Bits of Cuban History

President of Cuba, 1940-44 and 1952-58 and Cuban strong man from the Sergeants’ revolt of 1933 to the Revolution of 1959. Born in Banes, Oriente province, January 16, the son of a […]

A mosquito-borne disease with high mortality whose urban form probably crossed the Atlantic through the African slave trade, yellow fever was known in Havana by 1720, possibly by l647. The

United States career diplomat with wide Latin American experience, appointed assistant secretary of state by the Franklin Roosevelt administration in early 1933. Roosevelt and his Secretary of state Cordell Hull

Novelist and journalist from Pinar del Rio province, he was a teacher when he developed an interest in literature, publishing in 1837 his short stories “La Peña blanca,” “El Ave

Gerardo Machado y Morales (1871-1939). President of Cuba, 1925-1933, was born in Santa Clara and spent his childhood in the family cattle estate, attended private schools and in his early

A December 1955 offshoot of the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (FEU) at the University of Havana, the Revolutionary Directorate promoted an insurrectionary response to Batista’s repression, and established contact with other opponents of

Organized by José Martí (who was killed almost immediately), the war began with the Grito de Baire, February 24, 1895, accompanied by risings in various places in Matanzas and Oriente

In the late 1960s and early 1970s these “we shall win” brigades consisted of some thousand youths, mainly American, who visited Cuba to help with the sugar harvest, motivated by

Following Cuban confiscation of American petroleum refineries for refusing to process Soviet crude, the United States forbade all exports to Cuba with a temporary exception of certain foods and medicine

An attempted army pronunciamiento (coup) of July 14, 1936, was frustrated when Spain’s left-wing republican government issued arms to the general population. The result was a three-year war in which