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Birth
Fidel Castro was born August 13, 1926. He was born in the general area of Birán, Cuba. His real name is Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz. -
Schooling
Fidel Castro was an educated man. He attended Roman Catholic boarding schools and a Catholic high school. He went on to get higher education in 1945 where he specialized in politics. -
Rebel
In 1947, Fidel Castro joined a cause to invade and overthrow the Dominican Republic. A year later, he started to take place in riots and protests. This is the time where Casto started to take forms of leadership. -
July 26 Movement
On July 26, 1953 Fidel Castro led an attack on military barracks in eastern Cuba. He was hoping to start an uprising, but it failed and Castro was thrown in prison, alongside his brother, for two years. Castro started getting rebels together once again once he got out of prison. This was called the 26th of July Movement. -
Overthrown
On December 2, 1956, Castro’s revolutionary group were about to attempt an overthrowing of Cuba before all of his group sans nine were killed. These nine survivors, including Castro and his brother, tried to regroup and wage many surprise attack and ambushes against Cuban soldiers. In the end, Castro and his men were victorious and the leader of Cuba at the time, fled on the first of the next year. -
Leader
While slowly easing into power from his newfound political position, Castro decided that he should have the final say of anything in Cuba, declaring himself “president” in July 1959. While contrary to what we think in America, the people of Cuba supported Castro very much, and they thought that he could restore Cuba to what it once was. Of course, Castro also had some less than favored ideals, such as industrializing Cuba and joining many of the worlds trade routes. -
United States Conflict
The United States were highly cautious of Cuba in this time, one reason being that Cuba didn’t want to include The U.S in many of these economic ideals of theirs. After Cuba established a trade agreement with the Soviet Union in February of 1960, America was starting to distrust Cuba much more, cutting off all economic relations that the two had. America did not like where Castro wanted to take the future of his country, so in 1961, America cut off all relations with Cuba, giving them solitude. -
Cuban Missile Crisis
In 1962, Castro slowly begins to upgrade Cuba’s military power. He begins collecting military power from the Soviet Union, which soon becomes as close to a best friend as a country can get. Of course, the Soviet Union feared America, so they were going to use Cuba as a middle man, blowing up many important American locales. America soon found out, and only achieved soviet amnesty once they retracted missiles they had stationed in Turkey, and they swore to stop trying to overthrow Castro’s rule. -
Communistic Flaw
Around the 1980s, Fidel Castro had started to introduce marxism into places such as Africa. Castro also tried to bring back ties with America, though America didn’t want this association because Cuba was still allied with the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union however, collapsed in 1991. Castro still strongly believed in communism though, even when many European countries started establishing democracies. -
Releasing Restrictions
In 1993, Fidel Castro’s daughter started criticising Castro openly once she made it to the states, leaving much political unrest in Cuba until Castro decided to let people immigrate to the U.S, letting thousands finally seek refuge in democracy. -
Venezuelan Aid
In 2003, Castro was “elected” as president for five more years. This led a small group of journalists trying to bad mouth Castro to jail, therefore stopping what people thought was the start of Cuba having a democracy. A year later, Castro and Venezuela found an agreement to trade Cuban healthcare for the oil located in Venezuela, foreshadowing the events yet to come. -
End of an Era
On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro lent his brother Raul all of his Political power due to him having to recover from a recent surgery. Due to Castro not having current political power, it meant the first time in 47 years Cuba had a leader other than Castro.This would continue on because in 2008, Castro official announced he would not attempt another term as president. -
Memoirs
In September, 2010, Castro was to release his first in the set of memoirs he wrote. A controversial topic in these was Castro’s admittance that, “...the Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore.” Many thought that Castro was confessing that communism doesn’t work, yet Castro had a speech a few days later talking about what he truly meant. This speech also let the people hear more about Raul and what he wanted to change with Cuba. -
"Brother Obama"
In March 2016, Castro had a letter published in the paper Granma, titled "Brother Obama", talking about and to Obama after his historic visit to Cuba. Fidel Castro was mad enough to speak in public after staying in seclusion for several years. This letter was reprimanding Obama for how little he appreciated Cuba after all it had done with what it had accomplished, while the U.S was pretending the hostility toward Cuba during the Cold War never happened. -
What Next?
On the 25th of November, 2016, Fidel Castro died in his sleep. His brother Raul Castro broke the news to the public on television, telling them that the former leader of Cuba had passed. Castro was cremated in a private affair the next day with friends and family present.
