native name
conventional long name	Republic of Cuba
common name	Cuba
status	Client state of the United States
alt flag	Five horizontal stripes: three blue and two white. A red equilateral triangle at the left of the flag, partly covering the stripes, with a white five pointed star in the centre of the triangle.
image coat	Coat of Arms of Cuba.svg
symbol type	Coat of arms
alt coat	A shield in front of a fasces crowned by the Phrygian Cap, all supported by an oak branch and a laurel wreath
alt map	Political map of the Caribbean region with Cuba in red. An inset shows a world map with the main map's edges outlined.
national motto	''Patria o Muerte'' "Homeland or Death"
national anthem	''La Bayamesa''("The Bayamo Song")
official languages	Spanish
demonym	Cuban
ethnic groups	65.1% White, 10.1% African, 24.8% Mulatto and Mestizo
capital	Havana
largest city	capital
government type	Unitary republic, Socialist state
leader title1	President & Premier
leader name1	Raúl Castro
leader title2	First Vice President
leader name2	J. R. M. Ventura
leader title3	First Secretary of Communist Party
leader name3	Raúl Castro
leader title4	President of the National Assembly
leader name4	Ricardo Alarcón
area km2	109,884
area sq mi	42,426
area magnitude	1_E11
area rank	105th
percent water	negligible
population census	11,241,161
population census year	2010
population density km2	102.3
population density sq mi	265.0
population density rank	106th
gdp ppp year	2010
gdp ppp	$114.1 billion
gdp ppp rank	63rd
gdp ppp per capita	$9,900
gdp ppp per capita rank	86th
gdp nominal year	2010
gdp nominal	$57.49 billion
gdp nominal rank	68th
gdp nominal per capita	$5,100
gdp nominal per capita rank	90th
hdi year	2011
hdi	0.776
hdi rank	51st
hdi category	high
sovereignty type	Independence
sovereignty note	from Spain/U.S.
established event1	Declared
established event2	Republic declared| established_event3Cuban Revolution
established date1	October 10, 1868 from Spain
established date2	May 20, 1902 from the United States
established date3	January 1, 1959
currency	Cuban peso(CUP) Cuban convertible peso
currency code	CUC
time zone	CST
utc offset	−5
time zone dst	CDT
utc offset dst	−4
drives on	right
cctld	.cu
calling code	+53
footnotes	}}

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, (; , ) is an island country in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city. To the north of Cuba lies the United States (140 km or 90 mi away) and the Bahamas, Mexico is to the west, the Cayman Islands and Jamaica are to the south, and Haiti and the Dominican Republic are to the southeast.

In 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on and claimed the island now occupied by Cuba, for the Kingdom of Spain. Cuba remained a territory of Spain until the Spanish–American War ended in 1898, and gained formal independence from the U.S. in 1902. A fragile democracy, increasingly dominated by radical politics eventually evolved, solidified by the Cuban Constitution of 1940, but was definitely quashed in 1952 by former president Fulgencio Batista, and an authoritarian regime was set up, intensifying and catalyzing already rampant corruption, political repression and crippling economic regulations. Batista was ousted in January 1959 by the July 26 movement, and a new administration under Fidel Castro established, which had by 1965 evolved into a single-party state under the revived Communist Party of Cuba, which holds power to date.

Cuba is home to over 11 million people and is the most populous island nation in the Caribbean, as well as the largest by area. Its people, culture, and customs draw from diverse sources, such as the aboriginal Taíno and Ciboney peoples, the period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of African slaves and its proximity to the United States.

Cuba has a 99.8% literacy rate, an infant death rate lower than some developed countries, and an average life expectancy of 77.64. In 2006, Cuba was the only nation in the world which met the WWF's definition of sustainable development; having an ecological footprint of less than 1.8 hectares per capita and a Human Development Index of over 0.8 for 2007.

==Etymology== The name ''Cuba'' comes from the Taíno language. The exact meaning of the name is unclear but it may be translated either as ''where fertile land is abundant'' (cubao), or ''great place'' (coabana). Authors who believe that Christopher Columbus was Portuguese state that ''Cuba'' was named by Columbus for the ancient town of Cuba in the district of Beja in Portugal.

History

Pre-Columbian era

Cuba was inhabited by Native American people known as the Taíno, also called Arawak by the Spanish, and Guanajatabey and Ciboney people before the arrival of the Spanish. The ancestors of these Native Americans migrated from the mainland of North, Central and South America several centuries earlier. The native Tainos called the island ''Caobana''. The Taíno were farmers and the Ciboney were farmers, fishers and hunter-gatherers.

Spanish colonization

After first landing on an island then called Guanahani on , 1492, Christopher Columbus landed on Cuba's northeastern coast near what is now Baracoa on or 28. He claimed the island for the new Kingdom of Spain and named ''Isla Juana'' after Juan, Prince of Asturias. In 1511, the first Spanish settlement was founded by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar at Baracoa; other towns soon followed including the future capital of San Cristobal de la Habana which was founded in 1515. The Spanish enslaved the approximately 100,000 indigenous people who resisted conversion to Christianity, setting them primarily to the task of searching for gold. Within a century the indigenous people were virtually wiped out due to multiple factors, including Eurasian infectious diseases aggravated in large part by a lack of natural resistance as well as privation stemming from repressive colonial subjugation. In 1529, a measles outbreak in Cuba killed two-thirds of the natives who had previously survived smallpox. Cuba remained a Spanish possession for almost 400 years (1511–1898), with an economy based on plantation agriculture, mining, and the export of sugar, coffee, and tobacco to Europe and later to North America. The work was done primarily by African slaves brought to the island.

The small land-owning elite of Spanish settlers held social and economic powers supported by a population of Spaniards born on the island (Criollos), other Europeans, and African-descended slaves. The population in 1817 was 630,980, of which 291,021 were white, 115,691 free black, and 224,268 black slaves.

Independence wars

In the 1820s, when the rest of Spain's empire in Latin America rebelled and formed independent states, Cuba remained loyal. Although there was agitation for independence, the Spanish Crown gave Cuba the motto ''La Siempre Fidelísima Isla'' ("The Always Most Faithful Island"). This loyalty was due partly to Cuban settlers' dependence on Spain for trade, their desire for protection from pirates and against a slave rebellion, and partly because they feared the rising power of the United States more than they disliked Spanish rule.

Ten Years' War

Independence from Spain was the motive for a rebellion in 1868 led by Carlos Manuel de Céspedes. De Céspedes, a sugar planter, freed his slaves to fight with him for a free Cuba. On 27 December 1868, he issued a decree condemning slavery in theory but accepting it in practice and declaring free any slaves whose masters present them for military service. The 1868 rebellion resulted in a prolonged conflict known as the Ten Years' War. The United States declined to recognize the new Cuban government, although many European and Latin American nations did so. In 1878, the Pact of Zanjón ended the conflict, with Spain promising greater autonomy to Cuba. In 1879–1880, Cuban patriot Calixto García attempted to start another war known as the Little War but received little support.

Period between wars

In Cuba, a sophisticated and prosperous sugar industry had employed chattel slavery until the final third of the 19th century. Cuba produced 720,250 metric tons of sugar in 1868, more than forty percent of cane sugar reaching the world market that year. Slavery had been maintained in Cuba, however, while abolition was underway elsewhere. Abolition in Cuba began the final third of the 19th century, and was completed in the 1880s.

War of 1895

An exiled dissident named José Martí founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party in New York in 1892. The aim of the party was to achieve Cuban independence from Spain. In Martí traveled to Montecristi and Santo Domingo to join the efforts of Máximo Gómez. Martí recorded his political views in the ''Manifesto of Montecristi''. Fighting against the Spanish army began in Cuba on 1895, but Martí was unable to reach Cuba until 1895. Martí was killed in the battle of Dos Rios on 1895. His death immortalized him as Cuba's national hero.

Around 200,000 Spanish troops outnumbered the much smaller rebel army which relied mostly on guerrilla and sabotage tactics. The Spaniards began a campaign of suppression. General Valeriano Weyler, military governor of Cuba, herded the rural population into what he called ''reconcentrados'', described by international observers as "fortified towns". These are often considered the prototype for 20th-century concentration camps. Between 200,000 and 400,000 Cuban civilians died from starvation and disease in the camps, numbers verified by the Red Cross and United States Senator and former Secretary of War Redfield Proctor. American and European protests against Spanish conduct on the island followed.

Spanish–American War

USS Maine

The U.S. battleship ''Maine'' arrived in Havana on 1898 to offer protection to the 8,000 American residents on the island, but the Spanish saw this as intimidation. On the evening of 1898, the ''Maine'' blew up in the harbor, killing 252 crew. Another eight crew members died of their wounds in hospital over the next few days. A Naval Board of Inquiry headed by Captain William T. Sampson was appointed to investigate the cause of the explosion on the ''Maine''. Having examined the wreck and taken testimony from eyewitnesses and experts, the board reported on 1898 that the ''Maine'' had been destroyed by "a double magazine set off from the exterior of the ship, which could only have been produced by a mine."

The facts remain disputed today, although an investigation by Admiral Hyman G. Rickover in 1976 established that the blast was most likely a large internal explosion. Rickover believes the explosion was caused by a spontaneous combustion in inadequately ventilated bituminous coal which ignited gunpowder in an adjacent magazine. The original 1898 board was unable to fix the responsibility for the disaster, but a furious American populace, fueled by an active press— notably the newspapers of William Randolph Hearst— concluded that the Spanish were to blame and demanded action. The U.S. Congress passed a resolution calling for intervention, and President William McKinley complied. Spain and the United States declared war on each other in late April.

Early 20th century

After the Spanish-American War, Spain and the United States signed the Treaty of Paris (1898), by which Spain ceded Puerto Rico, the Philippines, and Guam to the United States for the sum of . Under the same treaty, Spain relinquished all claim of sovereignty over Cuba. Theodore Roosevelt, who had fought in the Spanish-American War and had some sympathies with the independence movement, succeeded McKinley as U.S. President in 1901 and abandoned the treaty. Cuba gained formal independence from the U.S. on , 1902, as the Republic of Cuba. Under Cuba's new constitution, the U.S. retained the right to intervene in Cuban affairs and to supervise its finances and foreign relations. Under the Platt Amendment, the U.S. leased the Guantánamo Bay naval base from Cuba.

Following disputed elections in 1906, the first president, Tomás Estrada Palma, faced an armed revolt by independence war veterans who defeated the meager government forces. The U.S. intervened by occupying Cuba and named Charles Edward Magoon as Governor for three years. Cuban historians have attributed Magoon's governorship as having introduced political and social corruption. In 1908, self-government was restored when José Miguel Gómez was elected President, but the U.S. continued intervening in Cuban affairs. In 1912, the Partido Independiente de Color attempted to establish a separate black republic in Oriente Province, but was suppressed by General Monteagudo with considerable bloodshed.

During World War I, Cuba exported considerable quantities of sugar to Britain. Cuba was able to avoid U-boat attacks by the subterfuge of shipping the sugar to Sweden. The Menocal government declared war on Germany very soon after the United States.

A constitutional government was maintained until 1930 when Gerardo Machado y Morales suspended the constitution. During Machado's tenure, a nationalistic economic program was pursued with several major national development projects which included the Carretera Central and El Capitolio. Machado's hold on power was weakened following a decline in demand for exported agricultural produce due to the Great Depression, attacks by independence war veterans, and attacks by covert terrorist organizations, principally the ABC.

During a general strike in which the Communist Party sided with Machado, the senior elements of the Cuban army forced Machado into exile. The Party then installed Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, son of Cuba's founding father (Carlos Manuel de Céspedes), as President. During 4– 1933, a second coup overthrew Céspedes which led to the formation of the first Ramón Grau government. Notable events in this violent period include the separate sieges of Hotel Nacional de Cuba and Atares Castle. This government lasted 100 days but engineered radical socialist changes in Cuban society, including the abolishment of the Platt Amendment and instating of womens' suffrage in Cuba. In 1934, Grau was ousted in favor of Carlos Mendieta, the first in a series of puppet presidents subordinate to the army and its young chief of staff, Fulgencio Batista.

Fulgencio Batista was democratically elected President in the elections of 1940, so far the only non-white Cuban endorsed for the nation's highest office. His government carried out major social reforms. Several members of the Communist Party held office under his administration and established numerous economic regulations and pro-union policies, as well as the Cuban Constitution of 1940, which engineered radical progressive ideas, including the right to labour and health care. Batista's administration formally took Cuba to the Allies of World War II camp in World War II. Cuba declared war on Japan on , 1941, then on Germany and Italy on , 1941. Cuban armed forces were not greatly involved in combat during World War II, although president Batista suggested a joint U.S.-Latin American assault on Francoist Spain in order to overthrow its authoritarian regime.

Ramón Grau, who lost in 1940 to Batista, finally returned in the 1944 elections by defeating Batista's preferred successor, Carlos Saladrigas Zayas. In 1948, his Revolutionary Authentic Party won again when Carlos Prío Socarrás won, the last person elected to the presidency by free and fair elections. The two terms of the Authenic Party saw an influx of investment fueled a boom which raised living standards for all segments of society and created a prosperous middle class in most urban areas. The gap between rich and poor became wider and more obvious.

The 1952 election was a three-way race. Roberto Agramonte of the Ortodoxos party led in all the polls, followed by Dr. Aurelio Hevia of the Auténtico party, and Fulgencio Batista, seeking a return to office, as a distant third. Both Agramonte and Hevia had decided to name Col. Ramón Barquín to head the Cuban armed forces after the elections. Barquín, then a diplomat in Washington, DC, was a top officer. He was respected by the professional army and had promised to eliminate corruption in the ranks. Batista feared that Barquín would oust him and his followers. When it became apparent that Batista had little chance of winning, he staged a coup on 1952. Batista held on to power with the backing of a nationalist section of the army as a "provisional president" for the next two years.

In March 1952 Justo Carrillo informed Barquín in Washington that the inner circles knew that Batista had plotted the coup. They immediately began to conspire to oust Batista and restore democracy and civilian government in what was later dubbed ''La Conspiracion de los Puros de 1956'' (Agrupacion Montecristi). In 1954, Batista agreed to elections. The Partido Auténtico put forward ex-President Grau as their candidate, but he withdrew amid allegations that Batista was rigging the elections in advance.

In April 1956 Batista ordered Barquín to become General and chief of the army, but Barquín decided to move forward with his coup to secure total power. On 1956, a coup by hundreds of career officers led by Barquín was frustrated by Rios Morejon. The coup broke the back of the Cuban armed forces. The officers were sentenced to the maximum terms allowed by Cuban Martial Law. Barquín was sentenced to solitary confinement for eight years. ''La Conspiración de los Puros'' resulted in the imprisonment of the commanders of the armed forces and the closing of the military academies.

Cuba had Latin America's highest per capita consumption rates of meat, vegetables, cereals, automobiles, telephones and radios, though this consumption was largely by the small elite class and foreigners. In 1958, Cuba was a relatively well-advanced country by Latin American standards, and in some cases by world standards. Cuba attracted more immigrants, primarily from Europe, as a percentage of population than the U.S. The United Nations noted Cuba for its large middle class. On the other hand, Cuba was affected by perhaps the largest labor union privileges in Latin America, including bans on dismissals and mechanization. They were obtained in large measure "at the cost of the unemployed and the peasants", leading to disparities.

Between 1933 and 1958, Cuba extended economic regulations enormously, causing economic problems. Unemployment became a problem as graduates entering the workforce could not find jobs. The middle class, which was comparable to the United States, became increasingly dissatisfied with unemployment and political persecution. The labor unions supported Batista until the very end.

Revolution

On 2 December 1956 a party of 82 people on the yacht ''Granma'' landed in Cuba. The party, led by Fidel Castro, had the intention of establishing an armed resistance movement in the Sierra Maestra. While facing armed resistance from Castro's rebel fighters in the mountains, Fulgencio Batista's regime was weakened and crippled by a United States arms embargo imposed on 1958. By late 1958, the rebels broke out of the Sierra Maestra and launched a general popular insurrection. After the fighters captured Santa Clara, Batista fled from Havana on 1959 to exile in Portugal. Barquín negotiated the symbolic change of command between Camilo Cienfuegos, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro, and his brother Fidel Castro after the Supreme Court decided that the Revolution was the source of law and its representatives should assume command.

Fidel Castro's forces entered the capital on 1959. Shortly afterward, a liberal lawyer, Dr Manuel Urrutia Lleó became president. He was backed by Castro's 26th of July Movement because they believed his appointment would be welcomed by the United States. Disagreements within the government culminated in Urrutia's resignation in . He was replaced by Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado, who served as president until 1976. Castro became prime minister in , succeeding José Miró in head of the state.

In its first year, the new revolutionary government expropriated private property with little or no compensation, nationalized public utilities, tightened controls on the private sector, and closed down the mafia-controlled gambling industry. The CIA conspired with the Chicago mafia in 1960 and 1961 to assassinate Fidel Castro, according to documents declassified in 2007.

Some of these measures were undertaken by Fidel Castro's government in the name of the program outlined in the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra. The government nationalized private property totaling about USD , of which American property made up around USD .

By the end of 1960, the ''coletilla'' made its appearance, and most newspapers in Cuba had been expropriated, taken over by the unions, or had been abandoned. All radio and television stations were in state control. Moderate teachers and professors were purged. In any year, about 20,000 dissenters were imprisoned. Some homosexuals, religious practitioners, and others were sent to labor camps where they were subject to political "re-education". One estimate is that 15,000 to 17,000 people were executed.

The Communist Party strengthened its one-party rule, with Castro as ultimate leader. Fidel's brother, Raúl Castro, became the army chief. Loyalty to Castro became the primary criterion for all appointments. In , the revolutionary government created a system known as Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), which provided neighborhood spying.

In the 1961 New Year's Day parade, the administration exhibited Soviet tanks and other weapons. Eventually, Cuba built up the second largest armed forces in Latin America, second only to Brazil. Cuba became a privileged client-state of the Soviet Union.

By 1961, hundreds of thousands of Cubans had left for the United States. The 1961 Bay of Pigs Invasion (''La Batalla de Girón'') was an unsuccessful attempt to overthrow the Cuban government by a U.S.-trained force of Cuban exiles with U.S. military support. The plan was launched in , less than three months after John F. Kennedy became the U.S. President. The Cuban armed forces, trained and equipped by Eastern Bloc nations, defeated the exiles in three days. Cuban-American relations were exacerbated the following year by the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Kennedy administration demanded the immediate withdrawal of Soviet missiles placed in Cuba placed in response to U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey and the Middle East. The Soviets and Americans soon came to an agreement. The Soviets would remove Soviet missiles from Cuba and the Americans would remove missiles from Turkey and the Middle East. Kennedy also agreed not to invade Cuba in the future. Cuban exiles captured during the Bay of Pigs Invasion were exchanged for a shipment of supplies from America. In January 1962, Cuba was suspended from the Organization of American States (OAS), and later the same year the OAS started to impose sanctions against Cuba of similar nature to the US sanctions.

By 1963, Cuba was moving towards a full-fledged Communist system modeled on the USSR. The U.S. imposed a complete diplomatic and commercial embargo on Cuba and began Operation Mongoose, a program of covert CIA operations.

In 1965, Castro merged his revolutionary organizations with the Communist Party, of which he became First Secretary; Blas Roca was named Second Secretary. Roca was succeeded by Raúl Castro, who, as Defense Minister and Fidel's closest confidant, became and remained the second most powerful figure in Cuba until his brother's retirement. Raúl's position was strengthened by the departure of Che Guevara to launch unsuccessful insurrections in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and then Bolivia, where he was killed in 1967.

During the 1970s, Fidel Castro dispatched tens of thousands troops in support of Soviet-supported wars in Africa, particularly the MPLA in Angola and Mengistu Haile Mariam in Ethiopia.

The standard of living in 1970s was "extremely spartan" and discontent was rife. Fidel Castro admitted the failures of economic policies in a 1970 speech. By the mid-1970s, Castro started economic reforms.

In 1975 the OAS lifted its sanctions against Cuba, with the approval of 16 member states, including the U.S. The U.S., however, maintained its own sanctions.

Recent affairs

As of 2002, some 1.2 million persons of Cuban background (about 10% of the current population of Cuba) reside in the U.S. Many of them left the island for the United States, often by sea in small boats and fragile rafts. On 1980, 10,000 Cubans stormed the Peruvian embassy in Havana seeking political asylum. The following day, the Cuban government granted permission for the emigration of Cubans seeking refuge in the Peruvian embassy. On , 500 Cubans left the Peruvian Embassy for Costa Rica. On , many of those Cubans started arriving in Miami via private boats and were halted by the U.S. State Department, but the emigration continued, because Castro allowed anyone who desired to leave the country to do so through the port of Mariel. Over 125,000 Cubans emigrated to the U.S. before the flow of vessels ended on .

Castro's rule was severely tested in the aftermath of the Soviet collapse (known in Cuba as the Special Period), with effects such as food shortages. The government did not accept American donations of food, medicines, and cash until 1993. On 1994, state security dispersed protesters in a spontaneous protest in Havana.

Cuba has found a new source of aid and support in the People's Republic of China, and new allies in Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela and Evo Morales, President of Bolivia, both major oil and gas exporters. In 2003, the government arrested and imprisoned a large number of civil activists, a period known as the "Black Spring".

On July 31, 2006, Fidel Castro temporarily delegated his major duties to his brother, First Vice President, Raúl Castro, while Fidel recovered from surgery for an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding". On 2006, Fidel was too ill to attend the 50th anniversary commemoration of the ''Granma'' boat landing, fuelling speculation that he had stomach cancer, although there was evidence his illness was a digestive problem and not terminal.

In January 2007, footage was released of Fidel Castro meeting Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez, in which Castro "appeared frail but stronger than three months ago". In , Fidel Castro announced his resignation as President of Cuba, and on Raúl was elected as the new President. In his acceptance speech, Raúl promised that some of the restrictions that limit Cubans' daily lives would be removed. In , Raúl Castro removed some of Fidel Castro's officials.

On 3 June 2009, the OAS adopted a resolution to end the 47-year ban on Cuban membership of the group. The meetings were contentious, with the U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton walking out at one point. However, in the end, the U.S. delegation agreed with the other members and approved the resolution. The resolution stated, however, that full membership would be delayed until Cuba was “in conformity with the practices, purposes, and principles of the OAS.” Cuban leaders have repeatedly announced they are not interested in rejoining the OAS, and Fidel Castro restated this after the OAS resolution had been announced.

Human rights

The Cuban government has been accused of numerous human rights abuses including torture, arbitrary imprisonment, unfair trials, and extrajudicial executions (also known as "''El Paredón''"). The Human Rights Watch alleges the government "represses nearly all forms of political dissent" and that "Cubans are systematically denied basic rights to free expression, association, assembly, privacy, movement, and due process of law".

Cuba had the second-highest number of imprisoned journalists of any nation in 2008 (the People's Republic of China had the highest) according to various sources, including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), an international NGO, and Human Rights Watch. As a result of ownership restrictions, computer ownership rates are among the world's lowest. The right to use the Internet is granted only to selected locations and they may be monitored. Connecting to the Internet illegally can lead to a five-year prison sentence.

Cuban dissidents who commit crimes face arrest and imprisonment. In the 1990s, Human Rights Watch reported that Cuba's extensive prison system, one of the largest in Latin America, consists of some 40 maximum-security prisons, 30 minimum-security prisons, and over 200 work camps. According to Human Rights Watch, political prisoners, along with the rest of Cuba's prison population, are confined to jails with substandard and unhealthy conditions.

Citizens cannot leave or return to Cuba without first obtaining official permission in addition to their passport and the visa requirements of their destination.

Economy

The Cuban state adheres to socialist principles in organizing its largely state-controlled planned economy. Most of the means of production are owned and run by the government and most of the labor force is employed by the state. Recent years have seen a trend toward more private sector employment. By 2006, public sector employment was 78% and private sector 22%, compared to 91.8% to 8.2% in 1981. Capital investment is restricted and requires approval by the government. The Cuban government sets most prices and rations goods. Any firm wishing to hire a Cuban must pay the Cuban government, which in turn will pay the employee in Cuban pesos. Cubans cannot change jobs without government permission. The average wage at the end of 2005 was 334 regular pesos per month ($16.70 per month) and the average pension was $9 per month.

