Cuba - Lonely Planet [26]
1903 The controversial Platt Amendment gives the US a 99-year lease on Guantánamo Naval Base, establishing a military presence on the island that continues to this day.
1920 Sharp increases in world sugar prices after WWI spearhead the so-called ‘Dance of the Millions’ in Cuba when huge fortunes are made overnight. A heavy economic crash quickly follows.
1933 The 1933 revolution is sparked by a ‘Sergeant’s Revolt’ that deposes of the Machado dictatorship and installs Fulgencio Batista in power.
1940 Cuba’s 1940 constitution – one of the most progressive in the world at the time – is implemented by President Federico Laredo Brú. Among other liberal measures, it provides for land reform, a minimum wage and a program of public education.
1952 Batista stages a bloodless military coup cancelling the upcoming Cuban elections in which a young ambitious lawyer named Fidel Castro was due to stand.
1953 Castro leads a band of rebels in a disastrous attack on Moncada army barracks in Santiago. Although unsuccessful, he uses his subsequent trial as a platform to expound his future political plans for Cuba.
1955 Released from prison, Castro flees to Mexico where he meets Che Guevara and starts to put together the plans that will ultimately dislodge Batista.
1956 The Granma yacht lands in eastern Cuba with Castro and 81 rebels aboard. Decimated by the Cuban Army, only about a dozen survive to regroup in the Sierra Maestra.
1957 Embittered university students led by José Antonio Echeverría attack the Presidential Palace in Havana and attempt to assassinate Fulgencio Batista. Batista narrowly escapes and the students are rounded up and executed.
1958 Che Guevara masterminds an attack against an armored train in Santa Clara, a military victory that finally forces Batista to concede power. The rebels march triumphantly on Havana.
1959 Castro is welcomed ecstatically in Havana. The new government passes the historic First Agrarian Reform Act. Camilo Cienfuegos’ plane goes missing over the Cuban coast off Camagüey.
1960 Castro nationalizes US assets on the island, provoking the Americans to cancel their Cuban sugar quota. Castro immediately runs into the arms of the Soviet Union and sells the sugar lock, stock and barrel to Khrushchev.
1961 Cuban mercenaries with US backing stage an unsuccessful invasion at the Bay of Pigs. The US declares a full trade embargo. Cuba embarks on a highly successful literacy campaign.
1962 The discovery of medium-range nuclear missiles in Cuba installed by the Soviet Union brings the world to the brink of nuclear war in what becomes known as the Cuban Missile Crisis.
1967 Che Guevara is hunted down and executed in Bolivia in front of CIA observers after a 10-month abortive guerrilla war in the mountains.
1968 The Cuban government nationalizes 58,000 small businesses in a sweeping socialist reform package. Everything from family-run shops to streetside food vendors falls under strict government control.
1970 Castro attempts to achieve a 10-million-ton sugar harvest and encourages the whole country to get behind the task. Not surprisingly, the plan fails and Cuba slowly begins to wean itself off its unhealthy mono-crop.
1976 Terrorists bomb a Cuban jet in Barbados killing all 73 people aboard, including the entire Cuban fencing team. A line is traced back to anti-Castro activists with histories as CIA operatives working out of Venezuela.
1977 In a thaw in relations under Jimmy Carter, the US establishes a Special Interests Section in Havana and Cuba opens an equivalent office in Washington DC.
1980 Following an incident at the Peruvian embassy, Castro opens up the Cuban port of Mariel to anyone wanting to leave. Within six months 125,000 have fled the island for the US in the so-called Mariel Boatlift.
1988 Cuban forces play a crucial role in the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, a serious defeat for the white South African Army that’s considered