April 25, 2018

Last week, on April 19, 59 years of Castro rule ended in the Caribbean Island nation of Cuba. In January 1959, Communist revolutionary leader Fidel Castro took control of Cuba. Castro dominated Cuban life and politics until February 2008, when he handed power to his younger brother, Raúl. Raúl Castro continued his brother’s legacy, ruling Cuba until his planned retirement last week at age 86. Miguel Díaz-Canel, the 57-year old first vice president, became Cuba’s new president.

The Castro brothers controlled Cuba’s government for about 59 years. Fidel, right, ruled the nation from 1959 to 2008, when Raúl, left, succeeded him. Raúl stepped down as president in 2018. Credit: © Reuters/Landov

The end of Castro Cuba is significant historically, but it does not represent a significant change for the nation or its people. Díaz-Canel has promised to continue longstanding Castro policies as well as the nation’s one-party Communist system. Raúl Castro will continue as leader of Cuba’s Communist Party until 2021.

Miguel Díaz-Canel became president of Cuba in April 2018. Credit: Public Domain

The Castro era in Cuba began in 1953, when Fidel, a young lawyer, started a revolution against the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. The rebellion failed, however, and Fidel and Raúl were captured and imprisoned. The Castro brothers were released from prison in 1955, and they started another revolution in 1956. In 1957, the rebel forces gained momentum in Cuba as Batista’s power faltered. By mid-1958, Batista’s government had lost the support of most Cubans as well as the government of the nearby United States.

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Cuba. Credit: WORLD BOOK map

On Jan. 1, 1959, Batista fled Cuba. Castro’s rebel forces then took control of the government and Fidel Castro became prime minister (and later president). Communist reforms and Castro’s dictatorial rule soured Cuba’s relations with the United States. A U.S. economic embargo on Cuba began in 1960, and diplomatic relations between the countries were severed in 1961. Tensions between Cuba and the United States then remained high for many years. No real attempts were made to reconcile the countries while Fidel Castro remained in power. After Raúl Castro became president in 2008, U.S. President Barack Obama encouraged friendlier ties with Cuba, and the two countries officially resumed diplomatic relations in 2015.

November 28, 2016

Early this morning, November 28, tens of thousands of Cubans began lining up ahead of a mass gathering in Havana’s Revolution Square to honor the life of former dictator and president, Fidel Castro. Castro, a guerrilla leader who led a Communist revolution in Cuba and ruled the island from 1959 to 2008, died on Friday, November 25, at the age of 90. Castro’s younger brother, Raúl, has ruled Cuba since 2008.

Cuban President Fidel Castro. Credit: © AP Photo

Castro was cremated on Saturday, November 26. An urn containing his ashes is on display in Havana, the capital, until late tomorrow night. From there, a cortege will carry Castro’s remains 750 miles (1,200 kilometers) to a final resting place in Santiago de Cuba, the city in eastern Cuba where Castro launched the revolution. Castro will be buried on Sunday, December 4, ending the government’s nine-day period of mourning.

After word of Castro’s death spread on Friday, music was quieted in the capital, and flags were lowered to half-staff. The government temporarily banned alcohol sales and suspended the professional baseball season. Commenting carefully on the controversial Castro, U.S. President Barack Obama said it was up to history to “record and judge the enormous impact of this singular figure on the people and world around him.” Obama also reassured Cubans that they would always “have a friend and partner in the United States of America.” Conversely, U.S. President-elect Donald Trump called Castro “a brutal dictator who oppressed his own people for nearly six decades.” Trump has pledged to “reverse” the efforts of the Obama administration to normalize relations between Cuba and the United States.

Fidel Castro was born on Aug. 13, 1926, in Biran, near Mayari, Cuba. He graduated with a law degree from the University of Havana in 1950 and briefly practiced law in the capital. In 1952, he ran for election to the Cuban House of Representatives. But troops led by former president Fulgencio Batista halted the election and ended democracy in Cuba.

As a result of Batista’s actions, Castro tried to start a revolution against the Batista dictatorship. On July 26, 1953, Castro’s forces attacked the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Castro was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison. Batista released him in 1955, however. Castro then formed the 26th of July Movement, a group of revolutionaries named after the date of his first revolt. He then went into exile in Mexico. Castro’s forces landed in Cuba in December 1956. Many rebels were killed, and Castro and other survivors fled to the Sierra Maestra, a mountain range in southeast Cuba. People from the surrounding countryside joined the rebellion. Batista fled from Cuba on Jan. 1, 1959, and Castro took control of the government.