Cuba relied heavily on trade with the Soviet Union. From the late 1980s, Soviet subsidies for Cuban goods started to dry up. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba depended on Moscow for substantial aid and sheltered markets for its exports. The removal of these subsidies (for example the oil ) sent the Cuban economy into a rapid depression known in Cuba as the Special Period. In 1992 the United States tightened the trade embargo, hoping to see democratisation of the sort that took place in Eastern Europe.

Like some other Communist and post-Communist states following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba took limited free market-oriented measures to alleviate severe shortages of food, consumer goods, and services. These steps included allowing some self-employment in certain retail and light manufacturing sectors, the legalization of the use of the US dollar in business, and the encouragement of tourism. Cuba has developed a unique urban farm system (the ''organopónicos'') to compensate for the end of food imports from the Soviet Union. In recent years, Cuba has rolled back some of the market oriented measures undertaken in the 1990s. In 2004 Cuban officials publicly backed the Euro as a "global counter-balance to the US dollar", and eliminated U.S. currency from circulation in its stores and businesses. Tourism was initially restricted to enclave resorts where tourists would be segregated from Cuban society, referred to as "enclave tourism" and "tourism apartheid". Contacts between foreign visitors and ordinary Cubans were ''de facto'' illegal until 1997. In 1996 tourism surpassed the sugar industry as the largest source of hard currency for Cuba. Cuba has tripled its market share of Caribbean tourism in the last decade; as a result of significant investment in tourism infrastructure, this growth rate is predicted to continue. tourists visited Cuba in 2003, predominantly from Canada and the European Union, generating revenue of . The rapid growth of tourism during the Special Period had widespread social and economic repercussions in Cuba, and led to speculation about the emergence of a two-tier economy. The Medical tourism sector caters to thousands of European, Latin American, Canadian, and American consumers every year.

The communist agricultural production system was ridiculed by Raúl Castro in 2008. Cuba now imports up to 80% of food used for rations. Before 1959, Cuba boasted as many cattle as people.

For some time, Cuba has been experiencing a housing shortage because of the state's failure to keep pace with increasing demand. The government instituted food rationing policies in 1962, which were exacerbated following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the tightening of the U.S. embargo. Studies have shown that, as late as 2001, the average Cuban's standard of living was lower than before the downturn of the post-Soviet period. Paramount issues have been state salaries failing to meet personal needs under the state rationing system, chronically plagued with shortages. The variety and quantity of available rationed goods declined.

Under Venezuela's Mission Barrio Adentro, Hugo Chávez has supplied Cuba with up to of oil per day in exchange for 30,000 doctors and teachers.

In 2005 Cuba had exports of $2.4 billion, ranking 114 of 226 world countries, and imports of , ranking 87 of 226 countries. Its major export partners are China 27.5%, Canada 26.9%, Netherlands 11.1%, Spain 4.7% (2007). Cuba's major exports are sugar, nickel, tobacco, fish, medical products, citrus, and coffee; imports include food, fuel, clothing, and machinery. Cuba presently holds debt in an amount estimated to be , approximately 38% of GDP. According to the Heritage Foundation, Cuba is dependent on credit accounts that rotate from country to country. Cuba's prior 35% supply of the world's export market for sugar has declined to 10% due to a variety of factors, including a global sugar commodity price drop that made Cuba less competitive on world markets. At one time, Cuba was the world's most important sugar producer and exporter. As a result of diversification, underinvestment, and natural disasters, Cuba's sugar production has seen a drastic decline. In 2002 more than half of Cuba's sugar mills were shut down. Cuba holds 6.4% of the global market for nickel, which constitutes about 25% of total Cuban exports. A 2005 US Geological Survey report estimates that the North Cuba Basin could contain 4.6 billion barrels of oil and 9.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

, Cubans were allowed to build their own houses. According to Raul Castro, they will be able to improve their houses with this new permission, but the government will not endorse these new houses or improvements.

On August 2, 2011, ''The New York Times'' reported Cuba as reaffirming their intent to legalize "buying and selling" of private property before the year ends. According to experts, the private sale of property could "transform Cuba more than any of the economic reforms announced by President Raúl Castro’s government". It will cut more than one million state jobs including party bureaucrats which resist the changes.

Government and politics

The Constitution of 1976, which defined Cuba as a socialist republic, was replaced by the Constitution of 1992, which is guided by the ideas of José Martí, Marx, Engels and Lenin. The constitution describes the Communist Party of Cuba as the "leading force of society and of the state". The First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba is concurrently President of the Council of State (President of Cuba) and President of the Council of Ministers (sometimes referred to as Premier of Cuba). Members of both councils are elected by the National Assembly of People's Power. The President of Cuba, who is also elected by the Assembly, serves for five years and there is no limit to the number of terms of office.

The Supreme Court of Cuba serves as the nation's highest judicial branch of government. It is also the court of last resort for all appeals against the decisions of provincial courts.

Cuba's national legislature, the National Assembly of People's Power (''Asamblea Nacional de Poder Popular''), is the supreme organ of power; 609 members serve five-year terms. The assembly meets twice a year; between sessions legislative power is held by the 31 member Council of Ministers. Candidates for the Assembly are approved by public referendum. All Cuban citizens over 16 who have not been convicted of a criminal offense can vote. Article 131 of the Constitution states that voting shall be "through free, equal and secret vote". Article 136 states: "In order for deputies or delegates to be considered elected they must get more than half the number of valid votes cast in the electoral districts". Votes are cast by secret ballot and counted in public view. Nominees are chosen at local gatherings from multiple candidates before gaining approval from election committees. In the subsequent election, there is only one candidate for each seat, who must gain a majority to be elected.

No political party is permitted to nominate candidates or campaign on the island, though the Communist Party of Cuba has held six party congress meetings since 1975. In 2011, the party stated that there were 800,000 members, and representatives generally constitute at least half of the Councils of state and the National Assembly. The remaining positions are filled by candidates nominally without party affiliation. Other political parties campaign and raise finances internationally, while activity within Cuba by opposition groups is minimal and illegal.

The country is subdivided into 15 provinces and one special municipality (Isla de la Juventud). These were formerly part of six larger historical provinces: Pinar del Río, Habana, Matanzas, Las Villas, Camagüey and Oriente. The present subdivisions closely resemble those of the Spanish military provinces during the Cuban Wars of Independence, when the most troublesome areas were subdivided. The provinces are divided into municipalities.

Military

Cuba devoted 9–13% of its GDP to military expenditures. Castro built up the second largest armed forces in Latin America; only Brazil's were larger. From 1975 until the late 1980s, Soviet military assistance enabled Cuba to upgrade its military capabilities. Since the loss of Soviet subsidies Cuba has scaled down the numbers of military personnel, from 235,000 in 1994 to about 60,000 in 2003.

Foreign relations

From its inception, the Cuban Revolution defined itself as internationalist, joining Comecon in 1972. Cuba was a major contributor to Soviet-supported wars in Africa, Central America and Asia. In Africa, the largest war was in Angola, where Cuba sent tens of thousands of troops. Cuba was a friend of the Ethiopian leader Mengistu Haile Mariam. In Africa, Cuba supported 17 leftist governments. In some countries it suffered setbacks, such as in eastern Zaire, but in others Cuba had significant success. Major engagements took place in Algeria, Zaire, Yemen, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique.

The Cuban government's military involvement in Latin America—mostly with the aim of overthrowing U.S. backed right wing regimes, many of them dictatorial—has been extensive. One of the earliest interventions was the Marxist militia led by Che Guevara in Bolivia in 1967, though a modicum of funds and troops were sent. Lesser known actions include the 1959 missions to the Dominican Republic and Panama. In the former, the Cuban government provided military assistance to a group of Dominican exiles with the intention of overthrowing the tyrannical dictator Rafael Trujillo. Although the expedition failed and most of its members were murdered by the government, today they are recognized as heroes and a prominent monument was erected in their memory in Santo Domingo by the Dominican government. The Museo Memorial de la Resistencia Dominicana ("Memorial Museum of the Dominican Resistance,") where the heroes of 1959 feature prominently, is being built by the Dominican Government. The socialist government in Nicaragua was openly supported by Cuba and can be considered its greatest success in Latin America. Cuba is a founding member of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. More than 30,000 Cuban doctors currently work abroad, in countries such as Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The membership of Cuba in the United Nations Human Rights Council has received criticism.

The European Union in 2003 accused the Cuban government of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms". In 2008, the EU and Cuba agreed to resume full relations and cooperation activities. The United States continues an embargo against Cuba "so long as it continues to refuse to move toward democratization and greater respect for human rights". United States President Barack Obama stated on , 2009, in Trinidad and Tobago that "the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba", and reversed the Bush Administration's prohibition on travel and remittances by Cuban-Americans from the United States to Cuba.

Geography

Cuba is an archipelago of islands located in the northern Caribbean Sea at the confluence with the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. It lies between latitudes 19° and 24°N, and longitudes 74° and 85°W. The United States lies 90 miles across the Straits of Florida to the north and northwest (to the closest tip of Key West, Florida), the Bahamas to the north, Haiti to the east, Jamaica and the Cayman Islands to the south, and Mexico to the west. Cuba is the principal island, surrounded by four smaller groups of islands: the Colorados Archipelago on the northwestern coast, the Sabana-Camagüey Archipelago on the north-central Atlantic coast, the Jardines de la Reina on the south-central coast and the Canarreos Archipelago on the southwestern coast.

The main island is long, constituting most of the nation's land area () and is the largest island in the Caribbean and 16th-largest island in the world by land area. The main island consists mostly of flat to rolling plains apart from the Sierra Maestra mountains in the southeast, whose highest point is Pico Turquino (). The second-largest island is Isla de la Juventud (Isle of Youth) in the Canarreos archipelago, with an area of . Cuba has a total land area of .

Climate

The local climate is tropical, moderated by northeasterly trade winds that blow year-round. In general (with local variations), there is a drier season from November to April, and a rainier season from May to October. The average temperature is in January and in July. The warm temperatures of the Caribbean Sea and the fact that Cuba sits across the entrance to the Gulf of Mexico combine to make the country prone to frequent hurricanes. These are most common in September and October.

Resources

The most important mineral resource is nickel, of which Cuba has the world's second largest reserves (after Russia). Sherritt International of Canada operates a large nickel mining facility in Moa. Cuba is the world's fifth-largest producer of refined cobalt, a byproduct of nickel mining operations. Recent oil exploration has revealed that the North Cuba Basin could produce approximately to of oil. In 2006, Cuba started to test-drill these locations for possible exploitation.

Demographics

Race %	1899	1907	1919	1931	1943	1953	1981	2002
! scope="row"	66.9	69.7	72.2	72.1	74.3	72.8	66.0	65.05
! scope="row"	14.9	13.4	11.2	11.0	9.7	12.4	12.0	10.08
Mulatto	17.2	16.3	16.0	16.2	15.6	14.5	21.9	24.86
! scope="row"	1.0	0.6	0.6	0.7	0.4	0.3	0.1	?

Largest cities

Immigration to Cuba

Between 1882 and 1898, a total of 508,455 people left Spain, and more than 750,000 Spanish immigrants left for Cuba between 1899 and 1923, with many returning to Spain.

Current demographics

According to the census of 2010, the population was 11,241,161, including 5,628,996 men and 5,612,165 women. The population of Cuba has very complex origins and intermarriage between diverse groups is general. There is disagreement about racial statistics. The Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies at the University of Miami says that 62% is black, whereas statistics from the Cuban census state that 65.05% of the population was white in 2002. The Minority Rights Group International says that "An objective assessment of the situation of Afro-Cubans remains problematic due to scant records and a paucity of systematic studies both pre- and post-revolution. Estimates of the percentage of people of African descent in the Cuban population vary enormously, ranging from 33.9 per cent to 62 per cent".

Immigration and emigration have played a prominent part in the demographic profile of Cuba during the 20th century. During the 18th, 19th, and the early part of the 20th century large waves of Canarian, Catalan, Andalusian, Galician, and other Spanish people immigrated to Cuba. Between 1900 and 1930 close to a million Spaniards arrived from Spain. Other foreign immigrants include: French, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Greek, British, Irish, and other ethnic groups, including a small number of descendants of U.S. citizens who arrived in Cuba in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Cuba has a sizable number of Asian people who comprise 1% of the population. They are primarily of Chinese descent (see Chinese Cubans), followed by Filipino, Koreans and Vietnamese people. They are descendants of farm laborers brought to the island by Spanish and American contractors during the 19th and early 20th century. Afro-Cubans are descended primarily from the Kongo people., as well as several thousand North African refugees, most notably the Sahrawi Arabs of Western Sahara under Moroccan occupation since 1976. Cuba's birth rate (9.88 births per thousand population in 2006) is one of the lowest in the Western Hemisphere. Its overall population increased continuously from around in 1961 to over now, but the increase has stopped in the last few decades, and a decrease began in 2006, with a fertility rate of 1.43 children per woman. This drop in fertility is among the largest in the Western Hemisphere. Cuba has unrestricted access to legal abortion and an abortion rate of 58.6 per 1000 pregnancies in 1996, compared to an average of 35 in the Caribbean, 27 in Latin America overall, and 48 in Europe. Contraceptive use is estimated at 79% (in the upper third of countries in the Western Hemisphere).

Cuba is officially a secular state. After having long maintained that churches were fronts for subversive political activity, the government reversed course in 1992, amending the constitution to characterize the state as secular instead of atheist. It has many faiths representing the widely varying culture. Roman Catholicism was the largest religion; it was brought to the island by the Spanish and remains the dominant faith, with 11 dioceses, 56 orders of nuns, and 24 orders of priests. In , Pope John Paul II paid a historic visit to the island, invited by the Cuban government and Catholic Church. The religious landscape of Cuba is also strongly marked by syncretisms of various kinds. Catholicism is often practiced in tandem with Santería, a mixture of Catholicism and other, mainly African, faiths that include a number of cults. La Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre (the Virgin of ''Cobre'') is the Catholic patroness of Cuba, and a symbol of Cuban culture. In Santería, she has been syncretized with the goddess Oshun.

Year of Immigration	White	Black	Other	Asian	Number
1959–64	93.3	1.2	5.3	0.2	144,732
1965–74	87.7	2.0	9.1	0.2	247,726
1975–79	82.6	4.0	13.3	0.1	29,508
1980	80.9	5.3	13.7	0.1	94,095
1981–89	85.7	3.1	10.9	0.3	77,835
1990–93	84.7	3.2	11.9	0.2	60,244
1994–2000	85.8	3.7	10.4	0.7	174,437
Total	87.2	2.9	10.7	0.2	828,577

Three hundred thousand Cubans belong to the island's 54 Protestant denominations. Pentecostalism has grown rapidly in recent years, and the Assemblies of God alone claims a membership of over 100,000 people. Cuba has small communities of Jews, Muslims and members of the Bahá'í Faith. Most Jewish Cubans are descendants of Polish and Russian Ashkenazi Jews who fled pogroms at the beginning of the 20th century. There is a sizeable number of Sephardic Jews in Cuba who trace their origin to Turkey. Most of these Sephardic Jews live in the provinces, although they maintain a synagogue in Havana.

Cuban migration

In the last half-century, several hundred thousand Cubans of all social classes have emigrated to the United States, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada, Mexico, and other countries. On 1994, the U.S. and Cuban governments agreed that the U.S. would grant at least 20,000 visas annually in exchange for Cuba's pledge to prevent further unlawful departures on boats.

Languages

The official language of Cuba is Spanish and the vast majority of Cubans speak it. Spanish as spoken in Cuba is known as Cuban Spanish and is a form of Caribbean Spanish. Lucumi, a dialect of the West African language Yoruba, is also used as a liturgical language by practitioners of Santería, and so only as a second language. Haitian Creole is the second largest language in Cuba, and is spoken by Haitian immigrants and their descendants. Other languages spoken by immigrants include Catalan and Corsican.

Education

The University of Havana was founded in 1728 and there are a number of other well-established colleges and universities. In 1957, just before Castro came to power, the literacy rate was fourth in the region at almost 80% according to the United Nations, higher than in Spain. Castro created an entirely state-operated system and banned private institutions. School attendance is compulsory from ages six to the end of basic secondary education (normally at age 15), and all students, regardless of age or gender, wear school uniforms with the color denoting grade level. Primary education lasts for six years, secondary education is divided into basic and pre-university education.

Higher education is provided by universities, higher institutes, higher pedagogical institutes, and higher polytechnic institutes. The Cuban Ministry of Higher Education operates a scheme of distance education which provides regular afternoon and evening courses in rural areas for agricultural workers. Education has a strong political and ideological emphasis, and students progressing to higher education are expected to have a commitment to the goals of Cuba. Cuba has provided state subsidized education to a limited number of foreign nationals at the Latin American School of Medicine. Internet access is limited. The sale of computer equipment is strictly regulated. Internet access is controlled, and e-mail is closely monitored.

The Higher Institute of Technologies and Applied Sciences is a Cuban educational institution that prepares students in the fields of nuclear and environmental sciences. It is the only institution in Cuba that provides the opportunities of studies in these topics and one of the few in Latin America. Its headquarters is in Havana, inside the territory of the “Quinta de los Molinos”.

Health

Historically, Cuba has ranked high in numbers of medical personnel and has made significant contributions to world health since the 19th century. Today, Cuba has universal health care and although shortages of medical supplies persist, there is no shortage of medical personnel. Primary care is available throughout the island and infant and maternal mortality rates compare favorably with those in developed nations.

Post-Revolution Cuba initially experienced an overall worsening in terms of disease and infant mortality rates in the 1960s when half its 6,000 doctors left the country. Recovery occurred by the 1980s. The Communist government asserted that universal health care was to become a priority of state planning and progress was made in rural areas. Like the rest of the Cuban economy, Cuban medical care suffered from severe material shortages following the end of Soviet subsidies in 1991, followed by a tightening of the U.S. embargo in 1992.

Challenges include low pay of doctors (only $15 a month), poor facilities, poor provision of equipment, and frequent absence of essential drugs. Cuba has the highest doctor-to-population ratio in the world and has sent thousands of doctors to more than 40 countries around the world.

According to the UN, the life expectancy in Cuba is 78.3 years (76.2 for males and 80.4 for females). This ranks Cuba 37th in the world and 3rd in the Americas, behind only Canada and Chile, and just ahead of the United States. Infant mortality in Cuba declined from 32 infant deaths per 1,000 live births in 1957, to 10 in 1990–95. Infant mortality in 2000–2005 was 6.1 per 1,000 live births (compared to 6.8 in the United States).

The quality of public healthcare offered to citizens is regarded as the "greatest triumph" of Cuba's socialist system.

Culture

Cuban culture is influenced by its melting pot of cultures, primarily those of Spain and Africa. Sport is Cuba's national passion. Due to historical associations with the United States, many Cubans participate in sports which are popular in North America, rather than sports traditionally promoted in other Spanish-speaking nations. Baseball is by far the most popular; other sports and pastimes include basketball, volleyball, cricket, and athletics. Cuba is a dominant force in amateur boxing, consistently achieving high medal tallies in major international competitions.

Music

Cuban music is very rich and is the most commonly known expression of culture. The central form of this music is Son, which has been the basis of many other musical styles like salsa, rumba and mambo and an upbeat derivation of the rumba, the cha-cha-cha. Rumba music originated in early Afro-Cuban culture. The Tres was also invented in Cuba, but other traditional Cuban instruments are of African origin, Taíno origin, or both, such as the maracas, güiro, marimba and various wooden drums including the mayohuacan. Popular Cuban music of all styles has been enjoyed and praised widely across the world. Cuban classical music, which includes music with strong African and European influences, and features symphonic works as well as music for soloists, has received international acclaim thanks to composers like Ernesto Lecuona. Havana was the heart of the rap scene in Cuba when it began in the 1990s. During that time, reggaetón was growing in popularity. Dance in Cuba has taken a major boost over the 1990s.

Cuisine

Cuban cuisine is a fusion of Spanish and Caribbean cuisines. Cuban recipes share spices and techniques with Spanish cooking, with some Caribbean influence in spice and flavor. Food rationing, which has been the norm in Cuba for the last four decades, restricts the common availability of these dishes. The traditional Cuban meal is not served in courses; all food items are served at the same time. The typical meal could consist of plantains, black beans and rice, ''ropa vieja'' (shredded beef), Cuban bread, pork with onions, and tropical fruits. Black beans and rice, referred to as ''Platillo Moros y Cristianos'' (or ''moros'' for short), and plantains are staples of the Cuban diet. Many of the meat dishes are cooked slowly with light sauces. Garlic, cumin, oregano, and bay leaves are the dominant spices.

Literature

Cuban literature began to find its voice in the early 19th century. Dominant themes of independence and freedom were exemplified by José Martí, who led the Modernist movement in Cuban literature. Writers such as Nicolás Guillén and Jose Z. Tallet focused on literature as social protest. The poetry and novels of Dulce María Loynaz and José Lezama Lima have been influential. Romanticist Miguel Barnet, who wrote ''Everyone Dreamed of Cuba'', reflects a more melancholy Cuba. Writers such as Reinaldo Arenas, Guillermo Cabrera Infante, and more recently Daína Chaviano, Pedro Juan Gutiérrez, Zoé Valdés, Guillermo Rosales and Leonardo Padura have earned international recognition in the post-revolutionary era, though many of these writers have felt compelled to continue their work in exile due to ideological control of media by the Cuban authorities.

See also

Outline of Cuba

Index of Cuba-related articles

Greater Antilles

International rankings of Cuba

List of Well Known/Famous Cubans

List of places in Cuba

Television Serrana

References

External links

Government of Cuba

Chief of State and Cabinet Members

Cuba from ''UCB Libraries GovPubs''

Map of Cuba (Political) 1994 C.I.A./Univ. of Texas, Austin

Welcome To Cuba – slideshow by ''Life'' magazine

fotopedia.com, Selected photos of Cuba

, a comprehensive resource part of a website created by Dr. Antonio Rafael de la Cova of Indiana University.

Key Development Forecasts for Cuba from International Futures

Category:Caribbean countries Category:Communist states Category:Eastern Bloc Category:Former Spanish colonies Category:Gulf of Mexico Category:Island countries Category:Member states of the United Nations Category:Republics Category:Single-party states Category:Socialist states Category:Spanish-speaking countries Category:States and territories established in 1902

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name	The Times
type	Daily newspaper
format	Compact
price	UK£0.90 (Monday–Friday)£2 (Saturday) £1.30(Sat., Scotland)
foundation	1 January 1785 ()
owners	News Corporation
sister newspapers	''The Sunday Times''
political	Centre-right
headquarters	Wapping, London, England
editor	James Harding
issn	0140-0460
website	www.thetimes.co.uk
Circulation	394,102 (March 2012) }}

''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'' (it became ''The Times'' on 1 January 1788). ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (founded in 1821) are published by Times Newspapers, since 1981 a subsidiary of News International, itself wholly owned by the News Corporation group headed by Rupert Murdoch. ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' do not share editorial staff, were founded independently and have only had common ownership since 1967.

''The Times'' is the first newspaper to have borne that name, lending it to numerous other papers around the world, including ''The Times of India'' (1838), ''The Straits Times'' (1845), ''The New York Times'' (1851), ''The Irish Times'' (1859), the ''Los Angeles Times'' (1881), ''The Seattle Times'' (1891), ''The Daily Times'' (Malawi) (1900), ''The Canberra Times'' (1926), and ''The Times'' (Malta) (1935). For distinguishing purposes it is therefore sometimes referred to, particularly in North America, as the ''"London Times"'' or ''"The Times of London"''.

''The Times'' is the originator of the ubiquitous Times Roman typeface, originally developed by Stanley Morison of ''The Times'' in collaboration with the Monotype Corporation for its legibility in low-tech printing. In November 2006 ''The Times'' began printing headlines in a new font, Times Modern. ''The Times'' was printed in broadsheet format for 219 years, but switched to compact size in 2004 in an attempt to appeal more to younger readers and commuters using public transport. ''The Sunday Times'' remains a broadsheet.

