Portal:Cuba


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Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 10 million inhabitants. It is the largest country in the Caribbean by area.

In 1940, Cuba implemented a new constitution, but mounting political unrest culminated in the 1952 Cuban coup d'état and the subsequent dictatorship of Batista. The Batista government was overthrown in January 1959 by the 26th of July Movement during the Cuban Revolution. That revolution established communist rule under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The country under Castro was a point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into nuclear war.

Cuba is a socialist state in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian government wherein political opposition is prohibited. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. Cuba is a founding member of the UN, G77, NAM, OACPS, ALBA, and OAS. Since 1959, Cuba has regarded the U.S. military presence in Guantánamo Bay as illegal. (Full article...)

El Palacio de Aldama

The Palacio de Aldama is a neoclassical mansion located diagonally opposite to the old Plaza del Vapor (Parque del Curita), and in front of the old Campo de Marte; present day Parque de la Fraternidad, in Havana, Cuba. Built in 1840 by the Dominican architect and engineer Manuel José Carrera, its main facade of columns spans one block on Calle Amistad between Calles Reina and Estrella. (Full article...)

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The following are images from various Cuba-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?
  • ... that a hypothesized land bridge may have allowed some fish species to migrate from South America to Cuba?
  • ... that after his release from a hospital for the criminally insane, Richard Dixon burgled $16 from a credit union and hijacked a jet to Cuba?
  • ... that the 1919 foxtrot song "I'll See You in C-U-B-A" was an example of Cuba being perceived as "America's playground"?

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Anarchism as a social movement in Cuba held great influence with the working classes during the 19th and early 20th century. The movement was particularly strong following the abolition of slavery in 1886, until it was repressed first in 1925 by President Gerardo Machado, and more thoroughly by Fidel Castro's Marxist–Leninist government following the Cuban Revolution in the late 1950s. Cuban anarchism mainly took the form of anarcho-collectivism based on the works of Mikhail Bakunin and, later, anarcho-syndicalism. The Latin American labor movement, and by extension the Cuban labor movement, was at first more influenced by anarchism than Marxism. (Full article...)

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The Monumento a Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba
The Monumento a Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba
Credit: DirkvdM
The Monumento a Antonio Maceo in Santiago de Cuba

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that Narciso López fled Cuba for New York City in 1848 after a failed attempt to create a revolt among Cuban planters, and attempted three times to raise filibuster expeditions to invade Cuba from the U.S.?
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Taíno chief Hatuey who rebelled against Spanish rule before being tied to the stake and burnt alive at Yara, 1512. (online).

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