The Cuban Revolution was a military and political effort to overthrow the government of Cuba between 1953 and 1959. It began after the 1952 Cuban coup d'état which placed Fulgencio Batista as head of state. After failing to contest Batista in court, Fidel Castro organized an armed attack on the Cuban military's Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953. The rebels were arrested and while in prison formed the 26th of July Movement (M-26-7). After gaining amnesty the M-26-7 rebels organized an expedition from Mexico on the Granma yacht to invade Cuba. In the following years the M-26-7 rebel army would slowly defeat the Cuban army in the countryside, while its urban wing would engage in sabotage and rebel army recruitment. Over time the originally critical and ambivalent Popular Socialist Party would come to support the 26th of July Movement in late 1958. By the time the rebels were to oust Batista the revolution was being driven by the Popular Socialist Party, 26th of July Movement, and the Revolutionary Directorate of March 13.
Fidel Castro and his men in the Sierra Maestra
Estrada Palma in 1899
Fidel Castro under arrest after the July 1953 attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba
Student protests in Havana, 1956
Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar was a Cuban military officer and politician who served as the elected president of Cuba from 1940 to 1944 and as a military dictator from 1952 until his overthrow in the Cuban Revolution in 1958.
A young Batista
The Pentarchy of 1933 was a five-man Presidency of Cuba, including José M. Irisari, Porfirio Franca, Guillermo Portela, Ramón Grau, and Sergio Carbó. Batista (on the far right) controlled the armed forces.
Batista (left) with his first wife Elisa Godinez-Gómez on a 1938 visit to Washington, D.C., greeting the Cuban ambassador, Pedro Fraga
Slum (bohio) dwellings in Havana, Cuba in 1954, just outside Havana baseball stadium. In the background is advertising for a nearby casino.