Though traditionally a moderate newspaper and sometimes a supporter of the Conservatives, it supported the Labour Party in the 2001 and 2005 general elections. In 2004, according to MORI, the voting intentions of its readership were 40% for the Conservative Party, 29% for the Liberal Democrats, 26% for Labour. ''The Times'' had an average daily circulation of 394,102 in March 2012. An American edition has been published since 6 June 2006.

History

1785 to 1890

''The Times'' was founded by publisher John Walter on 1 January 1785 as ''The Daily Universal Register'', with Walter in the role of editor. Walter changed the title after 940 editions on 1 January 1788 to ''The Times''. In 1803, Walter handed ownership and editorship to his son of the same name. Walter senior had spent sixteen months in Newgate prison for libel printed in ''The Times'', but his pioneering efforts to obtain Continental news, especially from France, helped build the paper's reputation among policy makers and financiers.

''The Times'' used contributions from significant figures in the fields of politics, science, literature, and the arts to build its reputation. For much of its early life, the profits of ''The Times'' were very large and the competition minimal, so it could pay far better than its rivals for information or writers.

In 1809, John Stoddart was appointed general editor, replaced in 1817 by Thomas Barnes. Under Barnes and his successor in 1841, John Thadeus Delane, the influence of ''The Times'' rose to great heights, especially in politics and amongst the City of London. Peter Fraser and Edward Sterling were two noted journalists, and gained for ''The Times'' the pompous/satirical nickname 'The Thunderer' (from "We thundered out the other day an article on social and political reform.").The increased circulation and influence of the paper was based in part to its early adoption of the steam-driven rotary printing press. Distribution via steam trains to rapidly growing concentrations of urban populations helped ensure the profitability of the paper and its growing influence.

''The Times'' was the first newspaper to send war correspondents to cover particular conflicts. W. H. Russell, the paper's correspondent with the army in the Crimean War, was immensely influential with his dispatches back to England. In other events of the nineteenth century, ''The Times'' opposed the repeal of the Corn Laws until the number of demonstrations convinced the editorial board otherwise, and only reluctantly supported aid to victims of the Irish Potato Famine. It enthusiastically supported the Great Reform Bill of 1832, which reduced corruption and increased the electorate from 400 000 people to 800 000 people (still a small minority of the population). During the American Civil War, ''The Times'' represented the view of the wealthy classes, favouring the secessionists, but it was not a supporter of slavery.

The third John Walter, the founder's grandson, succeeded his father in 1847. The paper continued as more or less independent, but from the 1850s ''The Times'' was beginning to suffer from the rise in competition from the penny press, notably ''The Daily Telegraph'' and ''The Morning Post''.

During the 19th century, it was not infrequent for the Foreign Office to approach ''The Times'' and ask for continental intelligence, which was often superior to that conveyed by official sources.

1890 to 1981

''The Times'' faced financial extinction in 1890 under Arthur Fraser Walter, but it was rescued by an energetic editor, Charles Frederic Moberly Bell. During his tenure (1890–1911), ''The Times'' became associated with selling the ''Encyclopædia Britannica'' using aggressive American marketing methods introduced by Horace Everett Hooper and his advertising executive, Henry Haxton. Due to legal fights between the ''Britannica's'' two owners, Hooper and Walter Montgomery Jackson, ''The Times'' severed its connection in 1908 and was bought by pioneering newspaper magnate, Alfred Harmsworth, later Lord Northcliffe.

In editorials published on 29 and 31 July 1914, Wickham Steed, the ''Times's'' Chief Editor, argued that the British Empire should enter World War I. On 8 May 1920, also under the editorship of Steed, ''The Times'' in an editorial endorsed the anti-Semitic forgery ''The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion'' as a genuine document, and called Jews the world's greatest danger. In the leader entitled "The Jewish Peril, a Disturbing Pamphlet: Call for Inquiry", Steed wrote about ''The Protocols of the Elders of Zion'':

What are these 'Protocols'? Are they authentic? If so, what malevolent assembly concocted these plans and gloated over their exposition? Are they forgery? If so, whence comes the uncanny note of prophecy, prophecy in part fulfilled, in part so far gone in the way of fulfillment?".

The following year, when Philip Graves, the Constantinople (modern Istanbul) correspondent of ''The Times'', exposed ''The Protocols'' as a forgery, '''The Times'' retracted the editorial of the previous year.

In 1922, John Jacob Astor, son of the 1st Viscount Astor, bought ''The Times'' from the Northcliffe estate. The paper gained a measure of notoriety in the 1930s with its advocacy of German appeasement; then-editor Geoffrey Dawson was closely allied with those in the government who practised appeasement, most notably Neville Chamberlain.

Kim Philby, a Soviet double agent, was a correspondent for the newspaper in Spain during the Spanish Civil War of the late 1930s. Philby was admired for his courage in obtaining high-quality reporting from the front lines of the bloody conflict. He later joined MI6 during World War II, was promoted into senior positions after the war ended, then eventually defected to the Soviet Union in 1963.

Between 1941 and 1946, the left-wing British historian E.H. Carr was Assistant Editor. Carr was well known for the strongly pro-Soviet tone of his editorials. In December 1944, when fighting broke out in Athens between the Greek Communist ELAS and the British Army, Carr in a ''Times'' editorial sided with the Communists, leading Winston Churchill to condemn him and that leader in a speech to the House of Commons. As a result of Carr's editorial, ''The Times'' became popularly known during World War II as the threepenny ''Daily Worker'' (the price of the ''Daily Worker'' was one penny)

On 3 May 1966 it started printing news on the front page for the first time - previously the front page featured small advertisements, usually of interest to the moneyed classes in British society. In 1967, members of the Astor family sold the paper to Canadian publishing magnate Roy Thomson, The Thomson Corporation merged it with ''The Sunday Times'' to form Times Newspapers Limited.

An industrial dispute prompted the management to shut the paper for nearly a year (1 December 1978 – 12 November 1979).

The Thomson Corporation management were struggling to run the business due to the 1979 Energy Crisis and union demands. Management were left with no choice but to save both titles by finding a buyer who was in a position to guarantee the survival of both titles, and also one who had the resources and was committed to funding the introduction of modern printing methods.

Several suitors appeared, including Robert Maxwell, Tiny Rowland and Lord Rothermere; however, only one buyer was in a position to meet the full Thomson remit, Australian media magnate Rupert Murdoch.

1981 to present: Murdoch-era

In 1981, ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' were bought from Thomson by Rupert Murdoch's News International. The acquisition followed three weeks of intensive bargaining with the unions by company negotiators, John Collier and Bill O'Neill.

Murdoch soon began making his mark on the paper, replacing its editor, William Rees-Mogg, with Harold Evans in 1981. One of his most important changes was the introduction of new technology and efficiency measures. In March–May 1982, following agreement with print unions, the hot-metal Linotype printing process used to print ''The Times'' since the 19th century was phased out and replaced by computer input and photo-composition. This allowed print room staff at ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' to be reduced by half. However, direct input of text by journalists ("single stroke" input) was still not achieved, and this was to remain an interim measure until the Wapping dispute of 1986, when ''The Times'' moved from New Printing House Square in Gray's Inn Road (near Fleet Street) to new offices in Wapping.

In June 1990, ''The Times'' ceased its policy of using courtesy titles ("Mr", "Mrs", or "Miss" prefixes) for living persons before full names on first reference, but it continues to use them before surnames on subsequent references. The more formal style is now confined to the "Court and Social" page, though "Ms" is now acceptable in that section, as well as before surnames in news sections.

In November 2003, News International began producing the newspaper in both broadsheet and tabloid sizes. On 13 September 2004, the weekday broadsheet was withdrawn from sale in Northern Ireland. Since 1 November 2004, the paper has been printed solely in tabloid format.

The Conservative Party announced plans to launch litigation against ''The Times'' over an incident in which the newspaper claimed that Conservative election strategist Lynton Crosby had admitted that his party would not win the 2005 General Election. ''The Times'' later published a clarification, and the litigation was dropped.

On 6 June 2005, ''The Times'' redesigned its Letters page, dropping the practice of printing correspondents' full postal addresses. Published letters were long regarded as one of the paper's key constituents. Author/solicitor David Green of Castle Morris Pembrokeshire has had more letters published on the main letters page than any other known contributor – 158 by 31 January 2008. According to its leading article, "From Our Own Correspondents", removal of full postal addresses was in order to fit more letters onto the page.

In a 2007 meeting with the House of Lords Select Committee on Communications, which was investigating media ownership and the news, Murdoch stated that the law and the independent board prevented him from exercising editorial control.

In May 2008 printing of ''The Times'' switched from Wapping to new plants at Broxbourne on the outskirts of London, and Merseyside and Glasgow, enabling the paper to be produced with full colour on every page for the first time.

In March 2012, it became the first British newspaper to formally endorse same-sex marriage.

Controversies and image

Long considered the UK's newspaper of record, ''The Times'' is generally seen as a serious publication with high standards of journalism. It is not without trenchant critics: Robert Fisk, seven times British International Journalist of the Year, resigned as foreign correspondent in 1988 over what he saw as "political censorship" of his article on the shooting-down of Iran Air Flight 655 in July 1988. He wrote in detail about his reasons for resigning from the paper due to meddling with his stories, and the paper's pro-Israel stance.

Some allege that ''The Times''' partisan opinion pieces also damage its status as 'paper of record,' particularly when attacking interests that go against those of its parent company – News International. In 2010 it published an opinion piece attacking the BBC for being 'one of a group of' signatories to a letter criticising BSkyB share options in October 2010.

Content

''The Times'' features news for the first half of the paper with the leading articles on the second page, the Opinion/Comment section begins after the first news section, the world news normally follows this. The business pages begin on the centre spread, and are followed by The Register, containing obituaries, Court & Social section, and related material. The sport section is at the end of the main paper.

''Literary Supplement''

''The Times Literary Supplement'' (TLS) is a separately-paid-for weekly literature and society magazine.

''Science Reviews''

Between 1951 and 1966 ''The Times'' published a separately-paid-for quarterly science review, ''The Times Science Review''. Remarkably, in 1953 both the newspaper and its science supplement failed to report on the discovery of the structure of DNA in Cambridge, which was reported on by both the ''News Chronicle'' and ''The New York Times''.

''The Times'' started a new (but free) monthly science magazine, ''Eureka'', in October 2009.

''Times2''

''The Times'''s main supplement is the ''times2'', featuring various lifestyle columns. It was discontinued on 1 March 2010 but reintroduced on 11 October 2010 after negative feedback. Its regular features include a puzzles section called ''Mind Games''. Its previous incarnation began on 5 September 2005, before which it was called ''T2'' and previously ''Times 2''. Regular features include columns by a different columnist each weekday. There was a column by Marcus du Sautoy each Wednesday, for example. The back pages are devoted to puzzles and contain sudoku, "Killer Sudoku", "KenKen", word polygon puzzles, and a crossword simpler and more concise than the main "Times Crossword".

The supplement contains arts and lifestyle features, TV and radio listings and reviews.

''The Game''

''The Game'' is included in the newspaper on Mondays, and details all the weekend's football activity (Premier League and Football League Championship, League One and League Two.) The Scottish edition of ''The Game'' also includes results and analysis from Scottish Premier League games.

Saturday supplements

The Saturday edition of ''The Times'' contains a variety of supplements. These supplements were relaunched in January 2009 as: ''Sport'', ''Weekend'' (including travel and lifestyle features), ''Saturday Review'' (arts, books, and ideas), ''The Times Magazine'' (columns on various topics), and ''Playlist'' (an entertainment listings guide).

''Saturday Review'' is the first regular supplement published in broadsheet format since the paper switched to a compact size in 2004.

At the beginning of summer 2011 ''Saturday Review'' switched to the tabloid format

''The Times Magazine'' features columns touching on various subjects such as celebrities, fashion and beauty, food and drink, homes and gardens or simply writers' anecdotes. Notable contributors include Giles Coren, Food and Drink Writer of the Year in 2005.

Online presence

''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' have had an online presence since March 1999, originally at ''the-times.co.uk'' and ''sunday-times.co.uk'', and later at ''timesonline.co.uk''. There are now two websites: ''thetimes.co.uk'' is aimed at daily readers, and the ''thesundaytimes.co.uk'' site at providing weekly magazine-like content. There are also iPad and Android editions of both newspapers. Since July 2010, News International has required readers who do not subscribe to the print edition to pay £2 per week to read ''The Times'' and ''The Sunday Times'' online.

Visits to the websites have decreased by 87% since the paywall was introduced, from 21 million unique users per month to 2.7 million. In April 2009, the ''timesonline'' site had a readership of 750,000 readers per day. As of October 2011, there were around 111,000 subscribers to the Times' digital products

Readership

In November 2005 ''The Times'' sold an average of 691,283 copies per day, the second-highest of any British "quality" newspaper (after ''The Daily Telegraph'', which had a circulation of 903,405 copies in the period), and the highest in terms of full-rate sales. By March 2012 ''The Times''' average daily circulation had fallen to 394,102 copies, compared to ''The Daily Telegraph's'' 576,378, with the two retaining respectively the second-highest and highest circulations among British "quality" newspapers. In contrast ''The Sun'', the highest-selling "tabloid" daily newspaper in the United Kingdom, sold an average of 2,614,725 copies in March 2012, and the ''Daily Mail'', the highest-selling "middle market" British daily newspaper, sold an average of 1,952,524 copies in the period.

In a 2009 national readership survey ''The Times'' was found to have the highest number of ABC1 25–44 readers and the largest numbers of readers in London of any of the "quality" papers.

Ownership

''The Times'' has had the following eight owners since its foundation in 1785:

1785 to 1803 - John Walter;

1803 to 1847 - John Walter, 2nd;

1847 to 1894 - John Walter, 3rd;

1894 to 1908 - Arthur Fraser Walter;

1908 to 1922 - Lord Northcliffe;

1922 to 1966 - Astor family;

1966 to 1981 - Roy Thomson; and

1981 to present - News International (a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation, run by Rupert Murdoch).

Typeface

In 1908 ''The Times'' started using the ''Monotype Modern'' typeface.

''The Times'' commissioned the serif typeface ''Times New Roman'', created by Victor Lardent at the English branch of Monotype, in 1931. It was commissioned after Stanley Morison had written an article criticizing ''The Times'' for being badly printed and typographically antiquated. The font was supervised by Morison and drawn by Victor Lardent, an artist from the advertising department of ''The Times''. Morison used an older font named Plantin as the basis for his design, but made revisions for legibility and economy of space. ''Times New Roman'' made its debut in the 3 October 1932 issue of ''The Times'' newspaper. After one year, the design was released for commercial sale. ''The Times'' stayed with ''Times New Roman'' for 40 years, but new production techniques and the format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 2004 have caused the newspaper to switch font five times since 1972. However, all the new fonts have been variants of the original New Roman font:

''Times Europa'' was designed by Walter Tracy in 1972 for The Times, as a sturdier alternative to the Times font family, designed for the demands of faster printing presses and cheaper paper. The typeface features more open counter spaces.

''Times Roman'' replaced Times Europa on 30 August 1982. ''Times Millennium'' was made in 1991, drawn by Gunnlaugur Briem on the instructions of Aurobind Patel, composing manager of News International. ''Times Classic'' first appeared in 2001. Designed as an economical face by the British type team of Dave Farey and Richard Dawson, it took advantage of the new PC-based publishing system at the newspaper, while obviating the production shortcomings of its predecessor Times Millennium. The new typeface included 120 letters per font. Initially the family comprised ten fonts, but a condensed version was added in 2004. ''Times Modern'' was unveiled on 20 November 2006, as the successor of ''Times Classic''. Designed for improving legibility in smaller font sizes, it uses 45-degree angled bracket serifs. The font was published by Elsner + Flake as ''EF Times Modern''; it was designed by Research Studios, led by Ben Preston (deputy editor of The Times) and designer Neville Brody.

Political allegiance

''The Times'' had declared its support for Clement Attlee's Labour at the 1945 general election; the party went on to win the election by a landslide over Winston Churchill's Conservative government. However, the newspaper reverted to the Tories for the next election five years later. It supported the Conservatives for the subsequent three elections, followed by support for both the Conservatives and the Liberal Party for the next five elections, expressly supporting a Con-Lib coalition in 1974. The paper then backed the Conservatives solidly until 2001.

For the 2001 general election ''The Times'' declared its support for Tony Blair's Labour government, which was re-elected by a landslide. It supported Labour again in 2005, when Labour achieved a third successive win, though with a reduced majority. For the 2010 general election, however, the newspaper declared its support for the Tories once again; the election ended in the Tories taking the most votes and seats but having to form a coalition with the Liberal Democrats in order to form a government as they had failed to gain an overall majority.

This makes it the most varied newspaper in terms of political support in British history.

Sponsorships

''The Times'', along with the British Film Institute, sponsors the "The Times" ''bfi'' London Film Festival.

''The Times'' sponsors the Cheltenham Literature Festival and the Asia House Festival of Asian Literature at Asia House, London.

Notable people

Editors

!Name	!Tenure
	1785 to 1803
	1803 to 1812
John Stoddart	1812 to 1816
	1817 to 1841
John Delane	1841 to 1877
Thomas Chenery	1877 to 1884
George Earle Buckle	1884 to 1912
George Geoffrey Dawson	1912 to 1919
	1919 to 1922
George Geoffrey Dawson	1923 to 1941
Robert McGowan Barrington-Ward	1941 to 1948
William Francis Casey	1948 to 1952
William Haley	1952 to 1966
William Rees-Mogg	1967 to 1981
Harold Evans	1981 to 1982
	1982 to 1985
	1985 to 1990
Simon Jenkins	1990 to 1992
Peter Stothard	1992 to 2002
	2002 to 2007
	2007 to present

Notable columnists and journalists

Michael Atherton

Guillem Balague

Simon Barnes

Alice Bowe

Peter Brookes (leader-page cartoonist)

Rachel Campbell-Johnston

Giles Coren

Robert Crampton

Ginny Dougary

Stephen Farrell

Daniel Finkelstein

Brian Glanville

Ruth Gledhill

Michael Gove

Anthony Howard

Mick Hume

Anatole Kaletsky

Patrick Kidd

Magnus Linklater

Richard Lloyd Parry

Anthony Loyd (war correspondent on retainer)

Ben Macintyre

Stefanie Marsh

Hugh McIlvanney

Alice Miles

Caitlin Moran

Michael Moran

Morten Morland (political cartoonist)

Matthew Parris

Grayson Perry

Catherine Philp

Libby Purves

Lord Rees-Mogg

Peter Riddell

Hugo Rifkind

Aki Riihilahti

Nick Robinson

Alyson Rudd

Dan Sabbagh

Marcus du Sautoy

Andrew Sullivan

Richard Susskind

Ann Treneman

Janice Turner

Alexander Williams (cartoonist)

Other publications

(Times Books Group Ltd)

The Times Comprehensive Atlas of the World, 2007 ISBN 978-0-00-780150-3

In fiction

In the dystopian future world of George Orwell's ''Nineteen Eighty-Four'', ''The Times'' has been transformed into the organ of the totalitarian ruling party, its editorials—of which several are quoted in the book—reflecting Big Brother's pronouncements.

Rex Stout's fictional detective Nero Wolfe is described as fond of solving the London ''Times'' crossword puzzle at his New York home, in preference to those of American papers.

In the James Bond series by Ian Fleming, James Bond, reads ''The Times''. As described by Fleming in ''From Russia, with Love'': "The Times was the only paper that Bond ever read."

See also

List of newspapers by date

References

Further reading

- includes sections of black-and-white photographic plates, plus a few charts and diagrams in text pages.

External links

The Sunday Times site

Times World Atlases official website including a History and Heritage section detailing landmark Times atlases

Archive from 1785 to 2006 – full text and original layout, searchable (not free of charge, registration required)

The Times editor Robert Thomson lecture online: From the editorial desk of ''The Times'', RMIT School of Applied Communication Public Lecture series

Anthony Trollope's satire on the mid-nineteenth century Times

Journalism Now: The Times Winchester University Journalism History project on the Times in the nineteenth century

Category:Newspapers published in England Category:News Corporation subsidiaries * Category:Publications established in 1785 Category:1785 establishments in England

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Company name	Gibson Guitar Corporation
Company logo
Company slogan	"Prestige-Quality-Innovation."
Company type	Private
Foundation	1896, Kalamazoo, Michigan
Founder	Orville Gibson
Location	Nashville, Tennessee, USA
Key people	Orville Gibson, Ted McCarty, Les Paul, Seth Lover
Area served	Global
Industry	Musical instruments
Subsid	Aeolian, Baldwin, Chickering, Electar, Epiphone, Garrison, Gibson Amphitheatre, Hamilton, Kramer, Maestro, MaGIC, Slingerland, Steinberger, Tobias, Valley Arts Guitar, Wurlitzer
Homepage	Gibson.com
Footnotes	}}

The Gibson Guitar Corporation is a Nashville, Tennessee-based guitar and instrument manufacturer. It was founded in 1894 in a one-room office in Kalamazoo, Michigan by Orville Gibson as a maker of mandolin instruments. Gibson invented archtop guitars by using the same type of carved, arched tops found on violins. By the 1930s, the company was also making flattop acoustic guitars, as well as one of the first commercially available hollow-body electric guitars, used and popularized by Charlie Christian. It was bought by Chicago Musical Instruments in 1944, which was then acquired by the E.C.L. conglomerate that changed its name to Norlin Inc. This was seen as the beginning of an era of mismanagement.

Gibson sells guitars under a variety of brand names and built one of the world's most iconic guitars, the Gibson Les Paul. Many Gibson instruments are among the most collectible guitars. Gibson was at the forefront of innovation in acoustic guitars, especially in the big band era of the 1930s; the Gibson Super 400 was widely imitated. In the early 1950s, Gibson introduced its first solid-body electric guitar and in 1952 began producing its most popular guitar to date—the Les Paul, designed by Ted McCarty and Les Paul. After being purchased by the Norlin corporation in the late 1960s Gibson's quality and fortunes took a steep decline until early 1986, when the company was acquired by its present owners. Gibson Guitar is a privately held corporation owned by its chief executive officer Henry Juszkiewicz and its president David H. Berryman.

Gibson has pursued legal action against manufacturers selling similar guitars and been active in environmental issues. In the late 2000s the company came under scrutiny for potential violations of the Lacey law. Authorities say wood was mislabeled to hide illegal ebony wood exports from India and that emails show an intent to illegally import rosewood and ebony wood from Madagascar. Gibson claims authorities are bullying him without filing charges. The issues has raised concerns among guitar owners on whether they could be punished for unknowingly owning guitars with illegally obtained wood, which led to some initiatives to protect individual consumers from the Lacey law.

History

|image2=Orville Gibson pre-1910.jpg |width2=105|caption2=Orville Gibson (pre 1910) }}

Orville Gibson (born 1856, Chateaugay, New York) started making mandolins in Kalamazoo, Michigan, United States. The mandolins were distinctive in that they featured a carved, arched solid wood top and back and bent wood sides. Prior to this, mandolins had a flat solid wood top and a bowl-like back similar to a lute. These bowl-back mandolins were very fragile and unstable. Disdainful of the shape, Orville Gibson characterized them as "potato bugs". Gibson's innovation made a distinctive, darker-sounding mandolin that was easier to manufacture in large numbers. Orville Gibson's mandolin design, with its single-pieced carved sides and a single-pieced neck, was patented in 1898; it would be the only innovation he patented. Orville Gibson died in 1918 of endocarditis (inflammation of the inside lining of the heart chambers and valves).

Orville Gibson began to sell his unique instruments in 1894 out of a one-room workshop in Kalamazoo Michigan. In 1902 Gibson Mandolin-Guitar Mfg. Co, Ltd. was incorporated to market the instruments. Initially, the company produced only Orville Gibson's original designs. Aware of changing trends, the company hired designer Lloyd Loar in 1919 to create newer instruments.

During the 1920s Gibson was responsible for many innovations in banjo, guitar and mandolin design. In 1922, the Gibson F5 mandolin model was introduced. That particular model later became known as the ultimate bluegrass mandolin. Gibson soon became the leading manufacturer of archtop guitars, particularly the L-5 model, also a Loar design. Loar left the company in 1924.

