Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.
Castro c. 1959
Castro, second from left, at Colegio de Belén, Havana, 1943
Castro intended to overthrow the presidency of General Fulgencio Batista (left, with US Army Chief of Staff Malin Craig, in 1938).
Castro under arrest after the Moncada attack, 1953
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, and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 11 million inhabitants.
Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, conquistador of Cuba
A painting of the British capture of Havana in 1762
Slaves in Cuba unloading ice from Maine, c. 1832
19th century view of Havana