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Setting the scene
By 1950s, Cuba was a playground for American tourists and mafia, with Havana's casinos and brothels generating profits for U.S. corporations and dictator Fulgencio Batista, who had seized power in a 1952 coup. The island had stark inequality—sugar plantations owned by Americans, while rural peasants lived in poverty. Fidel Castro, a young lawyer who had led a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953, was imprisoned then exiled to Mexico. There he met Argentine doctor Che Guevara, and they planned a revolution with 82 men aboard the yacht Granma.
What happened
On December 2, 1956, Castro's group landed in Cuba and was nearly wiped out, with only 12 survivors fleeing to the Sierra Maestra mountains. From there, they waged a guerrilla war, gaining peasant support through land reform promises. Batista's army, corrupt and demoralized, crumbled. The United States, initially supporting Batista, imposed an arms embargo in 1958. On January 1, 1959, Batista fled Cuba with $300 million. Castro's forces entered Havana on January 8 to massive crowds. The revolution was initially popular in the U.S., with Castro appearing on American TV.
Why it still matters
The Cuban Revolution created the first communist state in the Western Hemisphere, 90 miles from Florida. Castro nationalized U.S. properties worth $1 billion in 1960, prompting a U.S. embargo that continues today. The revolution led to the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, bringing the world to the brink of nuclear war. Cuba became a Soviet client state, sending troops to Angola and Ethiopia. The revolution's legacy is complex—Cuba achieved universal healthcare and education but at the cost of political repression and economic stagnation. It inspired leftist movements across Latin America and remains a symbol of anti-American resistance.
Background
It quickly became a flashpoint in Cold War politics.