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Cuban Revolution
Fidel Castro successfully led a revolution against President Batista. Once in power he established a Socialist State. -
Bay of Pigs Invasion
CIA sponsored Cuban exiles are sent to Cuba to overthrow Castro. But with limited support the exiles were very quickly defeated, embarrassing the United States. -
Trade Embargo
The United States institutes a complete trade and travel embargo on Cuba. This greatly weakened the economy in Cuba, and according to government officials over 1 trillion dollars was lost over the first 50 years. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
October 14-28, 1962 The Cuban Missile Crisis was one of the most stressful times in American history. It all started with the Soviet Union building a secret nuclear missile base on Cuba. US spy satellites found the base igniting a 13 day standoff. In this time negotiations between the Soviet Union and The United States started. The Soviet Union wanted the US to take their nuclear missiles out of Turkey and Italy, and for the United States to promise they would never invade Cuba. -
Cuban Adjustment Act
The Cuban Adjustment Act was a law passed in 1966 by the United States. The law allowed for people that had fled Cuba and reached the United States an opportunity to get citizenship. After staying for a year the Cuban refugees were allowed to apply for complete citizenship to the United States. To get citizenship the refugees had to show a employment or family based reason for being there, and had to get to the US through a legal port of entry. After this act was passed a lot of Cubans began -
Arrest of the Cuban 5
The Cuban Five were five Cuban counterintelligence officer sent to the United States by Cuba. The names of the five men were Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, Ramón Labañino Salazar, René González Sehwerert, Antonio Guerrero Rodríguez and Fernando González Llort. The men were sent by Castro to infiltrate several Cuban American exile groups based in Miami. They were arrested in 1998 and found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage, conspiracy to commit murder, acting as an agent of a foreign governm -
Cuba and Venezuela Deal
In October of 2000, Cuba and Venezuela made an important economic deal with each other. Venezuela with some of the world’s largest oil reserves agreed to sell oil to Cuba at a discounted price in exchange for a mix of money, goods, and services. Some of those goods and services are doctors, trainers, and teachers. This deal is important because it helped the economy of Cuba, that has been under the grip of the embargo, get moving again. This deal also strengthened ties between Cuba and Venezue -
Fidel Castro Retires
On February 24, 2008 Fidel Castro stepped down as leader of Cuba. He had been suffering a long illness of his colon and underwent several emergency surgeries. After fully recovering he announced his resignation to the Cuban people. He said in a letter to the people of Cuba “I will not aspire to neither will I accept — I repeat I will not aspire to neither will I accept — the position of President of the Council of State and Commander in chief,” ( Fidel Castro). At the time President Bush respon -
Obama Lifts Travel Restrictions
For the first time in decades travel restrictions were loosened on Cuba. Obama made it available for Cuban families to see each other. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said "President Obama has directed that a series of steps be taken to reach out to the Cuban people to support their desire to enjoy basic human rights and to freely determine their country's future”. These were the first steps in over 50 years to bridge the gap between Cuban families. Gibbs also said they wanted a “fre -
Obama Meets Raul Castro in Historic Trip to Cuba
President Obama was the first sitting United States President to visit Cuba in 88 years. The trip was very important because it showed how the US is really trying to get its relationship with Cuba back to normal. Before Obama met with Raul at the Palace of the Revolution he said, "That's the future that we hope for: young American children, young Cuban children, by the time they're adults, our hope is that they think it's natural that a U.S. president should be visiting Cuba,”. This trip was
