Fidel's full name is Fidel Castro Ruz.
He is the communist leader of Cuba since 1959.
Fidel's father, Angel Castro y Argiz,
immigrated from Spain. His mother was Lina Ruz González.
Growing up, Fidel was a revolutionary with
a busy schedule. In 1947, he tried to overthrow the government of
the Dominican Republic, in 1948 it was the government of Colombia,
in 1953 it was dictator Fulgencio Batista in Cuba.
Batista exiled Fidel Castro. Fidel went
to Mexico, reflected, and came back to Cuba in 1956 together with
his brother Raul and Ernesto “Che” Guevara to fight
dictator Batista as guerrillas.
The Cuban
Revolution was successful. Batista packed his bags in 1959
and escaped to Spain. It is said that Fidel's 800 men defeated
Batista's 30,000 men.
Once in power, Fidel put Communism on the menu. All Western and
capitalist ideas were rooted out.
It got hot when Fidel Castro snuggled up
with the Soviet Union. The US government gave Cuban exiles some
weapons and told them to go back and get rid of Fidel. They arrived
in the
Bay of Pigs in 1961 and Fidel had them for breakfast.
Then it got really prickly when news got out
that Fidel was able to target US cities with nuclear weapons. This
was the
Cuban Missile Crisis that made JFK a hero.
The Cuban Missile Crisis got solved when the Soviet Union
promised to remove their weapons from Cuba and the US promised
to remove their weapons from Turkey and leave Fidel the heck alone.
Later, Fidel Castro showed up with his troops in Angola and
Ethiopia.
In 1980, Fidel let 125,000 immigrants
out of the country at once, a time for which US immigration officers
are still grateful.
In 1993, Fidel Castro's daughter,
Alina Fernandez, immigrated too. But is there any proof of her blood
relation? We wonder about that.