Castro seized property owned by Americans and other foreigners as well as Cubans. In 1960, the Castro government took over United States oil refineries in Cuba. The United States then stopped buying Cuban sugar. Castro responded by taking over all United States businesses in Cuba.

Castro supported a number of revolutionary movements in South America, Central America, and Africa. The Castro government provided improved education and health facilities for many Cubans. But the economy often was troubled. In the early 1960′s, Cuba began depending heavily on the Soviet Union for economic support. This support ended in 1991, when the Soviet Union was dissolved. Castro vowed that Cuba would remain a Communist country. However, in the early 1990′s, Cuba undertook limited reforms that loosened state control over parts of the country’s economy.

In the 2010′s, relations improved significantly between Cuba and the United States. The U.S. government under President Obama eased some economic and travel restrictions regarding Cuba. The Cuban government made it easier for Cubans to leave the country. It also released some prisoners considered political dissidents (people who disagree with the government). In 2015, Cuba and the United States reopened their foreign embassies in each other’s capitals, officially restoring diplomatic relations after more than 50 years. In 2016, Obama visited Cuba and met with President Raúl Castro. It was the first visit by a sitting U.S. president in almost 90 years.

March 22, 2016

On Sunday afternoon, March 20, U.S. President Barack Obama arrived on Air Force One with the First Family for a three-day visit to Havana, Cuba. Obama’s arrival made him the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country since Calvin Coolidge in 1928. The historic visit is the latest step in the accelerating rapprochement (renewal of friendly relations) between Cuba and the United States. The president and his family toured Old Havana in the rain and met with Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who has been a key part of the negotiations bringing the nations back together.

U.S. President Barack Obama meets with Cuban President Raúl Castro at the Revolution Palace on March 21, 2016, in Havana, Cuba.
Credit: © Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP Photo

On Monday, Obama laid a wreath at the memorial to Cuban national hero José Julián Martí in the Plaza de la Revolución. A military honor guard then welcomed Obama to the Revolution Palace, where he met Cuban President Raúl Castro. The two leaders discussed trade and political reforms aimed at lifting longstanding U.S. sanctions against the Communist island country. Obama pressed Castro to provide greater Internet access for Cubans, while the Cuban delegation repeated the goal of reclaiming Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, which has been under formal U.S. control since 1903.

Today, March 22, Obama is to address the Cuban people on live television before joining President Castro for an exhibition game between the Tampa Bay Rays of Major League Baseball (MLB) and the Cuban National Team at Havana’s Estadio Latinoamericano. The Rays’ visit to Cuba is the first by an MLB team since the Baltimore Orioles played a similar exhibition in 1999. President Obama will then fly to Buenos Aires, Argentina, for his first visit with President Mauricio Macri.

September 22, 2015

Pope Francis stands with Cuba’s president, Raúl Castro, in the Revolution Palace in Havana, Cuba, on September 20, 2015. Francis and Castro met in Cuba’s seat of government for a state meeting. Credit: © Tony Gentile, AP Photo

Pope Francis celebrated Mass on Monday, September 21, before more than 100,000 people in the eastern Cuban city of Holguín. Francis arrived in the Caribbean nation on Saturday, September 19, meeting with President Raúl Castro and his famous older brother, Fidel. Francis held Mass on Sunday in Havana’s Revolution Square, the scene of many blustery Castro speeches in the past. The Pope’s visit came at a time of political change between Cuba and the United States—change brought on largely by Francis himself. The Pope played an important intermediary role in the rapprochement (renewal of friendly relations) between the two countries earlier this year. For the first time since 1961, Cuba and the United States have open embassies in each other’s capital cities—Havana and Washington, D.C., respectively.

A native of Argentina, Francis and his words carry tremendous weight throughout largely Catholic Latin America. Huge crowds of people attended his spiritual sermons, but—to the disappointment of some anti-Castro dissidents—Francis was careful not to directly criticize the Cuban government. He did, however, get in a few veiled shots. Francis targeted the Communist—rather than “Christian”—ideals that have dominated Cuba since 1959.  “Service is never ideological,” he said, “for we do not serve ideas. We serve people.” He also offered an embrace to all “those who, for various reasons, I will not be able to meet,” a reference to political prisoners, exiles, and others unable to freely attend the papal gatherings. Today, Pope Francis leaves Cuba for the United States.

