Portal:Cuba

The Havana Plan Piloto was a 1955–1958 urban proposal by Town Planning Associates, which included Paul Lester Wiener, Paul Schulz, the Catalan architect Josep Lluis Sert, and Seely Stevenson of Value & Knecht, Consulting Engineers, seeking to combine "architecture, planning, and law". The Charter got its name from the location of the fourth CIAM conference in 1933, which, due to the deteriorating political situation in Russia, took place on the "in SS Patris II" bound for Athens from Marseille. This conference is documented in a film commissioned by Sigfried Giedion and made by his friend László Moholy-Nagy. The Charter had a significant impact on urban planning after World War II and, through Josep Lluis Sert and Paul Lester Wiener, on the proposed modernization of Havana and in an effort to erase all vestiges of the 16th-century city. The plan was abandoned and was not made. (Full article...)

• ... that the 1919 foxtrot song "I'll See You in C-U-B-A" was an example of Cuba being perceived as "America's playground"?
• ... that Bob Barrabee studied tobacco farming in Cuba and played in the NFL in the same year?
• ... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?
• ... that a hypothesized land bridge may have allowed some fish species to migrate from South America to Cuba?

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as prime minister from 1959 to 1976 and president from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the first secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1965 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and socialist reforms were implemented throughout society.

Born in Birán, the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist and anti-imperialist ideas while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban president Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, Castro travelled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother, Raúl Castro, and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's prime minister. The United States came to oppose Castro's government and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic embargo, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis—a defining incident of the Cold War—in 1962. (Full article...)

Manuel Urrutia Lleó (Latin American Spanish: [maˈnwel uˈrutja ʝeˈo]; December 8, 1901 – 5 July 1981) was a liberal Cuban lawyer and politician. He campaigned against the Gerardo Machado government and the dictatorial second presidency of Fulgencio Batista during the 1950s, before serving as president in the revolutionary government of 1959. Urrutia resigned his position after only seven months, owing to a series of disputes with revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, and emigrated to the United States shortly afterward. (Full article...)

• ... that the United States, aided by Cuban forces, captured Guantánamo Bay (pictured) from the Spanish on June 10, 1898, during the Spanish–American War?

• ...that JMWAVE was the codename for a United States covert operations and intelligence gathering station in Miami, Florida created in 1961 to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro?

• ...that the Isle of Youth, off the southern coast of the main island of Cuba, is the largest of the 350 islands in the Canarreos Archipelago, and is a special municipality of Cuba?

• ...that groups opposed to Fidel Castro initiated seven terrorist attacks in Los Angeles during 1975 against various targets including a radio station that had just announced the showing of a Cuban film, "Lucia."?

• ...that Cuban Olympic athlete Alberto Juantorena's second name literally is Danger, and he is the only man to win an Olympic gold medal in both the 400 metres and 800 metres track events?