Cuba was discovered by Cristobal Colon in 1492. It was settled nine years later in 1511 by his son Diego Colon who founded the city of Santiago three years later. Its original inhabitants the Arawak Indians were wiped out by the Spaniards. Cuba remained under Spanish rule for the next four centuries. Except for a brief period of British occupation in the eighteenth century.rhodes
Cuba's independence came about when the United States won the Spanish American War in 1898 and granted Cuba independence in 1902 after four years of U.S. occupation. The Platt Amendment was the price the Cuban rebels paid to get a withdrawal of U.S. troops. This amendment, grafted into the Cuban constitution of 1902, guaranteed the right of the U.S. to intervene in Cuban affairs to protect U.S. interests on the island. During the next thirty two years the U.S. continuously intervened in Cuban internal affairs.

In 1944, Batista is defeated in a fair election and Grau San Martin is elected President. In 1948 Grau's successor Carlos Prio Socarras is elected President. During the Autentico regime's rule political gangsterism swept through Cuba and shook Cuban society to its very core. According to the constitution of 1940 the University of Havana was an area in which civil and millitary police were not allowed. The result was that these political gangsters were able to murder with impunity and use the University as refuge from the authorities. These groups were used by the Autentico's to wipe out communist infiltration of the Unions. The situation worsened under Prio Socarras to the point that Fulgencio Batista was able to justify a coup de etat which took place on March 10, 1952. One of these political gangsters Fidel Castro would plan an ill fated attack on the Moncada barracks on July 26, 1953. Thanks to Batista's abrogation of the constitution and an economic downturn in the 1950's opposition to Batista begins to grow. Less than two years after the failed attack, Batista declares an amnesty in which the Castro brothers are released from prison. Castro leaves for Mexico to train and organize. He returns on the Granma and lands in Cuba. Taking up residence in the Sierra Maestra. Four months later the Directorio Revolucionario assaults the Presidential palace, but fails in assassinating Batista and are crushed. Leaving Castro's July 26 movement as the main opposition group. Nearly a year later a general strike fails. Towards the end of 1958 the United States under the Eisenhower Administration began an arms embargo on the Batista Regime which is interpreted as U.S. support for Fidel Castro and his revolutionaries.
On January 1, 1959 Batista leaves Cuba and Castro takes over Cuba's government. During the next year and a half Fidel Castro consolidates power and siezes properties. Castro allies himself with the Soviet Union. Due to the residual anti-Americanism left over from the Platt-Amendment the Cuban people enthusiastically support Castro's independence from the United States. In 1961 Cuban exiles trained and armed by the C.I.A. formed Brigade 2506 which landed at the "Playa de Giron" otherwise known as the Bay of Pigs. Due to leaks within the State Department the Cuban government had for knowledge of the invasion. In addition to preserve "plausible deniability" the Kennedy administration renegged on its pledge of air and naval support. Cuban exile troops were left on the beaches to get shot up and or imprisoned. A number of American pilots refused to abandon them and died in action. Due to this fiasco and the Kennedy administration's percieved or actual indecisiveness the USSR believed that it could place offensive missiles in Cuba. This would alter the strategic balance of power. In 1962, Soviet nuclear missiles could only reach Western Europe; while the United States had ICBM's capable of targeting Soviet territory in the United States as well medium range weapons in Turkey. Missiles in Cuba would give the USSR the ability to accurately target U.S. assets and population centers.




Many of Castro's policies alienated Cuba from the rest of Latin America. The country was expelled from the OAS in 1962, and through most of the 1960s it was persistently accused of attempting to foment rebellions in Venezuela, Guatemala, and Bolivia. In fact, Ernesto Che Guevara, a key Castro aide, was captured and summarily executed while leading a guerrilla group in Bolivia in 1967. Meanwhile, Cuba continued to depend heavily on economic aid from the Soviet Union and Soviet-bloc countries. In 1972 it signed several pacts with the USSR covering financial aid, trade, and deferment of Cuban debt payments, and also became a member of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (COMECON).

