This Day In Cuban History

Narciso López (1798-1851), Venezuelan filibuster, considered by some a precursor of Cuba’s independence struggle, but for others and adventurer seeking Cuba’s admission to the United States as a slave state.  Perhaps he did want a free Cuba, but one where slavery would be preserved.  Whatever his motivations, his actions helped arouse anti-Spanish sentiment and paved […]

Eduardo René Chibás y Ribas Agramonte – Founder of the Partido del Pueblo (Ortodoxo). Son of a wealthy Santiago engineer, “Eddy” became a prominent student leader, and one of the originators of the Directorio Estudiantil Universitario (1930s). Graduating in law, his sharp criticism of Gerardo Machado’s government led to imprisonment, December 1931-December 1932, followed by

According to the Baptism Certificate from Santiago de Cuba’s Cathedral, dated January 19, 1935, Fidel Castro was born on August 13, 1926 in Birán, Oriente. At his birth, and for the next seven years, his father, Ángel, was married not to his mother, but to Maria Luisa Argote, a teacher and the mother of Fidel’s

On August 12, 1933, with the Cuban army’s support, the U.S. Ambassador Benjamin Sumner Welles, presented Gerardo Machado a plan for his resignation as President of Cuba. A defiant dictator visited the Columbia Military barracks where he found that he had lost the support of the Army and had to resign. That afternoon Machado left

The death of Frank País. On July 30, 1957, the National Coordinator of the “26 of July Movement,” Frank País was killed by agents of Colonel José María Salas Cañizares, a sociopath that terrorized the youths of Santiago de Cuba. In 1953, Frank began teaching at “El Salvador” school, adjacent to the Second Baptist Church

The Moncada Attack for Fidel Castro, the essence and purpose of his clandestine “movement” was power, therefore the mandatory rules to achieve total control was violence, terror and death. These were the dominant forces driving Castro’s criminal obsession with supreme authority of the government. From the moment Fulgencio Batista became a military dictator, Castro knew

After the destruction of the Spanish warships at the entrance of Santiago’s Harbor, the city was surrounded by U.S. and Cuban troops and the water supply sources at “Cuabitas” were cut off. The Spanish government was in shock. On July 16, 1898, Santiago de Cuba capitulated. It came at the right time for the U.S.