In the 1930s, Gibson began exploring the concept of an electric guitar. In 1936 they introduced their first "Electric Spanish" model, the ES-150. Other companies were producing electric guitars but the Gibson is generally recognized as the first commercially ''successful'' electric guitar. Other instruments were also "electrified"; such as steel guitars, banjos and mandolins.

During World War II, instrument manufacturing basically stopped at Gibson due to shortages of wood and metal. Only a few instruments were made with whatever parts were at hand. Gibson did war production instead, making wood parts for various military needs. Such shortages continued for a few years after the war and the only notable change occurred in 1946 when the Gibson name on the instrument headstock changed from a cursive script to the block style used to this day. This is seen at the head of the information block at top.

In 1944 Gibson was purchased by Chicago Musical Instruments, which took over marketing and sales of Gibson products while allowing the Kalamazoo factory to operate largely independently.

The ES-175 was introduced in 1949. The model has seen some variations over the years but it is still in production.

Gibson and Ted McCarty

In 1948, Gibson hired music industry veteran Ted McCarty, who was promoted to company president in 1950. During his tenure (1950–1966), Gibson greatly expanded and diversified its line of instruments. The first notable addition was the "Les Paul" guitar. McCarty was well aware of the strong sales of the Fender Telecaster. In 1950, Gibson decided to make a solid-body guitar of its own according to its own design philosophy despite the fact many other guitar manufacturers were contemptuous of the concept of a solid-body guitar. Designed by the guitarist Les Paul, it was released as his signature model in 1952. The "Les Paul" was offered in several models, including the Custom, the Standard, the Special, and the Junior.

In the mid-50s, the Thinline series was produced. Many guitarists did not like the bulk of a full-size archtop and wanted a thinner guitar. TheByrdland was the first produced. The first Byrdlands were slim, custom built, L-5 models for guitarists Billy Byrd and Hank Garland. Later, a shorter neck was added. Other guitarists who tried Gibson samples liked the idea and the model went into production. Other models such as the ES-350T and the ES-225T were introduced as less costly alternatives.

In 1958, Gibson introduced the ES-335T model. Similar in size to the hollow-body Thinlines, the ES-335 family had a solid center, giving the string tone a longer sustain.

In the late 50s, McCarty was aware the Gibson was perceived as a "conservative" company, generally making traditionally shaped instruments. He decided to change that. In 1958, Gibson produced two new designs: the eccentrically-shaped Explorer and Flying V. These "modernistic" guitars did not sell initially. It was only in the late 1960s and early 70s when the two guitars were reintroduced to the market that they sold very well. The Firebird, in the early 60s, was a reprise of the modernistic idea, though less extreme. In the 1950s, Gibson also produced the Tune-o-matic bridge system and its version of the humbucking pickup, the PAF ("Patent Applied For"), first released in 1957 and still sought after for its sound.

In 1961 the body design of the Les Paul was changed, due to the demand for a double-cutaway body design. Les Paul did not care for the new body style and let his endorsement lapse, and the new body design then became known as the SG (for "solid guitar"). The Les Paul returned to the Gibson catalog in 1968 due to the influence of players such as Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Peter Green. Both the Les Paul and the SG became very popular with rock and roll and blues guitar players.

The 70s to today

In 1969 Gibson parent Chicago Musical Instruments was taken over by a South American brewing conglomerate, E.C.L., which changed its name to Norlin Inc. (for ECL president Norton Stevens and CMI president Maurice Berlin). This began an era widely perceived as being characterized by corporate mismanagement and decreasing product quality similar to Fender's period under CBS ownership.

Between 1974 and 1984 production of Gibson guitars was shifted from Kalamazoo to Nashville, Tennessee. Early Nashville-built guitars suffered from both inexperienced workers and climate-control problems in the humid South. The Kalamazoo plant was kept going for a few years as a custom-instrument shop, but was closed in 1984; several Gibson employees led by plant manager Jim Duerloo established Heritage Guitars in the old factory, building versions of classic Gibson designs. The company was within three months of going out of business before it was bought by Henry E. Juszkiewicz, David H. Berryman, and Gary A. Zebrowski in January 1986. The survival and success of Gibson today is largely attributed to this change in ownership. Currently, Juszkiewicz is CEO and Berryman is president. More recently new production plants have been opened, such as Memphis, Tennessee, as well as Bozeman, Montana. The Memphis facility is used for semi-hollow and custom shop instruments, while the Bozeman facility is dedicated to acoustic instruments.

In mid 2009 Gibson reduced its work force to adjust for a decline in guitar industry sales in the United States.

In 2011, Gibson acquired the Stanton Group, including Cerwin Vega!, KRK Systems and Stanton DJ. Gibson then formed a new division, Gibson Pro Audio, which will deliver professional grade audio items, including headphones, loudspeakers and DJ equipment.

Gibson announced a partnership with the Japanese-based Onkyo Corporation in 2012. Onkyo, known for audio equipment and home theater systems, became part of the Gibson Pro Audio division.

Instruments

Brand names

Gibson also owns and makes instruments under such brands as Baldwin, Epiphone, Kalamazoo, Kramer, Maestro, Slingerland, Steinberger, Tobias, Valley Arts and Wurlitzer.

Gibson purchased Garrison Guitars in 2007.

Gibson serial numbers

Gibson models may not be easily identified by serial number alone, and as of 1999 the company has used six distinct serial numbering systems. By 2006, that number had risen to seven.

In 1977, Gibson introduced the serial numbering system in use until 2006. An eight digit number on the back shows the date on which the instrument was produced, where it was produced and its order of production that day (e.g. first instrument stamped that day, second, etc.).

An exception is the year 1994, Gibson's centennial year; many 1994 serial numbers start with "94", followed by a 6-digit production number.

The Gibson website provides a book to help with serial number deciphering.

After 2006

In 2006 Gibson introduced a 9 digit serial number system. The system is largely the same as the 8 digit system used since 1977, but the 6th digit now represents a batch number.

Recent innovation

MaGIC

In 2003, Gibson debuted its ethernet-based communications protocol, MaGIC, which it had developed in partnership with 3COM, Advanced Micro Devices and Xilinx. Replacing traditional analog hook-ups with a digital connection that would, "satisfy the unique requirements of live audio performances" may have been the goal of this project.

This system may require a special pickup, but cabling is provided by standard Cat-5 ethernet cord.

Self-tuning guitar

The Gibson "self-tuning guitar", also known as a "robot model", an option on some newer Les Paul, SG, Flying V and Explorer instruments, will tune itself in little more than two seconds using robotics technology developed by Tronical GmbH.

Corporate Social Responsibility

Gibson's corporate social responsibility efforts include a participation in Music Rising, which facilitated the replacement of tens of thousands of privately-owned, hurricane-damaged instruments.

Unauthorized copies

Gibson has sought legal action against those that make and sell guitars too-similar to their own.

In 1977 Gibson sued Hoshino/Elger for copying the Gibson Les Paul.

In 2000, Gibson sued Fernandes Guitars in a Tokyo court for allegedly copying Gibson designs. Gibson did not prevail.

Gibson also sued PRS Guitars to stop them from making their Singlecut model. The lawsuit against PRS was initially successful. However; in 2005, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the lower court decision and ordered the dismissal of Gibson's suit against PRS.

Authorized Gibson designs

Gibson makes authorized copies of its most successful guitar designs. They are less expensive than those bearing the Gibson name. A former competitor, Epiphone was purchased by Gibson and now makes competitively-priced Gibson models, such as the Les Paul, sold under the Epiphone brand , while continuing to make Epiphone-specific models like the Sheraton and Casino. In Japan, Orville by Gibson once made Gibson designs sold in that country.

Recent criticism and controversy

Gibson has come under scrutiny for allegedly importing illegal rare wood in potential violations of the Lacey Act. Though no charges have been filed, two police raids of Gibson factories found ebony wood from India with misleading labels authorities say were used to hide violations of Indian export law. Gibson claims the labeling was a mistake and that the transaction was approved by Indian authorities.

On November 17, 2009 federal authorities seized six guitars and several pallets of alleged endangered and illegal, rare ebony wood that Gibson had purchased and stored at their factory. Until the investigation has been concluded, Henry E. Juszkiewicz, CEO and Chairman of Gibson Guitar Corporation, has taken a leave of absence as a board member of the Rainforest Alliance.

On June 2011, the United States Department of Justice filed a civil case against Gibson. Authorities said Gibson sourced unfinished ebony wood, in the form of blanks, from Nagel, Germany, which obtained it exclusively from a supplier in Madagascar. Gibson acquired the ebony to manufacture fingerboards. Madagascar prohibits the logging of ebony wood and export of unfinished ebony. The filing also made mentioned internal e-mails from 2008 and 2009 that discussed plans to harvest ebony wood and rosewood in Madagascar. The case against Gibson Guitar was the first under the amended Lacey Act, which requires importing companies to purchase legally harvested wood and follow the environmental laws of the producing countries.

In January 2011, Gibson Guitar filed a motion to recover the materials seized in the raid and to overturn the charges made by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The court denied the motion. According to reports that quote a special agent on the case, the prosecution expects to use the material as evidence.

Gibson Guitar's offices and factories in Nashville and Memphis were raided again by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife on August 24, 2011. Details were not released about the nature of the raid or what was found due to the ongoing legal proceedings. According to a statement issued by Gibson Guitar the following day, these raids focused on rare wood imported from India. In the release, Gibson said authorities were "bullying Gibson without filing charges" and stating further: "Gibson has complied with foreign laws and believes it is innocent of any wrong doing. We will fight aggressively to prove our innocence." He also criticized the government's use of the Lacey Act because it interprets and enforces the laws of other nations.

If the prosecution is successful, Gibson would face felony charges that could result in large fines or jail terms for executives involved. Gibson Guitar is considered a progressive company for its promotion of sustainability and forest certification. Although the Rainforest Alliance certified the wood used by Gibson Guitar, its FSC certificates only applied to specific product lines. If wood was sourced from Madagascar, the wood could not have been used in products labeled or sold as FSC-certified.

The case has also raised concerns for musicians who lack documentation of vintage instruments made of traditional, non-sustainable materials. However, senior officials from the Justice Department and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have stated that musicians who unknowingly possess instruments made from illegal wood would not be treated as criminals. Instead, they insisted that the government's aim is to target individuals and businesses that profit from the trafficking of these protected species. Despite these assurances, lobbying efforts by Juszkiewicz resulted in a proposed bill that would protect musicians who unknowingly possess materials that violate the Lacey Act, while also exempting wood supplies purchased by companies before May 22, 2008 and requiring the government publish a database of illegal wood sources for the public.

See also

David Harvey (luthier)

Jim Triggs (luthier)

List of Gibson players

References

External links

Official website, Gibson Guitar Company

Category:Guitar manufacturing companies Category:Banjo manufacturing companies Category:Bass guitar manufacturing companies Category:Companies established in 1896 Category:Gibson Guitar Corporation Category:Companies based in Nashville, Tennessee Category:Manufacturing companies based in Tennessee Category:Guitar amplifier manufacturers

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{{infobox christian leader | type	Pope
english name	Benedict XVI
birth name	Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger
term start	19 April 2005
predecessor	John Paul II
birth date	April 16, 1927
birth place	Marktl, Bavaria, Germany
other	Benedict Pope
nationality	German (along with Vatican citizenship)
signature	Pope Benedict XVI Signature.svg
coat of arms	BXVI CoA like gfx PioM.svg
motto	''cooperatores veritatis'' (cooperating with the truth)
ordination	29 June 1951
ordinated by	Michael von Faulhaber
consecration	28 May 1977
consecrated by	Josef Stangl
cardinal	27 June 1977
religion	Roman Catholic
parents	Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., Maria Ratzinger
previous post	{{unbulleted list | Archbishop of Munich and Freising, Germany ''(1977–1982)'' | Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria Consolatrice al Tiburtino ''(1977–1993)'' | President of the International Theological Commission ''(1981–2005)'' | Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith ''(1981–2005)'' | President of the Pontifical Biblical Commission ''(1981–2005)'' | Cardinal-Bishop of Velletri-Segni ''(1993–2005)'' | Dean of the College of Cardinals ''(2002–2005)'' | Cardinal-Bishop of Ostia ''(2002–2005)'' }}

}} Benedict XVI (; ; ; born Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger on 16 April 1927) is the 265th and current Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the Sovereign of the Vatican City State and the leader of the Catholic Church, which includes the Latin Church and the twenty-two ''sui iuris'' Eastern Catholic Churches. In the Catholic Church, Benedict as Pope, is regarded as the successor of Saint Peter. Benedict XVI was elected on 19 April 2005 in a papal conclave, celebrated his Papal Inauguration Mass on 24 April 2005, and took possession of his cathedral, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran, on 7 May 2005. A native of Bavaria, Pope Benedict XVI has both German and Vatican citizenship.

After a long career as an academic, serving as a professor of theology at various German universities—the last being the University of Regensburg—he was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising and cardinal by Pope Paul VI in 1977. In 1981, he settled in Rome when he became Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, one of the most important dicasteries of the Roman Curia. From 2002 until his election as Pope, he was also Dean of the College of Cardinals, and as such the ''primus inter pares'' among the cardinals. Prior to becoming Pope, he was "a major figure on the Vatican stage for a quarter of a century" as "one of the most respected, influential and controversial members of the College of Cardinals"; he had an influence "second to none when it came to setting church priorities and directions" as one of Pope John Paul II's closest confidants.

Like his predecessor, Benedict XVI is theologically conservative and his teaching and prolific writings defend traditional Catholic doctrine and values. During his papacy, Benedict XVI has advocated a return to fundamental Christian values to counter the increased secularisation of many developed countries. He views relativism's denial of objective truth, and the denial of moral truths in particular, as the central problem of the 21st century. He teaches the importance of both the Catholic Church and an understanding of God's redemptive love. He has reaffirmed the "importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work." Pope Benedict has also revived a number of traditions including elevating the Tridentine Mass to a more prominent position.

Overview

Benedict XVI was elected Pope at the age of 78. He is the oldest person to have been elected Pope since Pope Clement XII (1730–40). He had served longer as a cardinal than any Pope since Benedict XIII (1724–30). He is the ninth German Pope, the eighth having been the Dutch-German Pope Adrian VI (1522–23) from Utrecht. The last Pope named Benedict was Benedict XV, an Italian who reigned from 1914 to 1922, during World War I (1914–18).

Born in 1927 in Marktl, Bavaria, Germany, Ratzinger had a distinguished career as a university theologian before being appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising by Pope Paul VI (1963–78). Shortly afterwards, he was made a cardinal in the consistory of 27 June 1977. He was appointed Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith by Pope John Paul II in 1981 and was also assigned the honorific title of the cardinal bishop of Velletri-Segni on 5 April 1993. In 1998, he was elected sub-dean of the College of Cardinals. On 30 November 2002, he was elected dean, taking, as is customary, the title of cardinal bishop of the suburbicarian diocese of Ostia. He was the first Dean of the College elected Pope since Paul IV (1555–59) and the first cardinal bishop elected Pope since Pius VIII (1829–30).

Even before becoming Pope, Ratzinger was one of the most influential men in the Roman Curia, and was a close associate of John Paul II. As Dean of the College of Cardinals, he presided over the funeral of John Paul II and over the Mass immediately preceding the 2005 conclave in which he was elected. During the service, he called on the assembled cardinals to hold fast to the doctrine of the faith. He was the public face of the church in the ''sede vacante'' period, although, technically, he ranked below the ''Camerlengo'' in administrative authority during that time. Like his predecessor, Benedict XVI affirms traditional Catholic doctrine.

In addition to his native German, Benedict speaks French and Italian fluently. He also has a very good command of Latin and speaks English and Spanish adequately. Furthermore, he has some knowledge of Portuguese. He can read Ancient Greek and biblical Hebrew. He has stated that his first foreign language is French. He is a member of several scientific academies, such as the French ''Académie des sciences morales et politiques''. He plays the piano and has a preference for Mozart and Bach.

Early life: 1927–51

Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger was born on 16 April, Holy Saturday, 1927, at Schulstraße 11, at 8:30 in the morning in his parents' home in Marktl, Bavaria, Germany. He was baptised the same day. He was the third and youngest child of Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., a police officer, and Maria Ratzinger (née Peintner). His mother's family was originally from South Tyrol (now in Italy). Pope Benedict XVI's brother, Georg Ratzinger, a priest and former director of the Regensburger Domspatzen choir, is still alive. His sister, Maria Ratzinger, who never married, managed Cardinal Ratzinger's household until her death in 1991. Their grand-uncle was the German politician Georg Ratzinger.

At the age of five, Ratzinger was in a group of children who welcomed the visiting Cardinal Archbishop of Munich with flowers. Struck by the cardinal's distinctive garb, he later announced the very same day that he wanted to be a cardinal.

Ratzinger attended the elementary school in Aschau am Inn, which was renamed in his honour in 2009.

Following his 14th birthday in 1941, Ratzinger was conscripted into the Hitler Youth—as membership was required by law for all 14-year-old German boys after December 1939—but was an unenthusiastic member who refused to attend meetings, according to his brother. In 1941, one of Ratzinger's cousins, a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome, was taken away by the Nazi regime and killed during the Action T4 campaign of Nazi eugenics. In 1943, while still in seminary, he was drafted into the German anti-aircraft corps as Luftwaffenhelfer (air force child soldier). Ratzinger then trained in the German infantry. As the Allied front drew closer to his post in 1945, he deserted back to his family's home in Traunstein after his unit had ceased to exist, just as American troops established their headquarters in the Ratzinger household. As a German soldier, he was put in a POW camp but was released a few months later at the end of the war in the summer of 1945. He reentered the seminary, along with his brother Georg, in November of that year.

Thus, following repatriation in 1945, the two brothers entered Saint Michael Seminary in Traunstein, later studying at the Ducal Georgianum (''Herzogliches Georgianum'') of the Ludwig-Maximilian University in Munich. They were both ordained in Freising on 29 June 1951 by Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber of Munich. Ratzinger recalled:

...at the moment the elderly Archbishop laid his hands on me, a little bird – perhaps a lark – flew up from the altar in the high cathedral and trilled a little joyful song.

Ratzinger's 1953 dissertation was on St. Augustine and was titled ''The People and the House of God in Augustine's Doctrine of the Church''. His ''Habilitation'' (which qualified him for a professorship) was on Bonaventure. It was completed in 1957 and he became a professor of Freising College in 1958.

Pre-papal career

Academic career: 1951–77

Ratzinger became a professor at the University of Bonn in 1959; his inaugural lecture was on "The God of Faith and the God of Philosophy". In 1963, he moved to the University of Münster.

During this period, Ratzinger participated in the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Ratzinger served as a ''peritus'' (theological consultant) to Cardinal Frings of Cologne. He was viewed during the time of the Council as a reformer, cooperating with theologians like Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx. Ratzinger became an admirer of Karl Rahner, a well-known academic theologian of the Nouvelle Théologie and a proponent of church reform.

In 1966, Ratzinger was appointed to a chair in dogmatic theology at the University of Tübingen, where he was a colleague of Hans Küng. In his 1968 book ''Introduction to Christianity'', he wrote that the pope has a duty to hear differing voices within the Church before making a decision, and he downplayed the centrality of the papacy. During this time, he distanced himself from the atmosphere of Tübingen and the Marxist leanings of the student movement of the 1960s that quickly radicalised, in the years 1967 and 1968, culminating in a series of disturbances and riots in April and May 1968. Ratzinger came increasingly to see these and associated developments (such as decreasing respect for authority among his students) as connected to a departure from traditional Catholic teachings. Despite his reformist bent, his views increasingly came to contrast with the liberal ideas gaining currency in theological circles.

Some voices, among them Hans Küng, deem this a turn towards conservatism, while Ratzinger himself said in a 1993 interview, "I see no break in my views as a theologian [over the years]". Ratzinger has continued to defend the work of the Second Vatican Council, including ''Nostra Aetate,'' the document on respect of other religions, ecumenism and the declaration of the right to freedom of religion. Later, as the Prefect for the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger most clearly spelled out the Catholic Church's position on other religions in the 2000 document ''Dominus Iesus'' which also talks about the Roman Catholic way to engage in "ecumenical dialogue".

During his years at Tübingen University, Ratzinger published articles in the reformist theological journal ''Concilium'', though he increasingly chose less reformist themes than other contributors to the magazine such as Hans Küng and Edward Schillebeeckx.

In 1969, he returned to Bavaria, to the University of Regensburg. He founded the theological journal ''Communio'', with Hans Urs von Balthasar, Henri de Lubac, Walter Kasper and others, in 1972. ''Communio'', now published in seventeen languages, including German, English and Spanish, has become a prominent journal of contemporary Catholic theological thought. Until his election as Pope, he remained one of the journal's most prolific contributors. In 1976, he suggested that the Augsburg Confession might possibly be recognised as a Catholic statement of faith.

Archbishop of Munich and Freising: 1977–82

On 24 March 1977, Ratzinger was appointed Archbishop of Munich and Freising. He took as his episcopal motto ''Cooperatores Veritatis'' (Co-workers of the Truth) from 3 John 8, a choice he comments upon in his autobiographical work, ''Milestones''. In the consistory of the following 27 June, he was named Cardinal-Priest of ''Santa Maria Consolatrice al Tiburtino'' by Pope Paul VI. By the time of the 2005 Conclave, he was one of only 14 remaining cardinals appointed by Paul VI, and one of only three of those under the age of 80. Of these, only he and William Wakefield Baum took part in the conclave.

Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith: 1981–2005

On 25 November 1981, Pope John Paul II named Ratzinger as the Prefect of the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as the "Sacred Congregaton of the Holy Office", the historical Inquisition. Consequently, he resigned his post at Munich in early 1982. He was promoted within the College of Cardinals to become Cardinal Bishop of Velletri-Segni in 1993 and was made the college's vice-dean in 1998 and dean in 2002.

Ratzinger defended and reaffirmed Catholic doctrine, including teaching on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and inter-religious dialogue. The theologian Leonardo Boff, for example, was suspended, while others were censured. Other issues also prompted condemnations or revocations of rights to teach: for instance, some posthumous writings of Jesuit priest Anthony de Mello were the subject of a "notification". Ratzinger and the congregation viewed many of them, particularly the later works, as having an element of religious indifferentism (''i.e.'', Christ was "one master alongside others"). In particular, ''Dominus Iesus'', published by the congregation in the jubilee year 2000, reaffirmed many recently "unpopular" ideas, including the Catholic Church's position that "Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved." The document angered many Protestant churches by claiming that they are not actually churches, but "ecclesial communities".

Ratzinger's 2001 letter ''De delictis gravioribus'' clarified the confidentiality of internal church investigations, as defined in the 1962 document ''Crimen Sollicitationis'', into accusations made against priests of certain crimes, including sexual abuse. This became a target of controversy during the sex abuse scandal. While bishops hold the secrecy pertained only internally, and did not preclude investigation by civil law enforcement, the letter was often seen as promoting a coverup. Later, as Pope, he was accused in a lawsuit of conspiring to cover up the molestation of three boys in Texas, but sought and obtained diplomatic immunity from prosecution.

On 12 March 1983, Ratzinger, as prefect, notified the lay faithful and the clergy that archbishop Pierre Martin Ngo Dinh Thuc had incurred excommunication ''latae sententiae'' for illicit episcopal consecrations without the apostolic mandate.

In 1997, when he turned 70, Ratzinger asked Pope John Paul II for permission to leave the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith and to become an archivist in the Vatican Secret Archives and a librarian in the Vatican Library, but the pope refused such permission.

Medjugorje

A number of quotes about the apparitions of Medjugorje have been attributed to Benedict XVI. In 1998, when a certain German gathered various statements which were supposedly made by Pope John Paul II and Cardinal Ratzinger, and then forwarded them to the Vatican in the form of a memorandum, Ratzinger responded in writing on 22 July 1998: “The only thing I can say regarding statements on Medjugorje ascribed to the Holy Father and myself is that they are complete invention”

Papacy

Election to the papacy

Prediction

On 2 January 2005, ''Time'' magazine quoted unnamed Vatican sources as saying that Ratzinger was a front runner to succeed John Paul II should the pope die or become too ill to continue as pope. On the death of John Paul II, the ''Financial Times'' gave the odds of Ratzinger becoming pope as 7–1, the lead position, but close to his rivals on the liberal wing of the church. In April 2005, before his election as pope, he was identified as one of the 100 most influential people in the world by ''Time''. While Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Ratzinger repeatedly stated he would like to retire to his house in the Bavarian village of Pentling near Regensburg and dedicate himself to writing books.