In 1966 the Cuban Adjustment Act was signed into law. Over a million and a half Cubans sought political refuge in the United States. Building an enclave of economic and cultural power in Miami which has changed the face of South Florida. Cuban exiles organized into a huge umbrella of political and para-millitary organizations throughout this period. Groups such as Alpha 66, Commandos L, and Omega 7 targeted Castro agents abroad and millitary and security targets inside the island. In the 1970's Cuba embarked on millitary adventurism in Africa and Latin America. Angola, Ethiopia, Nicaragua, and El Salvador just to name a few nations would experience revolutionary "struggles" aided and abetted by Cuban arms and or Cuban troops. In 1980, Cubans seeking freedom invaded the Peruvian embassy in Havana. The resulting wave of refugees came to be kn own as the Mariel boatlift. Castro in a cynical attempt to taint the exiles mixed in mental patients, homosexuals, and criminals into the mass of refugees. These elements totalled less than 5% of the over 125,000 Cubans that entered the U.S.A. During the Reagan Administration, Radio Marti began to operate. This terminated Castro's monopoly on information. As a result human rights, and dissident groups began to gain strength and momentum. The knowledge that somone out their could know the truth filled them with hope and energy. The collapse of the USSR in 1991 placed the Castro regime in dire straits. It's economy shrank by more than 60% as its Soviet subsidies dried up. During this special period Castro issued a new mantra for a weary populace: Socialism or Death. The Cuban people answered by taking to the ocean in innertubes and risking death on the high seas. In addition some of the banners proclaiming socialism or death were vandalized to read socialism is death. On July 13, 1994 a group composed of primarily women and children was attacked by the Cuban coast guard. According to eyewitness accounts the women begged for the lives of their children and the Castro's henchmen responded by using high pressure hoses to wash women and babies overboard to their deaths. The coastguard then rammed and sank the ship. A month later, on August 5, 1994, this incident sparked uprisings in Havana. Once again Castro offered the people a chance to leave and the rafter crisis overshadowed the uprising. Scores of dissidents and human rights monitors were detained. One year later on July 13, 1995 a group of Cuban exiles traveled into Cuban waters to another those who died, a year earlier in the sinking of the 13 de Marzo. The flotilla's lead boat Democracia, was rammed by two Cuban gunboats. Crew members were injured. Less than eight months later, on February 24, 1996, two Brothers to the Rescue Planes were shot out of the sky by Cuban MiGs. They had been shceduled to travel to the Bahamas, but thanks to the combined actions of the spy Roque, and the Cuban government they were forced to cancel their flight plan. Roque arrived earlier, with out Brothers To The Rescue's knowledge, and incited the Cuban refugees in the Bahamian camps to riot. The Cuban government decided to send a delegation on February 24. Brothers to the Rescue was told not to land in the Bahamas. Leaving them their back-up plan which was to do a patrol in the Florida straits for Cuban rafters near the 24th parallel. They were assassinated in a premeditated fashion by the Cuban government. The Cuban government botched the assassination with their failure to blow Jose Basulto's plane out of the sky. Thus, they were unable to turn Roque into a survivor and witness of Brothers to the Rescue's intentions. rhodes

Havana Club rum is an integral part of Cuba's traditions and classic cocktails,
such as the Cuba Libre, Daiquiri and Mojito, to name a few.

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba consists of the island of Cuba (the largest of the Greater Antilles), the Isle of Youth and adjacent small islands. Cuba is located in the northern Caribbean at the confluence of the Caribbean Sea, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Cuba is south of the eastern United States and the Bahamas, west of the Turks and Caicos Islands and Haiti and east of Mexico. The Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south.

Havana (La Habana) is the largest city in the Caribbean and the center of all things Cuban. Despite its turbulent history, Havana suffered little damage in the wars and revolutions, and stands today much as it was built. There's an air faded glory about the city as big 50s and 60s American automobiles still dominate the streets and paint and plaster peel off everywhere. The city is peppered with glorious Spanish colonial architecture, much of which is under restoration. Havana has a swinging nightlife, with cinemas, historic theatres, cabarets, nightclubs and music venues that will exhaust even the most hardened campaigner.

The town of Pinar Del Rio is the land of hummocks, valleys nestled among mountains and diverse flora and fauna, Cuba's westernmost province offers visitors natural attractions and the world's best tobacco land.


Holguin Cuba - Parque Calixto-Garcia is the center of attention of the town with its many art galleries and museum. The Museo Provincial La Periquera is devoted to the history of the town and is housed in the former residence of a wealthy local merchant. ( rhodes )

Varadero is the most famous beach in Cuba and the most famous sun and sand destination. It’s a mixture of many dreams, earlier perspectives, later on became projects and eventually facts. At this paradisiacal point of the Cuban geography the visitor will find hotels, cabarets, restaurants, nautical offers, golf, and a bunch of options to make him feel at ease.

Camaguey - The city is the headquarters of the government of the province, as well as of all the political institutions, states and not governmental.The city relies on several museums, like the Provincial Museum "Ignacio Agramonte", the Museum of The Secret Fight "Jesus Suaréz Gayol", and the Native House of The Senior, as well as with the Provincial Library "Julio Antonio Mella".