Birth of Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro was born on 13 August 1926 in Birán. A Cuban revolutionary and politician, Castro was a lawyer who led an unsuccessful attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953 and later organised a guerrilla campaign from the Sierra Maestra with his brother Raúl and Che Guevara. The rebels overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista in January 1959, and Castro became prime minister, then president. He turned Cuba into a one-party socialist state allied with the Soviet Union, a move that led to the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962 and a long American embargo. His government achieved gains in health and education but suppressed dissent. He handed power to his brother in 2006.

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