Though Ratzinger was increasingly considered the front runner by much of the international media, others maintained that his election was far from certain, since very few papal predictions in modern history had come true. The elections of both John Paul II and his predecessor, John Paul I had been rather unexpected. Despite being the favorite (or perhaps because he was the favorite), it was a surprise to many that he was actually elected, as traditionally the frontrunners are passed over by the conclave for someone else.

Election

On 19 April 2005, Ratzinger was elected as the successor to Pope John Paul II on the second day of the papal conclave after four ballots. Ratzinger had hoped to retire peacefully and said that "At a certain point, I prayed to God 'please don't do this to me'...Evidently, this time He didn't listen to me." Coincidentally, 19 April is the feast of St. Leo IX, the most important German pope of the Middle Ages, known for instituting major reforms during his pontificate.

Before his first appearance at the balcony of Saint Peter's Basilica after becoming pope, he was announced by Jorge Medina Estévez, Cardinal Protodeacon of the Holy Roman Church. Cardinal Medina Estévez first addressed the massive crowd as "dear(est) brothers and sisters" in Italian, Spanish, French, German and English, with each language receiving cheers from the international crowd, before continuing with the traditional ''Habemus Papam'' announcement in Latin.

At the balcony, Benedict's first words to the crowd, given in Italian before he gave the traditional ''Urbi et Orbi'' blessing in Latin, were:

On 24 April, he celebrated the Papal Inauguration Mass in St. Peter's Square, during which he was invested with the Pallium and the Ring of the Fisherman. Then, on 7 May, he took possession of his cathedral church, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran.

Choice of name

Ratzinger chose the pontifical name Benedict, which comes from the Latin word meaning "the blessed", in honour of both Pope Benedict XV and Saint Benedict of Nursia. Pope Benedict XV was Pope during the First World War, during which time he passionately pursued peace between the warring nations. St. Benedict of Nursia was the founder of the Benedictine monasteries (most monasteries of the Middle Ages were of the Benedictine order) and the author of the ''Rule of Saint Benedict'', which is still the most influential writing regarding the monastic life of Western Christianity.

The pope explained his choice of name during his first General Audience in St. Peter's Square, on 27 April 2005:

Tone of papacy

During his inaugural Mass, the previous custom of every cardinal submitting to the Pope was replaced by having twelve people, including cardinals, clergy, religious, a married couple and their child, and newly confirmed people, greet him. (The cardinals had formally sworn their obedience upon his election.) He began using an open-topped papal car, saying that he wanted to be closer to the people. Pope Benedict has continued the tradition of his predecessor John Paul II and baptises several infants in the Sistine Chapel at the beginning of each year, in his pastoral role as Bishop of Rome.

Beatifications

On 9 May 2005, Benedict XVI began the beatification process for his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. Normally, five years must pass after a person's death before the beatification process can begin. However, in an audience with Pope Benedict, Camillo Ruini, Vicar General of the Diocese of Rome and the official responsible for promoting the cause for canonization of any person who dies within that diocese, cited "exceptional circumstances" which suggested that the waiting period could be waived. This happened before, when Pope Paul VI waived the five year rule and announced beatification processes for his predecessors, Pope Pius XII and Pope John XXIII. Benedict XVI followed this precedent when he waived the five year rule for John Paul II. The decision was announced on 13 May 2005, the Feast of Our Lady of Fátima and the 24th anniversary of the attempt on John Paul II's life. John Paul II often credited Our Lady of Fátima for preserving him on that day. Cardinal Ruini inaugurated the diocesan phase of the cause for beatification in the Lateran Basilica on 28 June 2005.

The first beatification under the new Pope was celebrated on 14 May 2005, by José Cardinal Saraiva Martins, Cardinal Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints. The new Blesseds were Mother Marianne Cope and Mother Ascensión Nicol Goñi. Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen was beatified on 9 October 2005. Mariano de la Mata was beatified in November 2006 and Rosa Eluvathingal was beatified 3 December of that year, and Fr. Basil Moreau was beatified September 2007. In October 2008 the following beatifications took place: Celestine of the Mother of God, Giuseppina Nicoli, Hendrina Stenmanns, Maria Rosa Flesch, Marta Anna Wiecka, Michael Sopocko, Petrus Kibe Kasui and 187 Companions, Susana Paz-Castillo Ramirez, Maria Isbael Salvat Romero, and John Henry Newman.

Unlike his predecessor, Benedict XVI delegated the beatification liturgical service to a Cardinal. On 29 September 2005, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued a communiqué announcing that henceforth beatifications would be celebrated by a representative of the Pope, usually the Prefect of that Congregation.

Canonizations

Pope Benedict XVI celebrated his first canonizations on 23 October 2005 in St. Peter's Square when he canonized Josef Bilczewski, Alberto Hurtado SJ, Zygmunt Gorazdowski, Gaetano Catanoso, and Felice da Nicosia. The canonizations were part of a Mass that marked the conclusion of the General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops and the Year of the Eucharist. Pope Benedict XVI canonized Bishop Rafael Guizar y Valencia, Mother Theodore Guerin, Filippo Smaldone, and Rosa Venerini on 15 October 2006.

During his visit to Brazil in 2007, Pope Benedict XVI presided over the canonization of Frei Galvão on 11 May, while George Preca, founder of the Malta based M.U.S.E.U.M., Szymon of Lipnica, Charles of Mount Argus, and Marie-Eugénie de Jésus were canonized in a ceremony held at the Vatican on 3 June 2007. Preca is the first Maltese saint since the country's conversion to Christianity in 60 A.D. when St. Paul converted the inhabitants. In October 2008 the following canonizations took place: Saint Alphonsa of India, Gaetano Errico, Narcisa de Jesus Martillo Moran, Maria Bernarda Bütler. In April 2009 he canonized Arcangelo Tadini, Bernardo Tolomei, Nuno Álvares Pereira, Geltrude Comensoli, Caterina Volpicelli. In October of the same year he canonized Jeanne Jugan, Jozef Damian de Veuster, Zygmunt Szczęsny Feliński, Francisco Coll Guitart and Rafael Arnáiz Barón.

On 17 October 2010, Pope Benedict XVI formally declared sainthood for Saint André Bessette, a French-Canadian; Stanislaw Soltys, a 15th-century Polish priest; Italian nuns Giulia Salzano and Camilla Battista da Varano; Spanish nun Candida Maria de Jesus Cipitria y Barriola and an Australian nun, Mother Mary MacKillop.

On 23 October 2011, Pope Benedict XVI canonized three saints: a Spanish nun Bonifacia Rodriguez y Castro, Italian archbishop Guido Maria Conforti, and Italian priest Luigi Guanella.

In December 2011, Pope Benedict formally recognized the validity of the miracles necessary to proceed with the canonizations of Kateri Tekakwitha, who will be the first Native American saint, Marianne Cope, a nun working with lepers in what is now the state of Hawaii, Giovanni Battista Piamarta, an Italian priest, Jacques Berthieu a French Jesuit priest and African martyr, Carmen Salles y Barangueras, a Spanish nun and founder of the Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, Peter Calungsod, a lay catechist and martyr from the Philippines, and Anna Schaffer whose desire to be a missionary was unfulfilled on account of her illness. They will be canonized on 21 October 2012.

Curia reform

Pope Benedict began downsizing the Roman Curia when he merged four existing pontifical councils into two in March 2006. The Pontifical Council for Migrants was merged with the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace headed by Cardinal Martino. Likewise, Cardinal Poupard, who headed the Pontifical Council for Culture, now also oversees the operations of what had been the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, though both Councils maintained separate officials and staffs while their status and competencies continued unchanged. In May 2007 it was decided that Interreligious Dialogue would again become a separate body under a different President. In June 2010 Benedict created the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of the New Evangelisation. He appointed Archbishop Salvatore Fisichella as its first president.

Teachings

As Pope, one of Benedict XVI's main roles is to teach about the Catholic faith and the solutions to the problems of discerning and living the faith, a role that he can play well as a former head of the Church's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. The main points of emphasis of his teachings are stated in more detail in Theology of Pope Benedict XVI.

"Friendship with Jesus Christ"

At the conclusion of his first homily as Pope, Benedict referred to both Jesus Christ and John Paul II. Citing John Paul II's well-known words, "Do not be afraid! Open wide the doors for Christ!", Benedict XVI said:

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"Friendship with Jesus Christ" is a frequent theme of his preaching. He stressed that on this intimate friendship, "everything depends." He has also said: "We are all called to open ourselves to this friendship with God... speaking to him as to a friend, the only One who can make the world both good and happy... That is all we have to do is put ourselves at his disposal...is an extremely important message. It is a message that helps to overcome what can be considered the great temptation of our time: the claim, that after the Big Bang, God withdrew from history." Thus, in his book ''Jesus of Nazareth'', his main purpose was "to help foster [in the reader] the growth of a living relationship" with Jesus Christ.

He took up this theme in his first encyclical ''Deus Caritas Est''. In his personal explanation and summary of the encyclical, he stated: "If friendship with God becomes for us something ever more important and decisive, then we will begin to love those whom God loves and who are in need of us. God wants us to be friends of his friends and we can be so, if we are interiorly close to them." Thus, he said that prayer is "urgently needed...It is time to reaffirm the importance of prayer in the face of the activism and the growing secularism of many Christians engaged in charitable work."

"Dictatorship of Relativism"

Continuing what he said in the pre-conclave Mass about what he has often referred to as the "central problem of our faith today", on 6 June 2005 Pope Benedict also said:

He said that "a dictatorship of relativism" was the core challenge facing the church and humanity. At the root of this problem, he said, is Kant's "self-limitation of reason". This, he said, is contradictory to the modern acclamation of science whose excellence is based on the power of reason to know the truth. He said that this self-amputation of reason leads to pathologies of religion such as terrorism and pathologies of science such as ecological disasters. Benedict traced the failed revolutions and violent ideologies of the 20th century to a conversion of partial points of view into absolute guides. He said "Absolutizing what is not absolute but relative is called totalitarianism."

In an address to a conference of the Diocese of Rome held at the basilica of St. John Lateran 6 June 2005, Benedict remarked on the issues of same sex marriage and abortion: :The various forms of the dissolution of matrimony today, like free unions, trial marriages and going up to pseudo-matrimonies by people of the same sex, are rather expressions of an anarchic freedom that wrongly passes for true freedom of man...from here it becomes all the more clear how contrary it is to human love, to the profound vocation of man and woman, to systematically close their union to the gift of life, and even worse to suppress or tamper with the life that is born.

Christianity as religion according to reason

In the discussion with secularism and rationalism, one of Benedict's basic ideas can be found in his address on the "Crisis of Culture" in the West, a day before Pope John Paul II died, when he referred to Christianity as the Religion of the Logos (the Greek for "word", "reason", "meaning", or "intelligence"). He said: WebCitation archive}}

Benedict also emphasised that "Only creative reason, which in the crucified God is manifested as love, can really show us the way."

Encyclicals

Pope Benedict has to date written three encyclicals: ''Deus Caritas Est'' (Latin for "God is Love"), ''Spe Salvi'' ("Saved by Hope"), and ''Caritas in Veritate'' ("Love in Truth").

In his first encyclical, ''Deus Caritas Est'', he said that a human being, created in the image of God who is love, is able to practice love: to give himself to God and others (agape), by receiving and experiencing God's love in contemplation. This life of love, according to him, is the life of the saints such as Teresa of Calcutta and the Blessed Virgin Mary, and is the direction Christians take when they believe that God loves them in Jesus Christ.

The encyclical contains almost 16,000 words in 42 paragraphs. The first half is said to have been written by Benedict in German, his mother tongue, in the summer of 2005; the second half is derived from uncompleted writings left by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. The document was signed by Pope Benedict on Christmas Day, 25 December 2005. The encyclical was promulgated a month later in Latin and was translated into English, French, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese and Spanish. It is the first encyclical to be published since the Vatican decided to assert copyright in the official writings of the Pope.

Pope Benedict's second encyclical titled ''Spe Salvi'' ("Saved by Hope"), about the virtue of hope, was released on 30 November 2007.

Benedict's third encyclical titled ''Caritas in Veritate'' ("Love in Truth" or "Charity in Truth"), was signed on 29 June 2009 (the Feast of Sts. Peter and Paul) and released on 7 July 2009. In it, the Pope continued the Church's teachings on social justice. He condemned the prevalent economic system "where the pernicious effects of sin are evident," and called on people to rediscover ethics in business and economic relations.

Post-synodal apostolic exhortation

''Sacramentum Caritatis'' (The Sacrament of Charity) signed 22 February 2007, released in Latin, Italian, English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Polish. It was made available in various languages 13 March 2007 in Rome. The English edition from ''Libera Editrice Vaticana'' is 158 pages. This apostolic exhortation "seeks to take up the richness and variety of the reflections and proposals which emerged from the recent Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops..." which was held in 2006.

Motu proprio on Tridentine Mass

On 7 July 2007, Benedict XVI issued the ''motu proprio Summorum Pontificum'', declaring that upon "the request of the faithful", celebration of Mass according to the Missal of 1962 (commonly known as the Tridentine Mass), was to be more easily permitted. Stable groups who previously had to petition their bishop to have a Tridentine Mass may now merely request permission from their local priest. While ''Summorum Pontificum'' directs that pastors should provide the Tridentine Mass upon the requests of the faithful, it also allows for any qualified priest to offer private celebrations of the Tridentine Mass, to which the faithful may be admitted if they wish. For regularly scheduled public celebrations of the Tridentine Mass, the permission of the priest in charge of the church is required.

In an accompanying letter, the Pope outlined his position concerning questions about the new guidelines. As there were fears that the move would entail a reversal of the Second Vatican Council, Benedict emphasised that the Tridentine Mass would not detract from the Council, and that the Mass of Paul VI would still be the norm and priests were not permitted to refuse to say the Mass in that form. He pointed out that use of Tridentine Mass "was never juridically abrogated and, consequently, in principle, was always permitted." The letter also decried "deformations of the liturgy ... because in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal" as the Second Vatican Council was wrongly seen "as authorising or even requiring creativity", mentioning his own experience.

The Pope considered that allowing the Tridentine Mass to those who request it was a means to prevent or heal schism, stating that, on occasions in history, "not enough was done by the Church’s leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity" and that this "imposes an obligation on us today: to make every effort to enable for all those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew." Many feel the decree aimed at ending the schism between the Holy See and traditionalist groups such as the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). Cardinal Darío Castrillón Hoyos, the president of the Pontifical Commission established for the purpose of facilitating full ecclesial communion of those associated with that Society, stated that the decree "opened the door for their return". Bishop Bernard Fellay, superior general of the SSPX, expressed "deep gratitude to the Sovereign Pontiff for this great spiritual benefit".

Unicity and Salvific Universality of the Church

Near the end of June 2007, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued a document approved by Benedict XVI "because some contemporary theological interpretations of Vatican II's ecumenical intent had been 'erroneous or ambiguous' and had prompted confusion and doubt." The document has been seen as restating "key sections of a 2000 text the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, ''Dominus Iesus''."

Consumerism

Benedict XVI has condemned excessive consumerism, especially among youth. He stated in December 2007 that "[A]dolescents, youths and even children are easy victims of the corruption of love, deceived by unscrupulous adults who, lying to themselves and to them, draw them into the dead-end streets of consumerism."

In June 2009, he blamed outsourcing for greater availability of consumer goods which lead to downsizing of social security systems.

Ecumenical efforts

Speaking at his weekly audience in St Peter's Square on 7 June 2006, Pope Benedict asserted that Jesus himself had entrusted the leadership of the Church to his apostle Peter. "Peter's responsibility thus consists of guaranteeing the communion with Christ," said Pope Benedict. "Let us pray so that the primacy of Peter, entrusted to poor human beings, may always be exercised in this original sense desired by the Lord, so that it will be increasingly recognised in its true meaning by brothers who are still not in communion with us."

Dialogue with other religions

Pope Benedict is open to dialogue with other religious groups, and has sought to improve relations with them throughout his pontificate. He has, however, generated certain controversies in doing so.

Judaism

When Benedict ascended to the Papacy his election was welcomed by the Anti-Defamation League who noted "his great sensitivity to Jewish history and the Holocaust". However, his election received a more reserved response from the United Kingdom's Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who hoped that Benedict would "continue along the path of Pope John XXIII and Pope John Paul II in working to enhance relations with the Jewish people and the State of Israel." The Foreign Minister of Israel also offered more tentative praise, though the Minister believed that "this Pope, considering his historical experience, will be especially committed to an uncompromising fight against anti-Semitism."

Critics have accused Benedict's papacy of insensitivity towards Judaism. The two most prominent instances were the expansion of the use of the Tridentine Mass and the lifting of the excommunication on four bishops from the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX). In the Good Friday service, the traditional Mass rubrics include a prayer that asks God to lift the veil so ''they [Jews] may be delivered from their darkness''. This prayer has historically been contentious in Judaic-Catholic relations and several groups saw the restoration of the Tridentine Mass as problematic. Among those whose excommunications were lifted was Bishop Richard Williamson, an outspoken historical revisionist misinterpreted as a Holocaust denier. The lifting of his excommunication led critics to charge that the Pope was condoning his historical revisionist views.

Islam

Pope Benedict's relations with Islam have been strained at times. On 12 September 2006 Pope Benedict XVI delivered a lecture which touched on Islam at the University of Regensburg in Germany. The pope had previously served as professor of theology at the university, and his lecture was entitled "Faith, Reason and the University—Memories and Reflections". The lecture received much attention from political and religious authorities. Many Islamic politicians and religious leaders registered their protest against what they said was an insulting mischaracterisation of Islam, although his focus was aimed towards the rationality of religious violence, and its effect on the religion. Muslims were particularly offended by the following quotation from the Pope's speech:

The passage originally appeared in the "''Dialogue Held With A Certain Persian, the Worthy Mouterizes, in Anakara of Galatia'' written in 1391 as an expression of the views of the Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus, one of the last Christian rulers before the Fall of Constantinople to the Muslim Ottoman Empire, on such issues as forced conversion, holy war, and the relationship between faith and reason. According to the German text, the Pope's original comment was that the emperor "addresses his interlocutor in an astoundingly harsh—to us surprisingly harsh—way" ''(wendet er sich in erstaunlich schroffer, uns überraschend schroffer Form).'' Pope Benedict apologised for any offence he had caused and made a point of visiting Turkey, a predominantly Muslim country, and praying in its Blue Mosque.

Pope Benedict XVI planned on 5 March 2008, to meet with Muslim scholars and religious leaders autumn 2008 at a Catholic-Muslim seminar in Rome. That meeting, the "First Meeting of the Catholic-Muslim Forum," was held from November 4–6, 2008.

On 9 May 2009 H.H. Pope Benedict XVI visited the King Hussein Mosque, Amman, Jordan where he was addressed by H.R.H. Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal.

Tibetan Buddhism

The Dalai Lama congratulated Pope Benedict XVI upon his election, and visited him in October 2006 in the Vatican City. In 2007 China was accused of using its political influence to stop a meeting between the Pope and the Dalai Lama.

Indigenous American beliefs

While visiting Brazil in May 2007, "the pope sparked controversy by saying that native populations had been 'silently longing' for the Christian faith brought to South America by colonizers." The Pope continued, stating that "the proclamation of Jesus and of his Gospel did not at any point involve an alienation of the pre-Columbus cultures, nor was it the imposition of a foreign culture." President of Venezuela Hugo Chávez demanded an apology, and an indigenous organisation in Ecuador issued a response which stated that "representatives of the Catholic Church of those times, with honourable exceptions, were accomplices, deceivers and beneficiaries of one of the most horrific genocides of all humanity." Later, the pope, speaking Italian, said at a weekly audience that it was:

"not possible to forget the suffering and the injustices inflicted by colonizers against the indigenous population, whose fundamental human rights were often trampled."

International Society for Krishna Consciousness

While visiting the United States on 17 April 2008, Benedict met with International Society for Krishna Consciousness representative Radhika Ramana Dasa; a notable Hindu scholar and disciple of Hanumatpreshaka Swami. On behalf of the Hindu American community, Radhika Ramana Dasa presented a gift of an Om symbol to Benedict.

Apostolic ministry

As Pontiff, Benedict XVI carries out numerous Apostolic activities including journeys across the world and in the Vatican.

Benedict travelled extensively during the first three years of his papacy. In addition to his travels within Italy, Pope Benedict XVI has made two visits to his homeland, Germany, one for World Youth Day and another to visit the towns of his childhood. He has also visited Poland and Spain, where he was enthusiastically received. His visit to Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation, was initially overshadowed by the controversy about a lecture he had given at Regensburg. His visit was met by nationalist and Islamic protesters and was placed under unprecedented security measures. However, the trip went ahead and Benedict made a joint declaration with Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I in an attempt to begin to heal the rift between the Catholic and Orthodox churches.

In 2007, Pope Benedict visited Brazil in order to address the Bishops' Conference there and canonize Friar Antônio Galvão, an 18th century Franciscan. In June 2007, Benedict made a personal pilgrimage and pastoral visit to Assisi, the birthplace of St. Francis. In September, Benedict undertook a three day visit to Austria, during which he joined Vienna's Chief Rabbi, Paul Chaim Eisenberg, in a memorial to the 65,000 Viennese Jews who perished in Nazi death camps. During his stay in Austria, he also celebrated Mass at the Marian shrine Mariazell and visited Heiligenkreuz Abbey.

In April 2008, Pope Benedict XVI made his first visit to the United States since becoming pope. He arrived in Washington, DC where he was formally received at the White House and met privately with U.S. President George W. Bush. While in Washington, the pope addressed representatives of US Catholic universities, met with leaders of other world religions, and celebrated Mass at the Washington Nationals' baseball stadium with 47,000 people. The Pope also met privately with victims of sexual abuse by priests. The pope travelled to New York where he addressed the United Nations General Assembly. Also while in New York, the pope celebrated Mass at St. Patrick's Cathedral, met with disabled children and their families, and attended an event for Catholic youth, where he addressed some 25,000 young people in attendance. On the final day of the pope's visit, he visited the World Trade Center site and later celebrated Mass at Yankee Stadium.

In July 2008, the Pope travelled to Australia to attend World Youth Day 2008 in Sydney. On 19 July, in St. Mary's Cathedral, he made an apology for child sex abuse perpetrated by the clergy in Australia. On 13 September 2008, at an outdoor Paris Mass attended by 250,000 people, Pope Benedict XVI condemned the modern materialism – the world's love of power, possessions and money as a modern-day plague, comparing it to paganism.

In 2009, he visited Africa (Cameroon and Angola) for the first time as a Pope. During his visit, he suggested that altering sexual behavior was the answer to Africa's AIDS crisis, and urged Catholics to reach out and convert believers in sorcery.

He visited the Middle East (Jordan, Israel and Palestine) in May 2009.

Pope Benedict's main arena for pastoral activity is the Vatican itself, his Christmas and Easter homilies and Urbi et Orbi are delivered from St Peter's Basilica. The Vatican is also the only regular place where the Pope travels via motor without the protective bulletproof case common to most popemobiles. Despite the more secure setting Pope Benedict has been victim to security risks several times inside Vatican City. On Wednesday, 6 June 2007 during his General Audience a man lept across a barrier, evaded guards and nearly mounted the Pope's vehicle, although he was stopped and Benedict seemed to be unaware of the event. On Thursday, 24 December 2009, while Pope Benedict was proceeding to the altar to celebrate Christmas Eve Mass at St Peter's Basilica, a woman later identified as 25-year-old Susanna Maiolo, who holds Italian and Swiss citizenships, jumped the barrier and grabbed the pope by his vestments and pulled him to the ground. The 82-year-old fell but was assisted to his feet and he continued to proceed towards the altar to celebrate Mass. Roger Etchegaray, 87, the vice-dean of the College of Cardinals, fell also and suffered a hip fracture. Italian police revealed that the woman had previously attempted to accost the Pope at the previous Christmas Eve Mass, but was prevented from doing so.

