Julio Andrés Borges Junyent is a Venezuelan politician and lawyer. In the late 1990s he had a TV court show called "Justicia Para Todos" on Radio Caracas Televisión. He co-founded the party Primero Justicia in 2000 together with Henrique Capriles Radonski and Leopoldo Lopez.
The Puntofijo Pact was a formal arrangement arrived at between representatives of Venezuela's three main political parties in 1958, Acción Democrática (AD), COPEI, and Unión Republicana Democrática (URD), for the acceptance of the 1958 presidential elections, and the preservation of the new democratic system. This pact was a written guarantee that the signing parties would respect the election results, prevent single-party hegemony, and work together to fight dictatorship.
Matilde Zimmermann is an American author and professor who ran as the Socialist Workers Party candidate for United States Vice President in 1980. The party had three different presidential candidates that year, Andrew Pulley, Richard H. Congress and Clifton DeBerry depending on the state. She was at the time a writer for the party newspaper The Militant. Zimmermann also ran as an alternate vice presidential candidate for Andrea Gonzales in some states in 1984; Melvin T. Mason was the presidential candidate.
José Manuel Castañón was a Spanish writer born in Pola de Lena, Asturias. Although he fought in Francisco Franco’s 1936 military uprising, he later distanced himself from Franco's regime and in 1957 left for a 20-year exile to Venezuela. His best-known novel Moletu-Voleva, published in Madrid in 1956, a story about lust for money.
Relations between Cuba and Venezuela were established in 1902. The relationship deteriorated in the 1960s and Venezuela broke relations in late 1961 following the Betancourt Doctrine policy of not having ties with governments that had come to power by non-electoral means. A destabilizing factor was the Cuban support for the antigovernment guerrilla force that operates in remote rural areas. Venezuela broke off relations with Cuba after the Machurucuto invasion in 1967, when Cuban trained guerrillas landed in Venezuela seeking to recruit guerrillas and overthrow the government of Raúl Leoni. Relations were reestablished in 1974.
Luis Manuel Miquilena Hernández was a Venezuelan politician. He was involved in politics in the 1940s, and again after the 1958 restoration of democracy, but retired from politics in 1964 until the early 1990s, pursuing a career in business. He was then an early supporter of Hugo Chávez' post-1992 political career, and was the Venezuelan Minister of Interior and Justice from 2001 to 2002, when he resigned.
The Republic of Venezuela was a democratic republic first established in 1958, and replaced in 1999 by the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela. Venezuela saw ten years of military dictatorship from 1948 to 1958. After the 1948 Venezuelan coup d'état brought an end to a three-year experiment in democracy, a triumvirate of military personnel controlled the government until 1952, when it held presidential elections. These were free enough to produce results unacceptable to the government, leading them to be falsified and to one of the three leaders, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, assuming the Presidency. His government was brought to an end by the 1958 Venezuelan coup d'état, which saw the advent of democracy with a transitional government under Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal in place until the December 1958 elections. Prior to the elections, three of the main political parties, Acción Democrática, COPEI and Unión Republicana Democrática, with the notable exclusion of the Communist Party of Venezuela, signed up to the Puntofijo Pact power-sharing agreement.
Miguel Ángel Quevedo y de la Lastra was the publisher and editor of Bohemia Magazine, the most popular news-weekly of its day in Cuba and Latin America, known for its political journalism and editorial writing.
José Nucete Sardi was a Venezuelan historian, journalist and diplomat. He was born in Mérida and died in Caracas. He was married to Julia Salas Ruiz, daughter of the illustrious intellectual Julio Cesar Salas, with whom he had four daughters.
Fabricio Ojeda was a Venezuelan journalist, politician, and guerrilla leader. He was the President of the Patriotic Junta that organised the movement to end Marcos Pérez Jiménez' dictatorship (1952-1958), and was then elected to the Venezuelan Chamber of Representatives for the Democratic Republican Union (URD), before becoming a leader of the Armed Forces of National Liberation (FALN). He died in custody in 1966 after committing suicide.
A military dictatorship ruled Venezuela for ten years, from 1948 to 1958. After the 1948 Venezuelan coup d'état brought an end a three-year experiment in democracy, a triumvirate of military personnel controlled the government until 1952, when it held presidential elections. These were free enough to produce results unacceptable to the government, leading them to be falsified, and to one of the three leaders, Marcos Pérez Jiménez, assuming the Presidency. His government was brought to an end by the 1958 Venezuelan coup d'état which saw the advent of democracy, with a transition government under Admiral Wolfgang Larrazábal in place until the December 1958 elections. Prior to the elections, three of the main political parties signed up to the Punto Fijo Pact power-transition agreement.
Alba Calderón de Gil was an Ecuadorian social realist painter, leftist activist, and feminist. She founded the movement for the recognition of women's rights in Ecuador.