Bits of Cuban History

Rubén Fulgencio Batista y Zaldívar (1901-1973)

President of Cuba, 1940-44 and 1952-58 and Cuban strong man from the Sergeants’ revolt of 1933 to the Revolution of 1959. Born in Banes, Oriente province, January 16, the son of a sugar cutter, he spent his early years in poverty and attended a Quaker missionary school. After leaving school he worked as a tailor’s apprentice, cane-field …

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Yellow Fever (fiebre amarilla; vómito negro)

A mosquito-borne disease with high mortality whose urban form probably crossed the Atlantic through the African slave trade, yellow fever was known in Havana by 1720, possibly by l647. The native Cuban population soon acquired a degree of immunity and serious outbreaks were mostly associated with a big influx of immigrants or visitors. The 6,008 …

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Benjamin Sumner Welles (1892-1962)

United States career diplomat with wide Latin American experience, appointed assistant secretary of state by the Franklin Roosevelt administration in early 1933. Roosevelt and his Secretary of state Cordell Hull decided to send Sumner Wells to Cuba as US ambassador to mediate between President Gerardo Machado and the opposition.  Appointed April 24, 1933, Welles arrived …

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Machadato. The Presidential term of Gerardo Machado y Morales

Gerardo Machado y Morales (1871-1939). President of Cuba, 1925-1933, was born in Santa Clara and spent his childhood in the family cattle estate, attended private schools and in his early 20s engaged in growing and selling tobacco.  His father fought for the rebels in the Ten Years’ War, becoming a major, and Gerardo joined them …

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Directorio Revolucionario

A December 1955 offshoot of the Federación Estudiantil Universitaria (FEU) at the University of Havana, the Revolutionary Directorate promoted an insurrectionary response to Batista’s repression, and established contact with other opponents of the regime, including Fidel Castro. Its March 1957 attack on the Presidential Palace failed to kill the president, but cost the life of its leader …

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Independence War,1895-1898. (Guerra de Independencia)

Organized by José Martí (who was killed almost immediately), the war began with the Grito de Baire, February 24, 1895, accompanied by risings in various places in Matanzas and Oriente provinces. A prompt response by the governor, accompanied by an amnesty offer, virtually ended the revolt in Matanzas, but the eastern rebels were soon reinforced …

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SPANISH CIVIL WAR

An attempted army pronunciamiento (coup) of July 14, 1936, was frustrated when Spain’s left-wing republican government issued arms to the general population. The result was a three-year war in which the nationalist insurgents owed their eventual victory to direct intervention by Italy, logistical support by Germany, and a British blockade. The republican cause was clamorously …

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