In his homily, Pope Benedict forgave Susanna Maiolo and urged the world to "wake up" from selfishness and petty affairs, and find time for God and spiritual matters.

Between 17 and 18 April, Pope Benedict made an Apostolic Journey to the Republic of Malta. Following meetings with various dignitaries on his first day on the island, 50,000 people gathered in a drizzle for Papal Mass on the granaries in Floriana. The Pope also met with the Maltese youth at the Valletta Waterfront, where an estimated 10,000 young people turned up to greet him. During his visit the Pope was moved to tears while expressing his shame at cases of abuse on the island during a 20 minute meeting with victims.

Sexual abuse in the Catholic Church

Prior to 2001, the primary responsibility for investigating allegations of sexual abuse and disciplining perpetrators rested with the individual dioceses. In 2001, Ratzinger convinced John Paul II to put the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in charge of all investigations and policies surrounding sexual abuse in order to combat such abuse more efficiently. According to John L. Allen, Jr., Ratzinger in the following years "acquired a familiarity with the contours of the problem that virtually no other figure in the Catholic church can claim" and "driven by that encounter with what he would later refer to as 'filth' in the church, Ratzinger seems to have undergone something of a 'conversion experience' throughout 2003–04. From that point forward, he and his staff seemed driven by a convert's zeal to clean up the mess". In his role as Head of the CFD, he "led important changes made in church law: the inclusion in canon law of internet offences against children, the extension of child abuse offences to include the sexual abuse of all under 18, the case by case waiving of the statute of limitation and the establishment of a fast-track dismissal from the clerical state for offenders." As the Head of the CDF, Ratzinger developed a reputation for handling these cases. According to Charles J. Scicluna, a former prosecutor handling sexual abuse cases, "Cardinal Ratzinger displayed great wisdom and firmness in handling those cases, also demonstrating great courage in facing some of the most difficult and thorny cases, ''sine acceptione personarum'' (without exceptions)".

One of the cases Ratzinger pursued involved Father Marcial Maciel Degollado, a Mexican priest and founder of the Legion of Christ, who had been accused repeatedly of sexual abuse. Biographer Andrea Tornielli suggested that Cardinal Ratzinger had wanted to take action against Marcial Maciel Degollado, but that John Paul II and other high-ranking officials, including several cardinals and notably the pope's influential secretary Stanisław Dziwisz, prevented him from doing so. According to Jason Berry, Angelo Sodano "pressured" Cardinal Ratzinger, who was "operating on the assumption that the charges were not justified", to halt the proceedings against Maciel in 1999 When Maciel was honored by the Pope in 2004, new accusers came forward and Cardinal Ratzinger "took it on himself to authorize an investigation of Maciel" After Ratzinger became pope he began proceedings against Maciel and the Legion of Christ that forced Maciel out of active service in the church. On 1 May 2010 the Vatican issued a statement denouncing Maciel's "very serious and objectively immoral acts", which were "confirmed by incontrovertible testimonies" and represent "true crimes and manifest a life without scruples or authentic religious sentiment." Pope Benedict also said he would appoint a special commission to examine the Legionaries’ constitution and open an investigation into its lay affiliate Regnum Christi. Cardinal Christoph Schönborn explained that Ratzinger "made entirely clear efforts not to cover things up but to tackle and investigate them. This was not always met with approval in the Vatican". According to Schönborn, Cardinal Ratzinger had pressed John Paul II to investigate Hans Hermann Groër, an Austrian cardinal and friend of John Paul accused of sexual abuse, resulting in Groër's resignation.

In March 2010, the Pope sent a Pastoral Letter to the Catholic Church in Ireland addressing cases of sexual abuse by Catholic priests to minors, expressing sorrow, and promising changes in the way accusations of abuse are dealt with. Victim groups claim the letter failed to clarify if secular law enforcement has priority over canon law confidentiality pertaining to internal investigation of abuse allegations. The Pope then promised to introduce measures that would 'safeguard young people in the future' and 'bring to justice' priests who were responsible for abuse. In April, the Vatican issued guidelines on how existing church law should be implemented. The guideline dictates that "Civil law concerning reporting of crimes... should always be followed." The guideline was intended to follow the norms established by U.S. bishops, but it does not require the reporting of "allegations" or crimes where reporting is not required by law.

Attire

Pope Benedict XVI has re-introduced several papal garments which had previously fallen into disuse. Pope Benedict XVI resumed the use of the traditional red papal shoes, which had not been used since early in the pontificate of Pope John Paul II. Contrary to the initial speculation of the press that the shoes had been made by the Italian fashion house Prada, the Vatican announced that the shoes were provided by the pope's personal shoemaker.

On 21 December 2005, the pope began wearing the camauro, the traditional red papal hat usually worn in the winter. It had not been seen since the pontificate of Pope John XXIII (1958–1963). On 6 September 2006 the pope began wearing the red cappello romano (also called a saturno), a wide-brimmed hat for outdoor use. Rarely used by John Paul II, it was more widely worn by his predecessors.

Health

Prior to his election as Pope in 2005, Joseph Ratzinger had hoped to retire—on account of age-related health problems, a long-held desire to have free time to write, and the retirement age for bishops (75)—and submitted his resignation as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith three times, but continued at his post in obedience to the wishes of Pope John Paul II. In September 1991, Ratzinger suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, which slightly impaired his eyesight temporarily but he recovered completely. This was never affirmed – the official news was that Cardinal Ratzinger fell and struck his head against a radiator – but an open secret known to the Conclave that elected him Pope.

Since his election in April 2005 there have been several rumors about the Pope's health but none of them have ever been confirmed. Early in his pontificate Pope Benedict XVI predicted a short reign which led to concerns about his health. In May 2005, the Vatican revealed that he had subsequently suffered another mild stroke. French Cardinal Philippe Barbarin further revealed that since the first stroke, Ratzinger had been suffering from a heart condition as a result of his age, for which he is currently on medication. In late November 2006, Vatican insiders told the international press that the Pope had a routine examination of the heart. A few days later an unconfirmed rumor emerged that Pope Benedict had undergone an operation in preparation for an eventual bypass operation but this rumor was only published by a small left-wing Italian newspaper and was never confirmed by any Vatican insider.

On Friday 17 July 2009 Benedict was hospitalized after falling and breaking his right wrist while on vacation in the Alps. His injuries were reported to be minor.

Titles and style

dipstyle	His Holiness
offstyle	Your Holiness
relstyle	Holy Father
deathstyle	}}

The official style of the Pope is His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI; in Latin, Benedictus XVI, Episcopus Romae. However, his rarely used full title is: ''His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI, Bishop of Rome, Vicar of Christ, Successor of the Prince of the Apostles, Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church, Primate of Italy, Archbishop and Metropolitan of the Roman province, Sovereign of the State of the Vatican City, Servant of the Servants of God.''

Before 1 March 2006, the list of titles also used to contain that of a "Patriarch of the West", which traditionally appeared in that list of titles before "Primate of Italy". The title of "Patriarch of the West" was first adopted in the year 642 by Pope Theodore I, but was rarely used since the East-West Schism of 1054. From the Orthodox perspective, authority in the Church could be traced to the five patriarchates of Rome, Constantinople, Alexandria, Antioch and Jerusalem. However, some Catholic theologians have argued that the term "Patriarch of the West" has no clear historical or theological basis and was introduced into the papal court in 1870 at the time of the First Vatican Council. Pope Benedict chose to remove the title at a time when discussions with the Orthodox churches have centred on the issue of papal primacy.

Arms

notes	The coat of arms of Pope Benedict XVI was designed by then Archbishop Andrea Cordero Lanza di Montezemolo (who later was created a Cardinal) soon after the papal election. Benedict's coat of arms has omitted the papal tiara, which traditionally appears in the background to designate the Pope's position as a worldly ruler like a king, replacing it with a simple mitre, emphasising his spiritual authority.
adopted	22 April 2005
escutcheon	Gules, chape in or, with the scallop shell of the second; the dexter chape with a moor's head in natural colour, crowned and collared of the first, the sinister chape a bear trippant in natural colour, carrying a pack gules belted sable
symbolism	''Scallop shell'': The symbolism of the scallop shell is multiple; one reference is to Saint Augustine. While a doctoral candidate in 1953, Fr. Joseph Ratzinger wrote his dissertation on The People of God and the House of God in Augustine's Teaching is always about the Church, and therefore has a personal connection with the thought of this great Doctor of the Church.''Moor of Freising'': The Moor's head is an heraldic charge associated with Freising, Germany.''Corbinian's bear'': A legend states that while travelling to Rome, Saint Corbinian's pack horse was killed by a bear. He commanded the bear to carry the load. Once he arrived, he released it from his service, and it returned to Bavaria. The implication is that "Christianity tamed and domesticated the ferocity of paganism and thus laid the foundations for a great civilisation in the Duchy of Bavaria." At the same time, Corbinian's bear, as God's beast of burden, symbolises the weight of office that Benedict now carries.
previous versions	}}

Positions on moral and political issues

Birth control and HIV/AIDS

In 2005, the Pope listed several ways to combat the spread of HIV, including chastity, fidelity in marriage and anti-poverty efforts; he also rejected the use of condoms. The alleged Vatican investigation of whether there are any cases when married persons may use condoms to protect against the spread of infections surprised many Catholics in the wake of John Paul II's consistent refusal to consider condom use in response to AIDS. However, the Vatican has since stated that no such change in the Church's teaching can occur. ''TIME'' also reported in its 30 April 2006 edition that the Vatican's position remains what it always has been with Vatican officials "flatly dismiss[ing] reports that the Vatican is about to release a document that will condone any condom use."

In March 2009, the Pope stated:

I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome merely with money, necessary though it is. If there is no human dimension, if Africans do not help, the problem cannot be overcome by the distribution of prophylactics: on the contrary, they increase it. The solution must have two elements: firstly, bringing out the human dimension of sexuality, that is to say a spiritual and human renewal that would bring with it a new way of behaving towards others, and secondly, true friendship offered above all to those who are suffering, a willingness to make sacrifices and to practise self-denial, to be alongside the suffering.

In November 2010, in a book-length interview, the Pope, using the example of male prostitutes, stated that the use of condoms, with the intention of reducing the risk of HIV infection, may be an indication that the prostitute is intending to reduce the evil connected with his or her immoral activity. In the same interview, the Pope also reiterated the traditional teaching of the Church that condoms are not seen as a "real or moral solution" to the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Further, in December 2010, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith explained that the Pope's statement did not constitute a legitimization of either prostitution or contraception, both of which remain gravely immoral.

Homosexuality

During his time as Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) Benedict XVI made several efforts to tackle the issue of homosexuality within the Church and the wider world. In 1986 the CDF sent a letter to all Bishops entitled: ''On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons''. The letter condemned a liberal interpretation of the earlier CDF document ''Declaration on Certain Questions Concerning Sexual Ethics'', which had led to a "benign" attitude "to the homosexual condition itself". ''On the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons'' clarified that the Church position on Homosexuality was that "although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder." However the document also condemned homophobic attacks and violence stating "It is deplorable that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors wherever it occurs."

In 1992 he again approved CDF documents declaring that homosexual "inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder" and extended this principle to civil law. "Sexual orientation", the document opined, was not equivalent to race or ethnicity, and it declared that it was "not unjust discrimination to take sexual orientation into account."

On 22 December 2008, the Pope gave an end of year message to the Roman Curia in which he talked about gender and the important distinction between men and women. The pope said that the church viewed the distinction as central to human nature, and "asks that this order, set down by creation, be respected". He characterised gender roles which deviated from his view of what gender roles should be as "a violation of the natural order". The church, he said, "should protect man from the destruction of himself". He said a sort of ecology of man was needed, adding: "The tropical forests do deserve our protection; but man, as a creature, does not deserve any less." He attacked what he described as gender theories which "lead towards the self-emancipation of man from creation and the creator"."

LGBT groups such as the Italian Arcigay and German LSVD have announced that they found the Pope's comments homophobic. Aurelio Mancuso, head of Arcigay, saying "A divine programme for men and women is out of line with nature, where the roles are not so clear."

Father Federico Lombardi, a Vatican spokesman, claimed the Pope had not wished specifically to attack homosexuality, and had not mentioned gays or lesbians in his text. Father Lombardi insisted, however, that there had been an overreaction to the Pope's remarks. "He was speaking more generally about gender theories which overlook the fundamental difference in creation between men and women and focus instead on cultural conditioning." Nevertheless, the remarks were interpreted as a call to save mankind from homosexuals and transsexuals.

International relations

Migrants and refugees

In a message released 14 November 2006, during a Vatican press conference for the 2007 annual observance of World Day for Migrants and Refugees, the pope urged the ratification of international conventions and policies that defend all migrants, including refugees, exiles, evacuees, and internally displaced persons. "The church encourages the ratification of the international legal instruments that aim to defend the rights of migrants, refugees and their families," the pope said. "Much is already being done for the integration of the families of immigrants, although much still remains to be done."

Pope Benedict has also promoted various UN events, such as World Refugee Day, on which he offered up special prayers for refugees and called for the international community to do more to secure refugees' human rights. He also called on Catholic communities and organizations to offer them concrete help.

China

In 2007 Benedict sent a letter at Easter to Catholics in China that could have wide-ranging implications for the church's relationship with China's leadership. The letter provides long-requested guidance to Chinese bishops on how to respond to illicitly ordained bishops, as well as how to strengthen ties with the Patriotic Association and the Communist government.

Korea

On 13 November 2006, Benedict said the dispute over the North Korea nuclear weapons program should be resolved through negotiations, in his first public comment on the security issue, a news report said. "The Holy See encourages bilateral or multilateral negotiations, convinced that the solution must be sought through peaceful means and in respect for agreements taken by all sides to obtain the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula." Benedict was talking to the new Japanese ambassador to the Vatican.

Turkey

In a 2004 ''Le Figaro'' interview, Ratzinger said that Turkey, which is demographically Muslim but governmentally secular by virtue of its state constitution, should seek its future in an association of Muslim nations rather than the European Union, which Ratzinger has stated has Christian roots. He said Turkey had always been "in permanent contrast to Europe and that linking it to Europe would be a mistake.

Later visiting the country to "reiterate the solidarity between the cultures," it was reported that he made a counter-statement backing Turkey's bid to join the EU. Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said that the pope told him in their meeting that while the Vatican seeks to stay out of politics it desires Turkey's membership in the EU. However, the Common Declaration of Pope Benedict XVI and Patriarch Bartholomew I of Constantinople implied that support for Turkey's membership in the European Union would be contingent on the establishment of religious freedom in Turkey: "In every step towards unification, minorities must be protected, with their cultural traditions and the distinguishing features of their religion." The Declaration also reiterates Pope Benedict XVI's call for Europe to preserve its Christian roots.

Israel

In May 2009 he visited Israel. This was the third Papal visit to the Holy Land, the previous ones being made by Pope Paul VI in 1964 and Pope John Paul II in 2000.

Vietnam

Pope Benedict XVI and Prime Minister Nguyễn Tấn Dũng met at the Vatican on 25 January 2007 in a "new and important step towards establishing diplomatic ties". The Pope met with President Nguyễn Minh Triết on 11 December 2009. Vatican officials called the meeting "a significant stage in the progress of bilateral relations with Vietnam."

Global economy

In 2009 the Pope intervened in global economic and political affairs with his third encyclical, ''Charity in Truth'' (Latin ''Caritas in Veritate''), which can be viewed on the Vatican's web site. The document sets out the Pope's position on the case for worldwide redistribution of wealth in considerable detail and goes on to discuss the environment, migration, terrorism, sexual tourism, bioethics, energy and population issues. ''The Financial Times'' has reported that the Pope's advocacy for a fairer redistribution of wealth has helped set the agenda for the 2009 July G8 summit.

Nuclear energy

Pope Benedict XVI has called for nuclear disarmament. At the same time, he has supported the peaceful use of nuclear energy as a tool for development and the fight against poverty. In his message for the 50th anniversary of the founding of the International Atomic Energy Agency, he confirmed: "The Holy See, fully approving of the IAEA's goal, has been a member from the organisation's foundation and continues to support its activity."

Interests

Pope Benedict is known to be deeply interested in classical music, and is an accomplished pianist. He has a grand piano in his papal quarters. The Pontiff's favorite composer is Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, of whose music the Pope said: "His music is by no means just entertainment; it contains the whole tragedy of human existence." Benedict also stated that Mozart's music affected him greatly as a young man and "deeply penetrated his soul." Benedict's favorite works of music are Mozart's Clarinet Concerto and Clarinet Quintet.

Pope Benedict has recorded an album of contemporary classical music in which Benedict sings and recites prayers to the Blessed Virgin Mary. The album was set for release on 30 November 2009.

Pope Benedict is also known to be fond of cats. As Cardinal Ratzinger he was known to look after stray cats in Rome. A book called ''Joseph and Chico: A Cat Recounts the Life of Pope Benedict XVI'' was published in 2007 which told the story of the Pope's life from the feline Chico's perspective. This story was inspired by an orange tabby Pentling cat, which belonged to the family next door. During his trip to Australia for World Youth Day in 2008 the media reported that festival organizers lent the Pope a grey cat called Bella in order to keep him company during his stay.

Honours and awards

:1977 Grand Cross of the National Order of Merit of the Republic of Ecuador :1977 Bavarian Order of Merit :1985 Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany with Star and Sash :1985 Constitutional Medal of the Bavarian state parliament in Gold :1989 Ordine della Minerva at the University of Chieti :1989 Augustin Bea Prize (Rome) :1989 Karl-Valentin-Orden (Munich) :1991 Leopold Kunschak Prize (Vienna) :1991 Georg von Hertling Medal of CT :1992 Grand Gold Medal with Ribbon for Services to the Republic of Austria :1992 Literature Prize Capri S. Michele in Anacapri :1992 Premio Internazionale di Cultura Cattolica, Bassano del Grappa :1993 literary prize Premio Letterario Basilicata per la Letteratura e Poesia religiosa Spirituale in Potenza (Italy) :1996 Bavarian Maximilian Order for Science and the Arts :1998 Commander of the Legion of Honour (Legion d'Honneur) (France) :2002 Liberal Trieste :2004 Literature Prize Capri S. Michele in Anacapri

See also

Georg Gänswein – private secretary to Benedict

List of books by Pope Benedict XVI

List of encyclicals of Pope Benedict XVI

List of journeys of Pope Benedict XVI

Papal regalia and insignia – papal attire

Pope Benedict – list of other popes and antipopes using the name Benedict

Three Secrets of Fátima – document on the release of the Third Secret of Fátima

Works of Pope Benedict XVI – literature written by Pope Benedict XVI

References

Further reading

Books by Pope Benedict XVI

Literature about him

Biographies

Documentaries

''The Keys of the Kingdom, from John Paul II to Benedict XVI'', produced by Vatican Television Center, distributed by HDH Communications, 2006.

Notes

External links

Vatican: the Holy See – Vatican web site

The Holy See – The Holy Father – Benedict XVI – Vatican web site about the Holy Father Benedict XVI

Vatican: Election Vatican web page about the Papal Conclave and Benedict's first acts as Pope

The Vatican (Official YouTube channel from the Vatican about main activities of the Pope and relevant Vatican events)

;Encyclicals by Benedict XVI

''Deus Caritas Est'' – encyclical ''God is Love''

''Spe Salvi'' – encyclical ''In hope we were saved''

''Caritas in Veritate'' – encyclical ''In Charity and Truth''

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Birth name	Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz
Colorcode	Red
Office	First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba
Deputy	Raúl Castro
Term start	October 3, 1965
Term end	April 19, 2011
Predecessor	Position established
Successor	Raúl Castro
Office2	President of the Council of State of Cuba
Term start2	December 2, 1976
Term end2	February 24, 2008
Deputy2	Raúl Castro
Predecessor2	Osvaldo Dorticós Torrado(as President of Cuba)
Successor2	Raúl Castro
Office3	President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba
Term start3	December 2, 1976
Term end3	February 24, 2008
Deputy3	Raúl Castro
Predecessor3	Himself (as Prime Minister)
Successor3	Raúl Castro
Office4	Prime Minister of Cuba
President4	Manuel Urrutia LleóOsvaldo Dorticós Torrado
Term start4	February 16, 1959
Term end4	December 2, 1976
Predecessor4	José Miró Cardona
Successor4	Position abolished
Office5	7th and 23rd Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement
Term start5	September 16, 2006
Term end5	February 24, 2008
Predecessor5	Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
Successor5	Raúl Castro
Term start6	September 10, 1979
Term end6	March 6, 1983
Predecessor6	Junius Richard Jayawardene
Successor6	Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
Birth date	August 13, 1926
Birth place	Birán, Cuba
Party	Communist Party of Cuba
Relations	(siblings)Raúl CastroEnma CastroAgustina CastroRamon Castro RuzAngelita Castro
Spouse	Mirta Diaz-Balart (1948–1955)Dalia Soto del Valle (1980–present)
Children	Fidel Ángel Castro Diaz-BalartAlina Fernández-RevueltaAlexis Castro-SotoAlejandro Castro-SotoAntonio Castro-SotoAngel Castro-SotoAlex Castro-SotoJorge Angel CastroFrancisca Pupo
Alma mater	University of Havana
Profession	Lawyer
Religion	Deist
Signature	Fidel Castro Signature.svg
Footnotes	*Acting presidential powers were transferred to Raúl Castro from July 31, 2006. }}

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (; born August 13, 1926) is a Cuban revolutionary and politician, having held the position of Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976, and then President from 1976 to 2008. He also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until 2011. Politically a Marxist-Leninist, under his administration the Republic of Cuba was converted into a one-party socialist state, with industry and business being nationalized under state ownership and socialist reforms implemented in all areas of society. On the international stage, he also served as the Secretary-General of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and 2006 to 2008.

Born the illegitimate son of a wealthy farmer, Castro became involved in leftist anti-imperialist politics while studying law at the University of Havana. Involving himself in armed rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he concluded that the U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, who was widely seen as a dictator, had to be overthrown; to this end he led a failed armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. Imprisoned for a year, he traveled to Mexico, and with the aid of his brother Raúl Castro and friend Che Guevara, assembled a group of revolutionaries, the July 26 Movement. Returning with them to Cuba, he took a key role in the Cuban Revolution, leading a successful guerrilla war against Batista's forces, overthrowing him in 1959. Castro subsequently became Commander in Chief of the armed forces and shortly thereafter became Prime Minister. The United States was alarmed by his involvement in the overthrow of Batista and relationship with Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev, implementing an economic blockade of the island. U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower also ordered the CIA to overthrow him, which they unsuccessfully tried through multiple assassination attempts and the failed Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961. To counter this threat, Castro forged an economic and military alliance with the Soviet Union and allowed them to place nuclear weapons on the island, leading to the events of the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Adopting Marxism-Leninism as his guiding ideology, in 1961 Castro proclaimed the socialist nature of the Cuban revolution, and in 1965 became First Secretary of the newly founded Communist Party, with all other parties being abolished. He then led the transformation of Cuba into a socialist republic, nationalizing industry, introducing free healthcare and education, and suppressing internal opposition. A keen internationalist, Castro introduced Cuban medical brigades who worked throughout the developing world, and aided foreign revolutionary socialist groups in the hope of toppling world capitalism, thereby involving Cuba in the Angolan Civil War and the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia. In 1976 he stepped down as Prime Minister to become President of both the Council of State and Council of Ministers. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Castro led Cuba into its economic "Special Period", before taking the country into the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas in 2006 and forging alliances with other nations in the Latin American "Pink Tide". Amidst failing health, in 2006 Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice-President Raúl Castro, who was then elected President when Fidel stepped down in 2008.

Castro is a controversial and highly divisive world figure, being lauded as a champion of anti-imperialism, humanitarianism, socialism and environmentalism by his supporters, but his critics have accused him of being a dictator whose authoritarian administration has overseen multiple human rights abuses both at home and abroad. A prolific author on various topics, he has had a significant influence on the politics of various individuals and groups across the world, including senior leaders like Nelson Mandela, Hugo Chávez and Evo Morales.

