Portal:Cuba

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Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the second-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti, with over 11 million inhabitants.

Cuba is one of a few extant socialist states, in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian regime where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. It is a multiethnic country whose people, culture and customs derive from diverse origins, including the Taíno Ciboney peoples, the long period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of enslaved Africans and a close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. (Full article...)

History Will Absolve Me (Spanish: La historia me absolverá) is the title of a two-hour speech made by Fidel Castro on 16 October 1953. Castro made the speech in his own defense in court against the charges brought against him after he led an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Cuba. The speech later became the manifesto of his 26th of July Movement.

Though sentenced to terms of up to 15 years for their roles in the attack, all of the rebels were released after an amnesty granted by Fulgencio Batista in 1955. Castro relocated to Mexico, before returning to Cuba on the Granma yacht in December 1956. (Full article...)
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Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Melissa Fumero is the daughter of Cubans who fled to the U.S. as teenagers?
  • ... that after his release from a hospital for the criminally insane, Richard Dixon burgled $16 from a credit union and hijacked a jet to Cuba?
  • ... that Rudi Kappel, co-founder of the first airline of Suriname, was arrested both on entering and leaving Santiago de Cuba?
  • ... that José Ramón Balaguer fought as a soldier-medic for Fidel Castro's rebel army before becoming Cuba's minister of public health?
  • ... that before his Major League Baseball career, Leo Posada represented Cuba internationally in cycling?
  • ... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?

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The Cuban communist revolutionary and politician Fidel Castro took part in the Cuban Revolution from 1953 to 1959. Following on from his early life, Castro decided to fight for the overthrow of Fulgencio Batista's military junta by founding a paramilitary organization, "The Movement". In July 1953, they launched a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks, during which many militants were killed and Castro was arrested. Placed on trial, he defended his actions and provided his famous "History Will Absolve Me" speech, before being sentenced to 15 years' imprisonment in the Model Prison on the Isla de Pinos. Renaming his group the "26th of July Movement" (MR-26-7), Castro was pardoned by Batista's government in May 1955, claiming they no longer considered him a political threat while offering to give him a place in the government, but he refused. Restructuring the MR-26-7, he fled to Mexico with his brother Raul Castro, where he met with Argentine Marxist-Leninist Che Guevara, and together they put together a small revolutionary force intent on overthrowing Batista.

In November 1956, Castro and 81 revolutionaries sailed from Mexico aboard the Granma, crash-landing near to Los Cayuelos. Attacked by Batista's forces, they fled to the Sierra Maestra mountain range, where the 19 survivors set up an encampment from which they waged guerrilla war against the army. Boosted by new recruits that increased the guerilla army's numbers to 200, they co-ordinated their attacks with the actions of other revolutionaries across Cuba, and Castro became an international celebrity after being interviewed by The New York Times. In 1958, Batista launched a counter-offensive, Operation Verano, but his army's use of conventional warfare was overwhelmed by Castro's guerrilla tactics, and the MR-26-7 eventually pushed out of the Sierra Maestra and took control of most of Oriente and Las Villas. Recognising that he was losing the war, Batista fled to the Dominican Republic while military leader Eulogio Cantillo took control of the country. With revolutionary forces controlling most of Cuba, Castro ordered Cantillo's arrest, before establishing a new government with Manuel Urrutia Lleó as governor and José Miró Cardona as prime minister, ensuring that they enacted laws to erode the power of the Batistanos. (Full article...)

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Bartolomé Maximiliano Moré Gutiérrez (24 August 1919 – 19 February 1963), better known as Benny Moré (also spelled Beny Moré), was a Cuban singer, bandleader and songwriter. Due to his fluid tenor voice and his great expressivity, he was known variously as "El Bárbaro del Ritmo" and "El Sonero Mayor". Moré was a master of the soneo – the art of vocal improvisation in son cubano – and many of his tunes developed this way. He often took part in controversias (vocal duels) with other singers, including Cheo Marquetti and Joseíto Fernández. Apart from son cubano, Moré was a popular singer of guarachas, cha cha cha, mambo, son montuno, and boleros.

Moré started his career with the Trío Matamoros in the 1940s and after a tour in Mexico he decided to stay in the country. Both Moré and dancer Ninón Sevilla made their cinematic debut in 1946's Carita de cielo, but Moré focused on his music career. In the late 1940s, he sang guaracha-mambos with Pérez Prado, achieving great success. Moré returned to Cuba in 1952 and worked with Bebo Valdés and Ernesto Duarte. In 1953, he formed the Banda Gigante, which became one of the leading Cuban big bands of the 1950s. He suffered from alcoholism and died of liver cirrhosis in 1963 at the age of 43. (Full article...)
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A 'maquina' or 'yank tank' in Trinidad, Cuba, 4 January 2004.
A 'maquina' or 'yank tank' in Trinidad, Cuba, 4 January 2004.
Credit: DirkvdM
A maquina or yank tank in Trinidad, Cuba, 2004.

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that La Coubre was a French vessel carrying munitions from the port of Antwerp in 1960, which exploded while it was being unloaded in Havana harbor leaving at least 75 dead?
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José Martí speaking about the power of diplomacy over war before the Spanish–American War, 1891

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