Other World Book articles and Behind the headlines

• Cuba In From the Cold-July 21, 2015
• The Cold War’s Last Front: The United States and Cuba (2000-a Special report)
• Cuba (1958-a Back in time article)
• Cuba (1959-a Back in time article)
• Cuba (1962-a Back in time article)

December 18, 2014

The United States will restore full diplomatic relations with Cuba and open an embassy in Havana for the first time in more than a half-century, U.S. President Barack Obama announced yesterday in a nationally televised statement from the White House. The agreement to set aside more than 50 years of hostility and forge a new relationship between the United States and Cuba was negotiated during 18 months of secret talks fostered by Pope Francis and largely hosted by Canada.

Pope Francis (AP Photo)

On December 16, President Barack Obama and President Raul Castro of Cuba spoke for more than 45 minutes by telephone. “We agreed to end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interests and instead we will begin to normalize relations between our two countries,” stated President Obama. [The deal will] “begin a new a chapter among the nations of the Americas” [and move beyond] “rigid policy that’s rooted in events that took place before most of us were born.” The warming between the two countries came with the release of an American contractor, Alan P. Gross, who has held in a Cuban prison for five years. Cuba exchanged the contractor for three Cuban spies who had been in an American prison since 2001.

U.S. President Barack Obama (White House photo)

Raúl Castro, left, with his brother Fidel Castro. © Reuters/Landov

The United States severed diplomatic relations with Cuba in January 1961 after the government of Fidel Castro had seized various U.S.-owned assets in Cuba and nationalized them. The United States had placed an economic embargo on Cuba three months earlier. The embargo banned nearly all U.S. exports to the island nation. It has been in place for 53 years. Before the boycott, Cuba–which is only 90 miles (145 kilometers) from Key West, Florida–was a favorite destination of American tourists.

Additional World Book articles:

• Bay of Pigs Invasion
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• The Cold War’s Last Front: The United States and Cuba
• Cuba 1960 (a Back in Time article)
• Cuba 1961 (a Back in Time article)
• Cuba 1962 (a Back in Time article)

March 26, 2012

Pope Benedict XVI, head of the Roman Catholic Church, continued his visit of Latin America, leaving Mexico for Cuba. The 84-year-old pontiff, who was elected pope in 2005 after the death of Pope John Paul II, is visiting Spanish-speaking Latin America for the first time. (Pope Benedict visited Portuguese-speaking Brazil in 2007.) Mexico, in which more than 75 percent of the people are Roman Catholics, has the second-largest Catholic congregation in the world, after Brazil.

In March 2012, Pope Benedict XVI visited Mexico and Cuba, where he celebrated Mass before hundreds of thousands of Roman Catholics. (Courtesy of Franco Origlia, Getty Images)

Pope Benedict used his visit to Mexico both to address the faithful and to speak out on political issues several months before the July 1, 2012, presidential election. Upon his arrival on March 23 in Silao, in central Guanajuato state, the pope condemned the drug-related violence that has left some 50,000 people dead in northern Mexico over the past five years. He urged the people to renounce the “idolatry of money” that fuels the drug trade. On March 24, the pope had a private meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon, whose crackdown on the drug cartels has been central to his administration. The two leaders discussed such issues as climate change and organized crime.

On March 25, the pontiff led an open-air Mass beside the Christ the King monument at Bicentennial Park, near Silao. A crowd of some 500,000 people had gathered from across the nation, thousands of them camping out in the field at night, to see the pope.

In Cuba, the pope was scheduled to preside at two public Masses during his three-day visit. Pope Benedict’s plane landed in the southeastern city of Santiago de Cuba on the afternoon of March 26. He was scheduled to arrive in the capital, Havana, on March 27, where he was to celebrate Mass in Revolution Plaza. Although Communist Cuba was officially an atheist state until the 1990′s, an estimated 40 percent to 60 percent of the island nation’s people are Catholics. However, few Cuban Catholics practice openly.

Benedict’s visit was expected to boost tourism to Cuba, where President Raul Castro, who was elected in 2008, has enacted free market reforms allowing people to establish private businesses. The pope has urged Cuban leaders to abandon the country’s decades-old Marxist system, which he says “no longer corresponds to reality.”