Early life

Childhood and education: 1926–1945

Fidel's father, Ángel Castro y Argiz (1875–1956) was a Spaniard born to a poor peasant family in rural Galicia, Northwest Spain. Working as a manual laborer on local farms, in 1895 he was conscripted into the Spanish Army to fight in the Cuban War of Independence against the Cuban revolutionaries who wished to secede from the Spanish Empire. Wishing to gain greater influence in the Caribbean, the United States subsequently declared war on Spain, leading to the Spanish-American War of 1898, in which the U.S. seized control of Cuba, setting up their own government on the island. In 1902, the Republic of Cuba was proclaimed, however it remained only partially independent of the U.S., which retained economic and political dominance over it. For a time, Cuba enjoyed economic growth, and Ángel Castro decided to migrate there permanently in search of employment. Doing so, he undertook various jobs, eventually earning enough money to set up his own business growing sugar cane on a farm in Birán, near Mayarí in Oriente Province.

Ángel took a wife, María Luisa Argota, with whom he had two daughters, but they separated after several years and he began a relationship with a household servant who was thirty years his junior. This woman, Lina Ruz González (September 23, 1903 – August 6, 1963), came from an impoverished Cuban family of Canarian descent, but became Ángel's domestic partner, bearing him three sons and four daughters.

Fidel was Lina's third child, being born at his father's farm on August 13, 1926, and was given his mother's surname of Ruz rather than his father's because he had been born out of wedlock, something that carried a particular social stigma at the time. Although he was from a prosperous background, with his father's business proving ever more profitable, his father ensured that he grew up alongside the children of the farm's workforce, many of whom were Haitian economic migrants of African descent, something that Fidel would later relate prevented him from absorbing "bourgeois culture" at an early age. Aged six, Fidel, along with his elder siblings Ramón and Angela, was sent to live with their teacher in Santiago de Cuba, and it was here that the children dwelt in cramped conditions and in relative poverty, often failing to have enough to eat because of their tutor's poor economic situation. Aged eight, Fidel was then baptized into the Roman Catholic Church, although later gave up his faith in Christianity, becoming an atheist. Being baptized enabled Fidel to begin attending the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, but here he often got into trouble with the school authorities for misbehavior, and so he was instead sent to the privately-funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago.

In 1945 he transferred to the more prestigious Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana. Although Fidel took an interest in history and debating at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sport, including swimming, mountain climbing, table tennis, athletics, basketball and baseball. Meanwhile, Ángel Castro finally dissolved his first marriage when Fidel was fifteen, allowing him to marry Fidel's mother; Fidel was formally recognized by his father when he was seventeen, when his surname was legally changed from Ruz to Castro.

University and early political activism: 1945–1947

In late 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana. Here he became immediately embroiled in the student protest movement, which in Cuba at that time was particularly volatile: under the regimes of center-left Cuban Presidents Gerardo Machado (1925–1933), Fulgencio Batista (1933–1944) and Ramón Grau (1944–1948) there had been a government crackdown on student protesters, with student leaders being killed or terrorized by violent gangs. This led to a form of ''gangsterismo'' culture within the university that was dominated by a variety of violent and often armed student groups who spent much of their time fighting one another and running criminal enterprises rather than opposing the government. Becoming surrounded by this gang culture, Castro focused on political objectives, unsuccessfully campaigning for the position of President of the Federation of University Students (FEU). To do so he put forward a platform of "honesty, decency and justice" and emphasized his opposition to political corruption, something that he increasingly associated with the involvement of the U.S. government in Cuban politics. He became passionate about anti-imperialism and opposing U.S. intervention in the Caribbean, joining the University Committee for the Independence of Puerto Rico and the Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic.

He was in contact with members of several student leftist groups at the time, including the Popular Socialist Party (''Partido Socialista Popular'' – PSP), the Socialist Revolutionary Movement (''Movimiento Socialista Revolucionaria'' – MSR) and the Insurrectional Revolutionary Union (''Unión Insurrecional Revolucionaria'' – UIR), although did not adopt the Marxist ideas of the former and mistrusted some of MSR's connections to the Grau government. Castro had become critical of the corruption and violence of Grau's regime, delivering a public speech on the subject in November 1946 that earned him a place on the front page of several newspapers. Instead, it was to the UIR that he grew closest to, although whether he ever became a member or not has remained unknown. In 1947, Castro joined a newly founded socialist group, the Party of the Cuban People (''Partido Ortodoxo''), which had been formed by veteran politician Eduardo Chibás (1907–1951). A charismatic figure, Chibás attracted many Cubans with his message of social justice, honest government, and political freedom. The ''Partido Ortodoxo'' publicly exposed corruption and demanded governmental and social reform. Though Chibás lost the election, Castro, considering Chibás his mentor, remained committed to his cause, working fervently on his behalf.

Meanwhile, the student gang violence had escalated after Grau employed several prominent gang leaders, including members of the MSR, as officers in the police force, and Castro soon received a threat urging him to either leave the university and its political arena or be killed. He did not give in to the threat, instead carrying a gun and surrounding himself with friends who were similarly armed. Various accusations would arise in later years alleging that Castro carried out gang-related assassination attempts at this time, including of prominent UIR member Lionel Gómez, MSR leader Manolo Castro and university policeman Oscar Fernandez, but these are supported by "scant evidence" and remain unproven.

Latin American rebellions: 1947–1948

In June 1947, Castro learned of a planned international expedition to invade the Dominican Republic and overthrow its right-wing president, Rafael Trujillo, a military general widely seen as a dictator who had overseen a system of "repressive brutality" through the use of a violent secret police which routinely murdered and tortured opponents. An ally of the United States, Trujillo angered many across the world when he ordered the Parsley Massacre that killed 20,000–30,000 impoverished Haitian migrants. Castro had become a heavy critic of Trujillo's regime, rising to the presidency of the University Committee for Democracy in the Dominican Republic, and decided to join the military expedition, which was led by General Juan Rodríguez, a Dominican exile, and supported by Grau's Cuban government which feared Trujillo's militaristic behavior. The invasion was carried out on July 29, 1947, by around 1,200 men, most of whom were exiled Dominicans or Cubans, although other volunteers came from across Latin America. However, both Dominican and U.S. intelligence had gained foreknowledge of the event, and it was soon quashed by the Dominican army and the Cuban government, who had been pressured by the U.S. to cease their support for it. Whilst Grau's government immediately arrested many of those involved, Castro managed to escape the police by jumping off of the naval frigate he was aboard and swimming to shore in the dark of night.

The botched mission only served to further Castro's opposition to the Grau administration, and returning to Havana, he took a leading role in the student protests that were centered against the killing of a high school pupil by government bodyguards. The protests, accompanied by a U.S.-imposed crackdown on those considered to be communists, led to violent clashes between protesters and police in February 1948, in which Castro was badly beaten. It was at this point that his public speeches took on a distinctively leftist slant, condemning the social and economic inequalities of Cuba under the Grau government, something that was in contrast to his former public criticisms, which had centered around condemning corruption and U.S. imperialism. Castro's biographer Leycester Coltman would later remark that "Castro was not yet expressing a Marxist viewpoint, but he was moving in that direction."

After a quick visit to Venezuela and Panama, in April 1948 Castro traveled to the city of Bogotá in Colombia with a number of other Cuban students on a trip sponsored by the government of Argentine President Juan Perón, whose anti-imperialist politics impressed Castro. Once there, the assassination of popular leftist leader Jorge Eliécer Gaitán Ayala led to widespread rioting that came to be known as the Bogotazo. Leaving three thousand dead, the riots revolved around clashes between rightist Conservatives, who then controlled the country's government and who were backed by the army, and leftist Liberals who were supported by a number of Colombian socialist groups. Castro, along with his fellow Cuban visitors, joined in in support of the Liberal cause by stealing guns from a police station, but subsequent police investigations came to the conclusion that neither Castro nor any of the other Cubans had been involved in the killings.

Marriage and Marxism: 1948–1950

Returning to Cuba, Castro became a prominent figure in the widespread protests against the government's attempts to raise bus fares, with buses being the only form of transport available to most students and workers. It was also in 1948 that Castro married Mirta Díaz Balart, a student from a wealthy Cuban family through whom he was exposed to the lifestyle of the Cuban elite. The relationship was a love match and was disapproved of by both of their families. Mirta's father gave them tens of thousands of dollars to spend in a three-month honeymoon in New York City, and the couple also received a U.S. $1,000 wedding gift from the military general and former president Fulgencio Batista, a friend of Mirta's family. That same year, Grau decided not to stand for re-election, and his party instead nominated Carlos Prío Socarrás as their presidential candidate. Prío would go on to win the election, becoming President of Cuba. However, he faced widespread protests when members of the MSR, which by this time was allied to the police force, assassinated Justo Fuentes, a "self-taught black man" and prominent member of the UIR who was a friend and ally of Castro's. In response, Prío agreed to try to quell the gangs, but found them to be too powerful to control.

Castro had begun to move further to the left in his political views, being influenced by the writings of prominent Marxists like Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Vladimir Lenin. He came to interpret the problems facing Cuba as being an integral part of capitalist society, or the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", rather than the failings of corrupt politicians. Coming to believe the Marxist idea that true political change could only be brought about by a revolution led by the working class, Castro set about visiting Havana's poorest neighborhoods, witnessing the nation's huge social and racial inequalities, and became active in the University Committee for the Struggle against Racial Discrimination.

In September 1949, Mirta gave birth to a son, Fidelito, and so the couple moved to a larger flat in Havana. Despite the need to care for his family, Castro continued to put himself at risk, staying active in the city's political arena and joining a new organization, the September 30 Movement, which contained within it both communists and members of the Partido Ortodoxo. The group's purpose was to oppose the influence of the violent gangs within the university; despite his promises, President Prío had failed to control the situation, instead offering many of their senior members jobs in government ministries. Castro volunteered to deliver a speech for the Movement on November 13, in which he exposed the government's secret deals with the gangs and identified many of their key members. Attracting the attention of the national press, the speech angered the gangs, and Castro was forced to go into hiding, first in various rural areas and then in the U.S. Returning to Havana several weeks later, Castro lay low and focused on his university studies, graduating from university as a Doctor of Law in September 1950.

Career in law and politics: 1950–1952

Now a Doctor of Law, Castro became a professional lawyer, founding his own legal partnership with two fellow leftist students, Jorge Azpiazu and Rafael Resende, whose intention was to focus on helping poor Cubans in asserting their rights. It was a financial failure, with its main client being a timber merchant who paid them in timber to furnish their office. Castro cared little for money or material goods, something his wife found difficult, particularly when their furniture was reposessed and their electricity cut off, in both instances because Castro had failed to pay his bills.

Castro remained active in politics, taking part in a high-school protest in Cienfuegos in November 1950 that involved students fighting a four-hour battle with police in protest at the Education Ministry's ban on the founding of student associations in schools. He was arrested and charged with using violence against police officers, but the magistrate later dismissed the charges. He also became an active member of the Cuban Peace Committee, a part of the international campaign led by British intellectual Betrand Russell to oppose western involvement in the Korean War. His hopes for Cuba still largely centered around Eduardo Chibás and his left wing Partido Ortodoxo; however Chibás had made a mistake when he accused Education Minister Aureliano Sánchez of purchasing a Guatemalan ranch with misappropriated funds, but was unable to substantiate his allegations. The government used this as an opportunity to go on the offensive against Chibás, accusing him of being a liar and a troublemaker. In 1951, while running for president again, Chibás shot himself in the stomach during a radio broadcast in an attempt to issue a "last wake-up call" to the Cuban people. Castro was present and accompanied him to the hospital where he died of his injuries.

Although his political views were further left than the Partido Ortodoxo, Castro believed that those parties on the far left, namely the PSP, were too unpopular to achieve a revolutionary leftist movement in Cuba, and for this reason remained in the Ortodoxo. Seeing himself as the heir to Chibás, Castro wanted to run for Congress in the June 1952 elections, but senior party members feared his radical reputation and refused to nominate him. Instead he gained the support of enough Ortodoxo members in Havana's poorest districts to be nominated as a candidate for the House of Representatives, and put all his energies into campaigning. It was at the time that Castro held a meeting with General Fulgencio Batista, the former president who had recently returned to politics by winning a seat in the Senate and founding the Unitary Action Party; although they both opposed the Prío administration, their meeting never got beyond "polite generalities" with no indication that they would later become bitter enemies.

The Ortodoxo had gained a considerable level of support, and there was a "fair chance that the ''Ortodoxos'' and Castro would both have succeeded in the election." However, this was quashed in March 1952 when General Batista seized power in a military coup, removing the widely discredited President Prío from office, who then fled to Mexico. Subsequently declaring himself president, Batista cancelled the planned presidential elections, describing his new system as "disciplined democracy": Castro, like many others, instead saw it as the establishment of a one-man dictatorship with no benefit to the Cuban populace. Although in his earlier democratic terms as president Batista had taken a center-left stance, he now moved to the right and went on to solidify his ties with the United States, severing diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union, suppressing trade unions and persecuting socialist groups in Cuba. Intent on opposing the Batista administration, Castro brought several legal cases against them, arguing that Batista had committed sufficient criminal acts to warrant at least 100 years imprisonment and accusing various ministers of breaching labor laws. These came to nothing, leading Castro to begin thinking of alternative ways to oust the new government.

Cuban Revolution

The Movement and the Moncada Barracks attack: 1952–1953

Dissatisfied with the Ortodoxo's policy of non-violent opposition to Batista's regime, Castro formed a group known simply as "The Movement". Consisting of both a civil and a military committee, the former conducted political agitation through an underground newspaper, ''El Acusador'' (''The Accuser''), while the latter armed and trained recruits to take violent action against Batista. With Castro as the Movement's head, the organization was based upon a clandestine cell system, with each cell containing ten members, none of whom knew the whereabouts or activities of the other cells. A dozen individuals formed the nucleus of the movement, many of whom were also dissatisfied Ortodoxo members, although from July 1952 the Movement went on a recruitment drive, and within a year it had around 1,200 members, organized into over a hundred cells, with the majority of members coming from the poorer districts of Havana. Although Castro's political ideology was that of revolutionary socialism, he avoided an alliance with the communist PSP, fearing that this would frighten away the political moderates who were members of the Movement, but did keep in contact with some of the PSP's members, who included his brother and fellow conspirator Raúl. He would later relate that the members of the Movement were on the whole simply anti-Batista, and few had strong socialist or anti-imperialist views, something which Castro attributed to "the overwhelming weight of the Yankees' ideological and advertising machinery" which he felt had suppressed class consciousness amongst Cuba's working class.

Castro's Movement was not the only militant group that wanted to oust Batista. One of the Orthodoxo's founding members, the Professor of Philosophy Rafael García Bárcena, had founded the National Revolutionary Movement (''Movimiento Nacional Revolucionaria'' – MNR). Consisting largely of middle-class members, it contrasted with Castro's predominantly working class support base. In March 1953, the MNR had planned to attack and seize control of the barracks at Camp Colombia, but police had been alerted to the plot, with the conspirators being rounded up and tortured. In all, fourteen people were sentenced to imprisonment for the attack. Meanwhile, Castro had been having similar ideas, stockpiling weapons in order to lead the armed wing of the Movement in an attack on the Moncada Barracks, a military garrison just outside Santiago de Cuba in Oriente. The plan was for Castro's members to dress in army uniforms and arrive at the base in cars on July 25, the festival of St James, when many of the officers would be on leave or celebrating in the nearby town. The rebels would then seize control of the barracks before the alarm could be raised, raid the armory and then escape before the army could bring in reinforcements. Supplied with a wealth of new weaponry, Castro believed that the Movement could arm local supporters and spark a revolution in Oriente, which was dominated by a population of impoverished cane-cutters. The plan was to then seize control of a radio station in Santiago, from which the Movement could broadcast their manifesto and promote widespread uprisings against Batista. In doing so, Castro's plan was directly emulating those of the 19th century Cuban independence fighters who had raided Spanish barracks, and in keeping with this Castro saw himself as the heir to independence leader and national hero José Martí, both leading national liberation struggles against foreign dominance.

Castro had gathered together 165 members of the Movement to take part in the mission, 138 of which were stationed in Santiago, with the other 27 instead positioned in Bayamo. The majority of them were young men from Havana and Pinar del Río, and Castro ensured that, with the exception of himself, none of the volunteers had children. The plan had been carefully orchestrated, and Castro ordered his troops not to cause bloodshed unless they met armed resistance. The attack took place on July 26, 1953, but before it had even begun it ran into trouble; of the sixteen cars that had set out from Santiago, one broke down on the way and two others got separated from the main convoy. When they eventually reached the barracks, further problems arose and soon the alarm was raised by the guards, with most of the rebels being pinned down outside of the base by machine gun fire. Those that managed to get inside faced heavy resistance, and four of them were killed by gunfire before Castro, realizing that he was heavily outnumbered, ordered his men to retreat. In the attack, the rebels had suffered 6 fatalities and 15 other casualties, whilst the government forces had faced a heavier toll, with 19 dead and 27 wounded. Meanwhile, some of the other rebels had taken over a civilian hospital, but as the main attack on the barracks failed, government soldiers stormed the hospital, rounding up the rebels, before torturing them for information and finally summarily executing 22 of them without trial. Those rebels that had been able to escape, and who included both Fidel and his brother Raúl, had assembled at their base, the Siboney Farm, where some debated surrender, while others wished to flee to Havana. Accompanied by 19 comrades, Castro however decided to set out for the rugged Gran Piedra mountains several miles to the north, where they could establish a guerrilla base and continue their revolutionary activities.

In response to the Moncada attack, Batista's government ordered a violent crackdown on all dissent (orchestrated by both the army and the SIM police), declaring martial law and imposing strict censorship on the media. Government propaganda began broadcasting misinformation about the event, claiming that the rebels had murdered patients in the civilian hospital and asserting that the Movement was a communist group financed by the exiled President Prío (ignoring the fact that the latter was a fierce anti-communist). Despite this censorship, news and photographs soon spread of the army's use of torture and summary executions in Oriente, causing widespread public and even some governmental disapproval.

Arrest and trial: 1953

}} Over the next few days all of the rebels hiding in the mountains were rounded up by government forces and transported to a prison north of Santiago, although Castro was not executed on the spot as many of his comrades had been. Believing that Castro had been incapable of planning the attack by himself, the government accused politicians from the Ortodoxo and communist PSP of being involved in masterminding the attack, and in all 122 defendants, amongst them Castro, were put on trial on September 21 at the Palace of Justice in Santiago. Although censored from reporting on it, journalists were permitted to attend the proceedings, which proved an embarrassment for the Batista administration. Acting as his own defense council, Castro convinced the three presiding judges to overrule the army's decision to keep all defendants handcuffed in court, before proceeding to argue that the charge with which they were all accused – of 'organizing an uprising of armed persons against the Constitutional Powers of the State' – was incorrect, for they had risen up not against the Constitutional Powers of the State but against Batista, who had seized power in an unconstitutional manner. When asked who was the intellectual author of the attack, Castro claimed that it was the long deceased national icon José Martí, before quoting some of Martí's works that justified uprisings against tyrannical regimes.

As the trial went on, knowledge of the torture that army officers inflicted on their captives emerged. These included castration using a razor and the gouging out of eyes with bayonets; the judges agreed that full investigations into these crimes would have to be undertaken. These revelations proved to be a great embarrassment to the army, who tried unsuccessfully to prevent Castro from testifying any further by claiming that he was too ill to leave his cell. The trial came to an end on October 5, with all of the politicians and many of the rebels being acquitted, although 55 were sentenced to prison terms of between 7 months and 13 years. Castro was sentenced separately, on October 16, during which he proceeded to deliver a speech that would later be printed under the title of ''History Will Absolve Me''. Although the maximum penalty for leading an uprising was a 20 year prison sentence, Castro was sentenced to 15 years, being imprisoned in the hospital wing of the Model Prison (''Presidio Modelo'') on the Isla de Pinos, sixty miles off of Cuba's southwest coast.

Imprisonment and the July 26 Movement: 1953–1955

Imprisoned in the ''Presidio Modelo'' with 25 of his fellow conspirators, Castro devoted himself to politics once more, changing the name of the Movement to the "July 26 Movement", in memory of the date of the failed Moncada attack. Forming a school for prisoners, the Abel Santamaría Ideological Academy, Castro organized five hours a day of teaching, with himself and other Movement members lecturing on such subjects as ancient and modern history, philosophy and the English language. Making use of the prison library and gifts from friends outside of prison, he continued reading widely, enjoying the works of Marx, Lenin, and Martí but also reading books by Sigmund Freud, Immanuel Kant, William Shakespeare, Axel Munthe, Somerset Maugham and Fyodor Dostoyevsky, analyzing most of them within a Marxist framework. He corresponded with those outside of prison, trying to maintain control over his Movement without giving too much away to the prison censors, who read all of his letters, and also organized the publication of his ''History Will Absolve Me'' speech. Although at first having a fair amount of freedom within the prison, this came to an end after prison inmates embarrassed the guards by singing anti-Batista songs on a visit by the President in February 1954. In retaliation, the prison authorities removed most of the privileges that Castro and other prisoners were allowed, locking Castro up in solitary confinement indefinitely.

Meanwhile, Castro's wife Mirta, who did not share his obsession with political activism, had gained employment in the Ministry of the Interior, thereby working for Batista's government. She had been encouraged to do by her brother, who had been a friend and ally of Batista for many years. This was kept a secret from Castro, who eventually found out through a radio announcement. Appalled, he raged that he would rather die "a thousand times" than "suffer impotently from such an insult". Both Fidel and Mirta initiated divorce proceedings, with Mirta taking custody of their son Fidelito; this angered Castro, who did not want his son growing up in a bourgeois environment.

In 1954, Batista's government went ahead with their earlier promises and held presidential elections, but no politician had risked standing against Batista lest they face violent reprisals. Batista won comfortably, but the election was widely recognized as fraudulent. It had however allowed some political opposition to be openly voiced, and supporters of Castro and his Movement had begun agitating for an amnesty for all those imprisoned over the Moncada incident. Some government politicians suggested that such an amnesty would provide good publicity, and the Congress and Batista eventually agreed. Backed by the U.S. government and major corporations, Batista believed that Castro would be no political threat to his regime, and on May 15, 1955 the prisoners were released.

Returning to Havana, Castro was met by his supporters, being carried along on the shoulders of students, and set about giving various radio interviews and press conferences. Now a single man again, Castro had sexual affairs with a number of women, including one of his devout supporters, Naty Revuelta, who conceived him a child named Alina, and another of his supporters, Maria Laborde, who conceived another child, Jorge Angel Castro. He also set about to strengthen his anti-Batista revolutionary Movement, welcoming members of the now defunct MNR into it, and establishing an eleven-person National Directorate of the 26 July Revolutionary Movement (or MR-26-7). Despite these structural changes, there was still dissent within the group, with some members questioning Castro's autocratic leadership. Castro dismissed their proposals for the leadership to be transferred to a democratic board, arguing that a successful revolution could not be run by a committee. Some of them subsequently abandoned the MR-26-7, labeling Castro a ''caudillo'' (dictator), although the majority accepted his reasoning and remained loyal.

Mexico and guerrilla training: 1955–1956

In 1955, a series of bomb attacks and violent demonstrations against Batista's administration led to a crackdown on dissent in Cuba, with Castro being placed under armed guard by his supporters as protection from possible assassination attempts. His brother Raúl was accused of one bomb attack and fled the county, with Fidel deciding to follow on July 7. Those members of the MR-26-7 that remained in Cuba were left with orders to prepare cells for revolutionary action in all of the country's main towns and cities, and await Castro's return, when he would bring with him an army to topple Batista. He sent a letter to the country's political leaders and the press, declaring that he was "leaving Cuba because all doors of peaceful struggle have been closed to me. Six weeks after being released from prison I am convinced more than ever of the dictatorship's intention, masked in many ways, to remain in power for twenty years, ruling as now by the use of terror and crime and ignoring the patience of the Cuban people, which has its limits. As a follower of Martí, I believe the hour has come to take our rights and not beg for them, to fight instead of pleading for them."

