The small band of survivors rearmed itself by first launching raids on small army posts and then using the weaponry acquired there to attack larger posts. By early 1957 they were already attracting recruits and winning small battles against Rural Guard patrols. The estimated 19 survivors, including Castro, his brother Raúl and Guevara, fled deep into the Sierra Maestra Mountains in southeastern Cuba with virtually no weapons or supplies. The following year, Castro and 81 other men sailed on the yacht “Granma” to the eastern coast of Cuba, where government forces immediately ambushed them. Castro ended up in Mexico, where he met fellow revolutionary Ernesto “Che” Guevara and plotted his return. The U.S.-backed Batista, looking to counter his authoritarian image, subsequently released Castro in 1955 as part of a general amnesty. The assault failed, Castro was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison, and many of his men were killed. In July 1953, Castro led about 120 men in an attack on the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba. “From that moment on, I had a clear idea of the struggle ahead,” he said in a 2006 “spoken autobiography.” Castro’s Revolution Begins Castro responded by planning a popular uprising. The election never happened, however, because Batista seized power that March. Two years later, he ran for election to the Cuban House of Representatives. In 1950, Castro graduated from the University of Havana and opened a law office. While there, he became interested in politics, joining the anti-corruption Orthodox Party and signing up for what became an aborted coup attempt against the brutal Dominican Republic dictator Rafael Trujillo.ĭid you know? In addition to the Bay of Pigs invasion, the United States made several failed attempts on Fidel Castro's life, including poisoning his cigars with Botox. After attending a couple of Jesuit schools–including the Colegio de Belén, where he excelled at baseball–Castro enrolled as a law student at the University of Havana. His mother was a domestic servant for his father’s family who bore him out of wedlock. His father was a wealthy Spanish sugarcane farmer who first came to the island during the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898). Castro was born on August 13, 1926, in Birán, a small town in eastern Cuba.
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