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BIOGRAPHY OF CASTRO
August 13, 1926: Fidel Castro is born on his family's sugar plantation in Oriente province in Cuba. From a very wealthy family, young Castro spent many of his early years in Catholic boarding schools.
1945: Castro attends the University of Havana's law school and earns a degree. During his student years, Castro becomes a political activist. He is dedicated to social justice and committed to reform of government, which he views as corrupt.
1947: Castro joins the Ortodoxos party, which has a mandate to bring about peaceful revolutionary change through constitutional means.
1948: Castro attends a Pan-American conference in Bogata, Columbia. The student congress turns violent and many people are killed in the riot. The passion and drama of the event compel Castro to consider guerilla warfare as a means of revolutionary change.
1949: Castro marries Mirta Diaz Balart and has his first son, Fidelito. The marriage lasts only 5 years. Castro gets custody of Fidelito and never re-marries (although he fathers many more children in several common-law relationships).
1950: Fidel Castro opens a private law practice in Havana and devotes himself to helping the poor.
1952: Edauro Chibas, Castro's politician mentor, commits suicide during a radio broadcast. Fidel accompanies him to the hospital.
Castro plans to run for the House of Representatives in the next election but General Batista overthrows Cuba's government in a coup. Castro challenges the new regime in court but is unsuccessful.
1953: Castro puts together a small band of revolutionaries and organizes an armed attack on the Moncada barracks in Oriente province on July 26th. Half of the attackers are killed. Castro and his brother Raul are taken prisoner. He is sentenced to 15 years in prison.
In response to the charges against him Castro gives a speech called 'History will Absolve Me' which becomes the manifesto of his movement.
1955: Fidel Castro is released from prison in a general amnesty. He goes to Mexico and organizes Cuban exiles into a fighting force called the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement. He meets Ernesto 'Che' Guevara, an Argentinean doctor who is dedicated to radical politics and socialist causes.
1956: A group of 82 men launch at attack on the north coast of Oriente province. Only 12 survive and they re-treat in the Sierra Maestra mountains and continue to wage guerilla warfare. The movement grows to 800 men.
Casto's movement grows in popularity as he promises class and farming reforms and an end to Batista's corrupt government.
1958: As the military campaigns continue, the U.S. ceases to support Batista and orders an arms embargo. In May, Batista pushes back with an offensive that he loses.
January 1, 1959: Batista flees Cuba and Castro's small force makes a victorious entry into Havana. Tension with the U.S. government grows as the Cuban government begins to expropriate American-owned properties.
1960: Cuba becomes friendly with the USSR and makes an agreement to buy Russian oil. The U.S. imposes an economic blockade that is still in force today.
1961: Diplomatic relations end with the U.S. A force of 1,300 Cuban exiles, trained and supported by the CIA, attempt to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs. The Cuban army easily defeats the rebels.
1962: The U.S. government discovers that the Soviet Union is setting up long-range ballistic missiles in Cuba. This is perceived as a threat and President Kennedy institutes a naval blockade of Cuba. President Kennedy warns the Russians that if they launch a missile from Cuba, the U.S. will retaliate with full force against them.
On October 24, the Russian ships carrying the missiles turn back and the missile sites in Cuba are dismantled.
Meanwhile, Castro is very popular in Cuba. He institutes sweeping land reforms which give land to the masses of peasants. He nationalizes hundreds of major companies in Cuba which had been previously foreign owned. He also sets up free education and health care for all Cubans.
But the upper and middle class in Cuba grow disillusioned with Castro's plan for the country. Thousands of Cubans risk their lives to escape to the U.S. rather than live in Castro's communist state.
1991: The collapse of communism in the Soviet Union throws Cuba into a domestic crisis. Economic aid ceases and Cuba endures a massive recession. Castro tries to modernize Cuba's economy by allowing some private enterprise.
2000: Elian Gonzalez, a young Cuban boy is the lone survivor of a Cuban refugee boat wreck that claimed his mother's life. His relatives in Miami fight to keep him in the U.S. but Fidel Castro insists that the boy be returned to Cuba to live with his Cuban father. A bitter battle ensues. The U.S. government finally seizes the child from a home in Miami and returns him to Cuba with his father.
2003: Fidel Castro is strongly criticized after he orders the death of three men who had tried to hijack a passenger ferry.
Castro has been with his current common-law wife Dalia Soto del Valle for 30 years and they have 5 sons; Angel, Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis and Alex.
He is now the longest serving leader of any country in the world.
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