Cuba is an independent nation in North America. With the capital city of Havana, Cuba 2020 population is estimated at 11,326,627 according to countryaah. Originally, Cuba was inhabited by three peoples: siboney, arawak and taino. Urinals succumbed to the Spanish colonization that began in the 16th century. With American help, Cuba became an independent nation in 1902 but dependence on the United States remained great. The first half of the 20th century was ruled by a series of brutal regimes.
- AbbreviationFinder.org: Comprehensive guide to and popular abbreviations of Cuba, covering history, economy, and social conditions.
On October 29, 1492, Christofer Columbus ashore in Cuba sent some scouts who could report that the island’s residents were peaceful. Then Columbus sailed on. A few decades later, Spain decided to look for gold in Cuba and sent an expedition there under the command of Diego Velásquez. This time, the urinals resisted Europeans, but were poorly trained and armed and forced to surrender. For Cuba political system, please check diseaseslearning.
No major gold deposits were discovered, but Velásquez became Cuba’s first Spanish general governor and established effective colonial management on the island. The indigenous peoples were forced to pay taxes and work for free. They largely died out in the following centuries.
The lack of minerals meant that Spain soon lost interest in the colony with the exception of Havana, which was surrounded by tobacco farms and in whose port passing ships could supply.
In the 1700s and 1700s, Cuba again became valuable to Spain because of the increasingly profitable export of sugar from there. Imports of slaves from Africa flourished. The independence of the United States towards the end of the 18th century also opened a new market for Cuban products. This laid the foundation for Cuba’s long-term economic dependence on the United States.
Colonial society was divided by race and class. There were white, free blacks and slaves. The whites were divided into two groups: white born in Spain, peninsulares, and white born in Cuba, Creole. The creoles were treated as second class citizens and were excluded from higher positions. Formed creoles began at the end of the 18th century to demand increased social and political rights. The slave trade, on the other hand, had nothing against it. Slavery in Cuba was first abolished in 1886.
During the 1840s and 1850s several slave revolts erupted, but were defeated by Spanish troops. In October 1868, a group of plantation owners revolted against the Spanish crown and demanded independence for Cuba. The uprising was also strongly supported by radical workers and peasants. It was only after ten years of bloody fighting that the revolt broke down.
In 1895 the Cubans started a new liberation war. One of the leaders was the lawyer José Martí, who was also a poet and journalist. He died on May 19, 1895 in his first meeting with the Spanish army and is still celebrated today as a national hero in Cuba.
By this time, Cuba’s sugar exports had become dependent on the US market, and the sugar trade was dominated by a single American company. Among American investors, dissatisfaction was widespread with the Spanish krona’s policy. In order to protect their interests in Cuba, the United States intervened in the conflict between Cuba and Spain and declared war on Spain in 1898. Already the same year, Cuba won its independence from Spain, but at the price of American occupation. Until 1902, an American military governor ruled Cuba. Subsequently, the country became formally politically independent and the first Cuban president, Tomás Estrada (1902-1906), was elected.
However, Cuba was forced to accept a constitutional amendment, the so-called Platt Amendment, which gave the United States the right to militarily intervene in the country. At the same time, an area in southeast Cuba was educated to the Americans, where they built the naval base Guantánamo, which the USA still has today. The United States repeatedly intervened militarily and politically with the support of the Platt Amendment until 1934, when the amendment was repealed. However, the United States retained its political influence.
Until the revolution in the late 1950s, Cuba was ruled alternately by dictators and formally democratic, but corrupt, regimes that curbed widespread social unrest with violence. In 1933, an association of students and military overthrew the notorious dictator Gerardo Machado. In January 1934, Sergeant Fulgencio Batista took power with US support. Many in the middle class initially supported Batista, but his rule was also characterized by terror and corruption. Batista lost the 1944 presidential election but regained power in a bloodless coup in March 1952.
Among the many students who opposed Fulgencio Batista’s regime, lawyer Fidel Castro Ruz emerged as the leader. He first tried to have the regime annulled by the court. When this failed, he switched to armed combat. Together with 165 men, he attacked the Moncada barracks in Santiago on July 26, 1953. The attack failed and Castro was arrested. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison but was released in 1955 under a general amnesty and sent to Mexico. There, Castro built up the July 26 movement, which got its name after the failed attack against Moncada. The movement organized exile Cubans. The Argentine doctor and Marxist Ernesto “Che” Guevara joined them.
In 1956, Castro decided to make another attempt to overthrow Batista. At the head of some eighty rebels, who received military training in Mexico, Castro returned to Cuba in December in the Granma motorboat, which became legendary. However, Batista was prepared for Castro’s arrival and most of the force was destroyed. Brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and a handful of rebels managed to escape into the Sierra Maestra Mountains.
Batista’s support for the middle class was increasingly weakened, while the rebels encountered sympathy with more and more groups in society. In the fall of 1958, Castro left his base in Sierra Maestra and went to Havana. On New Year’s Day 1959 Batista fled. A provisional government took over, led by Fidel Castro.
IMPORTANT YEARS IN CUBA’S HISTORY
1492 Columbus “discovers” Cuba
1511 Spain colonizes the country
1898 Spanish-American war
1899 American occupation
1902 Cuba becomes independent
1951 Fulgencio Batista takes power in a coup
1959 Batista flies and Fidel Castro becomes prime minister
1962 US before trade block; Cuba crisis
2006 Fidel Castro hands over power to his brother Raúl
2008 Raúl Castro introduces economic reform
2018 The era of Castro is over; Miguel Díaz-Canel becomes new president
2009
December
American is arrested
The American Alan Gross is arrested and accused of trying to disrupt the political stability of the country as he provided people from the Jewish minority with computers and other equipment for communication via the Internet.
October
New lunch system for government employees
In a pilot project, the government is closing the state lunchrooms in some workplaces and instead giving the employees money so that they can buy lunch at private eateries. At the same time, plans are being abolished to abolish the rationing system, which gives the Cubans the right to buy a certain amount of basic goods at low prices.
July
Cuba is allowed in a regional cooperation organization
The Organization of American States (OAS) repeals the 1962 exclusion of Cuba. However, President Castro announces that Cuba does not intend to resume its place in the organization.
May
Tightening measures are implemented
The government is launching a series of austerity measures to reduce energy use and address the economic crisis that is prevailing in Cuba in the wake of the global financial crisis.
April
Americans are allowed to send money
The United States is lifting the restrictions that apply to Americans of Cuban origin visiting Cuba and sending money to their home country.
March
government reshuffle
Raúl Castro is carrying out his first major government reform, with two of Fidel Castro’s closest confidants being forced to step down: Cabinet Secretary Carlos Lage and Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque. However, Law may retain its post as one of the Vice Presidents of the Cabinet. He is succeeded as Cabinet Secretary by José Amado Ricardo Guerra, a general who is considered to be close to Raúl Castro. The Orthodox Pérez Roque was the youngest in the Cuban leadership and had predicted a future as president. A total of about ten people are replaced. What really lies behind the changes remains hidden for the outside world, but Fidel Castro lends support to the measures.
