Cuban Americans Rejoice

 Fidel Alejandro Castro was born on August 13, 1926. He was a Cuban dictator, politician, and revolutionary who was President of Cuba from 1976 to 2008. Castro turned the country into a Marxist-Leninist and Cuban nationalist. He was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba until 2011. Under his rule, Cuba became a one-party socialist state and state socialist reforms were put in place throughout the country.

Fidel Castro was born to a wealthy farmer in Biran. It was during his years as a student studying to become an attorney when he developed his ideals as a leftist anti-imperialist. He was attending the University of Havana. He began his “political” career by rebelling against right-wing governments in Colombia. After a few tumultuous years following an unsuccessful overthrow of the government, a year in prison, and moving to Mexico, he came together with his brother Raul Castro and Che Guevara to play an important role in the Cuban Revolution. It was during this time that they overthrew Batista in 1959 and Fidel Castro took on the role as Cuba’s Prime Minister.

Fidel Castro created the one-party socialist state under the Communist Party Rule, which was the first and only country in the Western hemisphere to do so. These actions began to seriously frighten America, especially under developing relationships between Cuba and the Soviet Union. The United States tried multiple times to assassinate Castro. A huge mission of the American military to invade Cuba and overthrow the government of Fidel Castro in 1961, but failed. This failed attempt only served to strengthen the ties between Cuba and the Soviet Union. In 1962 Castro allowed the Soviet’s to keep some of their nuclear weapons on the island. This was the Cuban Missile Crisis and a milestone in the Cold War.

Fidel Castro retired in 2008. His health began to deteriorate. The government of Cuba refused to admit that anything was wrong with him, but many people believed he had diverticulitis, which is a digesting disease when areas within the bowel wall become inflamed that cause diarrhea, nausea, constipation and fever. Castro’s final meeting with foreign leaders took place in late October of 2016 with the President of Portugal, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. On November 26, 2016 the Cuban news announced that Fidel Castro had passed. His brother, and current President of Cuba, Raul Castro stated, “The commander in chief of the Cuban revolution died at 22:29 this evening.” His cause of death has not yet been released, but he will be cremated. Exiled Cubans began to flood the streets in America to celebrate the news.