THIS MONTH IN HISTORY ANNIVERSARIES
After eight days traversing Cuba, the 32-year-old revolutionary Fidel Castro was finally in sight of the Caribbean island’s capital city, Havana. A week before, Cuba’s much-loathed dictator, Fulgencio Batista, had fled the country, taking everybody by surprise. Expectations were at fever pitch as cameras relayed every step of Castro’s convoy to Cubans glued to their televisions. On 8 January, he arrived to rapturous crowds who clambered atop the capital’s American-made automobiles, acclaiming the triumph of the Cuban Revolution.
Years earlier, on 26 July 1953, Castro, along with his brother Raúl, had spearheaded a botched uprising that landed them both in jail. Released as part of an amnesty two years later, they regrouped in Mexico where they befriended the Argentinian Marxist Ernesto ‘Ché’ Guevara, and formed a guerrilla organisation called the 26th July Movement. In December 1956, they returned to Cuba and eventually established a base within the Sierra Maestra mountains.