The Castro brothers and a number of other MR-26-7 members travelled to Mexico, a country with a long history of offering asylum to left-wing exiles. Raul had befriended one such exile, an Argentine doctor and Marxist-Leninist named Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928–1967), who was a proponent of guerrilla warfare and who was keen to join the Cuban Revolution as a part of his deeply held belief in overthrowing U.S. imperialism in Latin America. Upon meeting Guevara, Fidel took a liking to him, later describing him as being "a more advanced revolutionary than I was." Another socialist revolutionary whom Castro began associating with was the Cuban-born Spaniard Colonel Alberto Bayo (1892–1967), who had fought for the leftist Republican side in the Spanish Civil War during the 1930s, before being exiled upon the victory of the fascist General Francisco Franco and his Falange. Bayo agreed to teach Fidel's rebels the skills in guerrilla warfare that they would need if they were to return to Cuba to battle Batista, clandestinely meeting them at various premises.

In desperate need of money to finance his activities, Castro went on a tour of the United States in search of wealthy sympathizers, including the exiled former President Prío (who contributed the considerable sum of $100,000), during which time he was monitored by agents of Batista's government who at one point allegedly orchestrated a failed plot to kill him. These agents also bribed Mexican police to arrest Castro and other MR-26-7 members in the country, but ultimately the revolutionaries were all released, particularly as several members of the Mexican government sympathized with their cause. Castro had also kept in contact with the MR-26-7 agents who had remained in Cuba, where they had succeeded in getting a large clandestine support base in several towns in Oriente. Other militant groups had also sprung up to oppose Batista within the country, primarily from the ranks of the student movement; most notable of these was the Revolutionary Directorate (DR), which had been founded by the Federation of University Students (FEU) President José Antonio Echevarría. Echevarría traveled to Mexico City to meet with Castro, but the two disagreed widely on tactics, with Castro opposing with the young student's policy of supporting indiscriminate assassinations of anyone in the government.

Purchasing a decrepit old yacht, the ''Granma'', it was on the 25 November 1956 that Castro set sail from Tuxpan in Veracruz, Mexico with a group of 81 revolutionaries, armed with 90 rifles, 3 machine guns, around 40 pistols and 2 hand-held anti-tank guns. The 1,200 mile crossing to Cuba was harsh, and in the overcrowded conditions of the ship (which was designed to hold around 20 passengers), many of the men suffered from seasickness, and food supplies began to run low. At some points they had to bail water caused by a leak, and at another a man fell overboard, delaying their journey. The plan had been for the journey to take five days, and on the ''Granma'''s scheduled day of arrival, 30 November, members of the MR-26-7 in Cuba under the leadership of Frank Pais led an armed uprising against government buildings in Santiago, Manzanillo and several other towns. However, the crossing in the ''Granma'' ultimately lasted for seven days, and with Castro and his men unable to provide immediate back-up, Pais and those MR-26-7 members under his leadership dispersed to their homes after two days of intermittent attacks, having "suffered very few casualties and arrests".

Guerrilla war in the Sierra Maestra: 1956–1958

The ''Granma'' landed in Cuba on 2 December 1956, crashing in a mangrove swamp at Playa Las Coloradas, close to Los Cayuelos. Batista's forces had been expecting them, and within several hours of their arrival they were bombarded from a naval vessel. Fleeing inland, they headed for the Sierra Maestra in Oriente, a large forested mountain range from where they could lead a guerrilla war against Batista. At daybreak on 5 December they were unexpectedly attacked by a detachment of Batista's Rural Guard; in the confusion, the rebels scattering into different groups which continued making their journey to the Sierra Maestra independently. With only two comrades, Castro made it to the mountains, along the way meeting up with others who had survived the attack; ultimately it was discovered that of the 82 rebels who had arrived on the ''Granma'', only 19 had made it to the Sierra Maestra, the rest being killed or captured by Batista's forces.

Setting up an encampment in the thick jungle of the Sierra Maestra, the survivors, who included Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Raúl Castro and Camilo Cienfuegos, began launching attacks on small army posts in the region in order to steal weaponry. In January 1957 they attacked the outpost near to the beach at La Plata, defeating the soldiers stationed there. Being a doctor, Guevara treated the soldiers for any injuries, but the revolutionaries executed the local ''mayoral'' (land company overseer) Chicho Osorio, who was despised by the local peasants and who had boasted of killing one of the MR-26-7 rebels several weeks previously. The execution of Osorio aided the rebels in gaining the trust of local people, who typically hated the ''mayorals'' as enforcers of the much-despised wealthy landowners. Nonetheless, the locals were initially unenthusiastic in their support for the guerrillas, viewing them with suspicion as outsiders. As trust grew between the two communities, some locals joined the rebels, although the majority of new recruits came from urban areas, traveling to the Sierra Maestra in order to aid the revolutionary effort. With rising levels of support and increasing number of volunteers joining the rebel army, which now numbered over 200, in July 1957 Castro eventually divided his men into three columns, keeping charge of one and giving control of the others to his brother and Che Guevara. The MR-26-7 members operating in urban areas continued agitating against the government, sending supplies to the Sierra Maestra rebels and on 16 February 1957 Castro met with other leading members of the group to discuss tactics; it was here that he met Celia Sánchez, who would become a close friend.

The Cuban Revolution was not contained to the MR-26-7, and across Cuba militant groups were beginning to rise up against Batista. Most notably, Echevarría and his DR had been carrying out bombings and acts of sabotage, leading the police to respond with mass arrests, the torture of suspects and extra-judicial killings. In March 1957 the DR launched an attack on the presidential palace, with Batista himself narrowly surviving. The rebels were eventually defeated, and Echevarría was shot dead by police in the street as he attempted to issue a radio broadcast. His death would prove beneficial for Castro, removing a charismatic rival to his leadership of the anti-Batista movement. Although already a Marxist-Leninist, Castro kept his beliefs a secret from many of the MR-26-7, something in contrast to Guevara and Raúl, whose beliefs were well known. In this way he hoped to gain a wider support base amongst those of other political persuasions, and in 1957 he met with leading members of the ''Partido Ortodoxo''. Castro and the ''Ortodoxo'' leaders Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos drafted and signed a document called the Sierra Maestra Manifesto in which they laid out their plans for a post-Batista Cuba. Rejecting the idea that Cuba should be run by a provisional military junta following Batista's demise, it demanded that a provisional civilian government be set up that was "supported by all" and which would implement agrarian reform, industrialization and a campaign to wipe out illiteracy before introducing "truly fair, democratic, impartial, elections".

Batista's government censored the Cuban media, and so Castro felt it would be beneficial to reach out and contact foreign media sources in order to spread his message. A U.S. journalist from the ''The New York Times'' named Herbert Matthews came to interview Castro, attracting international interest to the rebel's cause and turning him into a celebrity. ''The New York Times'' front page story presented Castro as a romantic and appealing revolutionary, and exaggerated the number of troops and resources that he had at his command, with Matthews declaring that "Batista cannot possibly hope to suppress the Castro revolt". Soon, other reporters followed in Matthews' footsteps by traveling to the Sierra Maestra to interview Castro, sent by such news agencies as CBS, while a reporter from ''Paris Match'' stayed with the rebels for around 4 months, documenting their daily routine. The number of attacks that Castro's guerrilla's undertook against military outposts in and around the mountains increased, forcing the government to withdraw from all its posts in the region. By the spring of 1958 the rebels controlled all of the mountainous areas in Oriente province, controlling a hospital, schools, a printing press, slaughterhouse, land-mine factory and a cigar-making factory.

Countering Operation Verano: 1958

President Batista was coming under increasing pressure by 1958. His army's military failures in Oriente, coupled with his censorship of the media and the repressive techniques of torture and extra-judicial killings employed by the police and armed forces were being increasingly criticized both at home and abroad. Influenced by a wave of anti-Batista sentiment amongst their citizens, the U.S. government made the decision to stop supplying him with weaponry, which he had been using against the rebels, leading him to instead begin buying arms from the United Kingdom. The opposition used this as an opportunity to rise up across the country, proposing a general strike which would be accompanied by armed attacks from the MR-26-7. The strike began on 9 April, and while receiving strong support in the center and east of Cuba, in Havana and other urbanized western parts of the country most workers continued working as usual.

Batista's response was to launch an all-out-attack on Castro's guerrilla forces, known as ''Operation Verano''. The army began aerial bombardment of forested areas and villages that were suspected of aiding and hiding the militants, whilst 10,000 soldiers under the command of General Eulogio Cantillo surrounded the Sierra Maestra, driving north to the areas where the rebels were camped. Despite their massive superiority of numbers and weaponry, the army were at a disadvantage, having no experience with guerrilla warfare or the mountainous region. Castro, who by this time had around 300 men at his command, avoided open confrontation, instead using land mines and ambushes to halt the enemy offensive. The army suffered heavy losses and a number of embarrassments; in June 1958 a battalion was trapped in a valley by the rebels and forced to surrender. Their weapons were confiscated, and they were handed over to the Red Cross. In the summer, the MR-26-7 went on the offensive, pushing the government forces back, out of the mountain range and into the lowlands, with Castro using his columns in a pincer movement to surround the main army concentration in Santiago. By November, Castro's forces had most of Oriente and Las Villas under his control, and although the capitals of Santiago and Santa Clara remained in government hands, their grip on them was slipping.

Batista's fall and Cantillo's military junta: 1958–1959

The U.S. government had come to realize that Batista would probably lose the war, and fearing that Castro, under the influence of known Marxist-Leninists like Che Guevara, would displace U.S. interests with socialist reforms, they decided to support Batista's removal in support of a military junta led by centrist or right wing officers, believing that General Cantillo, who then commanded most of the country's armed forces, would be best placed to lead it. After being approached with this proposal, Cantillo decided to secretly meet with Castro to see if they could bring an end to the fighting, and ultimately it was agreed that the two would call a ceasefire, following which Batista would be apprehended and tried as a war criminal. Double crossing Castro, Cantillo warned Batista of the revolutionary's intentions. Wishing to avoid a war crimes tribunal, Batista resigned on 31 December 1958, informing the armed forces that they were now under Cantillo's control. With his family and closest advisers, Batista then fled into exile, taking with him an amassed fortune of more than US$ 300,000,000. The following morning Cantillo entered the Presidential Palace in Havana, proclaimed the Supreme Court judge Carlos Piedra to be the new President, and began appointing new members of the government.

Still in Oriente, Castro was furious at Cantillo's actions, recognizing it as the establishment of a military junta. He told his troops to end the ceasefire and continue on the offensive against government forces. The MR-26-7 put together a plan to oust the Cantillo-Piedra junta, freeing the high ranking military officer Colonel Barquin from the Isle of Pines prison (where he had been held captive for plotting to overthrow Batista), and commanding him to fly to Havana to place Cantillo under house arrest. While there was widespread celebrations as news of Batista's downfall spread across Cuba on 1 January 1959, Castro gave an order to MR-26-7 members to take on the responsibility of policing the country, in order to prevent the widespread looting and vandalism that he had witnessed in the Bogotazo.

Whilst Cienfuegos and Guevara led their columns of soldiers into Havana onto 2 January, Castro entered Santiago, where he accepted the surrender of the Moncada Barracks, before giving a speech to the assembled crowds in which he invoked the 19th century wars of independence against the Spanish Empire. He proceeded to speak out against the Cantillo-Piedra junta but highlighted that the majority of soldiers in the armed forces were honorable, and that only the few who had committed human rights abuses would be brought to justice. He also praised the role that women had played in the MR-26-7, and proclaimed that they would have equal rights in the new Cuba. Castro immediately became a heroic figure to the Cuban people, striking a "Christ-like figure" and wearing a medallion of the Virgin Mary, with cheering crowds meeting him at every town on his way to Havana. Along the way he gave speeches, press conferences and interviews, with U.S. and other foreign reporters noting that the public adulation of Castro was on an unprecedented scale.

Provisional government: 1959

In the Sierra Maestra, Castro had made his opinion clear that the lawyer Manuel Urrutia Lleó (1901–1981) should be the new Cuban president and leader of a provisional civilian government. An established figure, Urrutia had defended several MR-26-7 revolutionaries in court during the Batista administration, and it was for this reason that Castro believed he would make a good leader. Following the house arrest of Cantillo and the ensuing collapse of the junta, Urrutia proclaimed himself to be provisional president, based purely on the support of Castro and his rebels rather than on any democratic consensus. On January 8, 1959, Castro's army rolled victoriously into Havana, and he would shortly thereafter declare that "power does not interest me, and I will not take it." In Havana, Castro set up both home and office in the penthouse of the Havana Hilton Hotel, there meeting with journalists, foreign visitors and government ministers.

While he officially had no role within the provisional civilian government, in reality Castro exercised a great deal of political control, largely because of his overwhelming popularity with the Cuban populace and his control of the armed forces. He ensured that the government implemented a number of policies designed to cut corruption and fight illiteracy, but did not initially force through any radical proposals. He ordered a temporary ban on all political parties, but claimed that the government would get around to organizing multiparty elections, albeit failing to specify a particular date. He began secretly meeting with leading members of the banned Cuban Communist Party, believing that they had the intellectual capacity to form a socialist government where the MR-26-7 did not. He nonetheless kept his true political persuasions a secret from the public eye, and repeatedly denied being a communist.

Popular uproar across Cuba demanded that those figures of the Batista administration who had been complicit in the widespread torture and killing of civilians be brought to justice. Castro helped to set-up trials of such individuals across the country, resulting in hundreds of executions. Critics, in particular from the U.S. press, argued that many of these did not meet the standards of a fair trial, and condemned Cuba's new government as being more interested in vengeance than justice. Castro retaliated strongly against such accusations, proclaiming that "revolutionary justice is not based on legal precepts, but on moral conviction". In a show of support for this "revolutionary justice", he organized the first Havana trial to take place before a mass audience at the Sports Palace; when a group of aviators accused of bombing a village were found not guilty, he ordered a retrial in which they were instead found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment.

An argument between Castro and senior government figures broke out when the government banned the National Lottery and closed down the casinos and brothels that had flourished under Batista's regime. While agreeing that gambling and prostitution should be eradicated, Castro was furious with the manner in which this law had been passed, leaving thousands of Cuban waiters, croupiers and prostitutes unemployed, usually with no other skills to fall back on. As a result of the argument, Prime Minister José Miró Cardona resigned, going into exile in the U.S. and involving himself in the militant anti-Castro movement.

Premiership

Consolidating leadership: 1959

On February 16, 1959, Castro took the vacancy left by Cardona, being sworn in as Prime Minister of Cuba. One of his first acts as Prime Minister was to visit the United States between 15 and 26 April, accompanied by a delegation of industrial and diplomatic representatives. Castro hired one of the country's best public relations firms for a charm offensive, appearing as a "man of the people" by answering impertinent questions jokingly and eating hot dogs and hamburgers. The U.S. President, Dwight D. Eisenhower of the Republican Party, avoided meeting with Castro, who instead met with Vice President Richard Nixon. Rather than returning straight to Cuba, Castro traveled to Canada, Trinidad, Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina, attending an economic conference in Buenos Aires, where he unsuccessfully proposed that the U.S. fund a "Marshall Plan" for Latin America.

Castro took a great interest in rural life, and appointed himself to the presidency of the newly created National Institute of Agrarian Reform (INRA). On 17 May 1959, Castro signed into law the First Agrarian Reform, which limited landholdings to per owner and forbade foreign land ownership. As a result, all of the large land-holdings were broken up, and the land redistributed to the peasants who worked it; an estimated 200,000 peasants received title deeds as a result of its implementation. To Castro, this was an important progressive step, breaking the control of the wealthy landowning class over Cuba's agriculture; it proved popular among the working class, but also alienated many in the middle classes who had previously supported Castro.

Although at the time he refused to categorize his regime as socialist, Castro appointed known Marxists to senior positions throughout Cuban society. He controversially appointed Che Guevara, an Argentinian with no training in economics, to the position of Governor of the Central Bank and then Minister of Industries, while Marxists took control of most of the country's trade unions. Castro appointed Marxists to senior positions in the armed forces, leading to a backlash from various high ranking anti-communist officers; the commander of the Air Force, Díaz Lanz and his chief of security, Frank Sturgis, soon defected to the U.S., calling for the U.S. to do something before a Marxist government took over in Cuba. These defections were denounced by President Manuel Urrutia Lleó, but he too publicly expressed concern with the rising influence of Marxism. This angered Castro, who publicly announced that he was resigning from his position as Prime Minister because Urrutia "complicated" government, arguing that the president's "fevered anti-Communism" was having a detrimental effect. Castro's sentiments received widespread support as organized crowds of over half a million Castro-supporters surrounded the Presidential Palace demanding Urrutia's resignation, which was duly received. On July 23, Castro resumed his position as premier and appointed Osvaldo Dorticós as the new president.

Castro's regime remained highly popular with workers, peasants and students, all of whom had benefited from its policies. Nonetheless, opposition continued to grow, particularly within the Cuban middle classes, with thousands of educated doctors, engineers and other professionals emigrating to Florida in the U.S., causing a brain drain on the island's economy. Militant anti-Castro groups sprung up, undertaking armed attacks against government forces, with some setting up guerrilla bases in Cuba's mountainous regions. They were funded and armed by various foreign sources, including the exiled Cuban community, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and the Dominican government of General Trujillo. Castro's government began a crackdown on this opposition movement, labeling it counter-revolutionary, and arresting hundreds of dissidents. Although it rejected the methods of physical torture which had been employed by Batista's regime, Castro's government sanctioned the use of psychological torture, subjecting some prisoners to solitary confinement, rough treatment, hunger and threatening behavior. After conservative editors and journalists had become more hostile towards the government following its leftward turn, the pro-Castro printers' trade union began to harass and disrupt editorial staff. In January 1960 the government proclaimed that each newspaper would be obliged to publish a "clarification" written by the printers' union to the end of any articles which were critical of the government. This would prove to be the start of press censorship in Castro's Cuba.

Soviet support and U.S. opposition: 1960

At the start of the 1960s, the Cold War was raging between the Earth's two great superpowers, the United States, a liberal democracy with a capitalist economy, and the Soviet Union, a Marxist-Leninist one-party state with a socialist economy. Castro had long expressed contempt for the U.S. government and their support of Batista's regime, as well as their imperialist and exploitative attitude towards Cuba, while he shared the ideological views of the Soviet government. As early as July 1959, Castro's intelligence chief Ramiro Valdés had contacted a Soviet KGB agent in Mexico City. Castro subsequently met with another agent operating in Havana, and discussed the possibility of initiating a trading relationship with the Soviet Union (USSR). Meeting with Soviet First Deputy Premier Anastas Mikoyan, Castro agreed to provide the USSR with sugar in return for crude oil, fertilizers and industrial goods.

The Cuban government ordered the country's refineries (then controlled by the U.S. corporations Shell, Esso and Standard Oil) to process this Soviet oil, but under pressure from the U.S. government, they refused. Castro responded by expropriating the refineries and nationalizing them under state control. In retaliation, the U.S. cancelled its import of Cuban sugar, provoking Castro to nationalize most U.S.-owned assets on the island, including banks and sugar mills. Relations between Cuba and the U.S. were further strained following the explosion and sinking of a French vessel, the ''Le Coubre'', in Havana harbor in March 1960. Carrying weapons purchased from Belgium, the cause of the explosion was never determined, but Castro publicly accused the U.S. government of sabotage. Secretly, on 17 March 1960, President Eisenhower authorized the CIA to covertly overthrow Castro's government, permitting them to ally with the Mafia criminal organization in doing so; the Mafia despised Castro for closing down their casinos and other businesses in Cuba. In October 1960, the U.S. government then prohibited most exports to Cuba, marking the start of an economic embargo that would devastate the island's economy for decades to come.

In September 1960, Castro flew to New York City for the General Assembly of the United Nations. Taking offense at the attitude of the elite Shelburne Hotel, he and his entourage instead stayed at a cheap, run-down hotel in the impoverished area of Harlem. Here, he met with a number of journalists as well as anti-establishment figures like the African-American leader Malcolm X. At the hotel he was also visited by the Soviet Premier, Nikita Khruschev, and the two leaders used the occasion as a press opportunity to highlight the poverty faced by many U.S. citizens in areas like Harlem; Castro would later describe New York as a "city of persecution" in reference to the treatment of working class and African-Americans by the establishment. Relations between Castro and Khrushchev were warm, with the two leading the applause to one another's speeches at the General Assembly. Although Castro still publicly denied being a Marxist or even a socialist, Khrushchev would privately inform his entourage that the Cuban would become "a beacon of Socialism in Latin America."

Returning to Cuba, Castro feared that the U.S. would attempt to overthrow his government, and so purchased tanks and other weaponry from the Soviets. In September 1960, he created the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, a nationwide organization of civilian groups who implemented neighborhood spying in an effort to weed out "counter-revolutionary" activities and who could back up the regular army in the case of invasion. Eventually, 80% of the Cuban population would be involved in these Committees. By the end of 1960, all opposition newspapers had been closed down and all radio and television stations were in state control, run under the Leninist principle of Democratic Centralism. Moderates, teachers and professors were purged. He was accused of keeping about 20,000 dissidents held captive and tortured under inhuman prison conditions every year. Health care was socialised.

The Bay of Pigs Invasion: 1961

By January 1961, the U.S. Embassy in Havana had 300 staff, of whom 80% were believed by Castro to be spies. He ordered the Embassy to reduce its size to match that of the Cuban Embassy in Washington D.C. The U.S. response was to cut off all diplomatic relations with Cuba, with the CIA increasing its support for militant dissidents in exile. Such dissident groups began attacking ships trading with Cuba, and organized raiding parties to destroy Cuban factories and sugar mills in an attempt to disrupt the island's economy. Under the Eisenhower administration, the CIA had organized a plan to invade Cuba using exiled Cuban dissidents as soldiers, thereby avoiding an international condemnation that would have arisen if they used U.S. troops. Following the election of Democratic Party nominee John F. Kennedy as U.S. President in 1961, the CIA gained his support for continuing with the plan, which would result in the Bay of Pigs Invasion of April 1961. Brigade 2506, made up of around 1,400 Cuban dissidents, divided into five infantry and one paratrooper battalions, had assembled in Guatemala, a U.S. ally, before being transported to another pro-U.S. state, Nicaragua, from which they set off aboard seven ships toward Cuba on 13 April. On 15 April, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers took off from Nicaragua and bombed three Cuban military airfields, damaging runways and fighter plains, as well as killing 7 and injuring 52. The U.S. government immediately proclaimed that the bombers had belonged to Cuba's air force and had been commandeered by dissidents who wanted to defect to the U.S.; in retaliation, Castro publicly went on state television to denounce their claims, providing evidence to expose their misinformation.

Castro feared that the bombing was a prelude to an invasion, putting the armed forces on maximum alert and ordering the arrest of anyone suspected of having counter-revolutionary sympathies. This constituted at least 20,000 people, who were detained in prisons, theaters and sport centres. At the funerals of the dead airmen on 16 April, he publicly proclaimed that "What the imperialists cannot forgive us, is that we have made a Socialist revolution under their noses." This was his first ever declaration that the Cuban revolutionary movement was socialist in character, and he proceeded to declare that his movement was "a revolution of the humble, with the humble, for the humble, democratic and Socialist."

At night, the invasion fleet landed in Cuba largely undetected along the narrow inlet known as the Bay of Pigs. A local revolutionary militia opened fire on the invaders, but was forced back by heavy fire from the landing craft. Castro had not expected this to be their landing site, and as a result it was a poorly defended stretch of coast. He ordered Captain José Ramón Fernández to launch an immediate counter-offensive, and ordered the country's small air force to destroy the Brigade 2506's ships which contained weapons, food and medical supplies for the dissidents. Eventually taking direct command of the operation, Castro oversaw the counter-offensive, bringing in reinforcements and tanks to use against the rebel army. President Kennedy was unwilling to directly intervene with U.S. military support, and so on 20 April, 1189 men of the Brigade 2506 surrendered to the Cuban army.

Celebrating his victory, Castro ordered that the rebels be interrogated on live television by a panel of journalists. He himself took over the questioning on 25 April, walking in among them with a microphone and asking them why they had taken part in the invasion. 14 of them were then put on trial for crimes that they allegedly committed before the revolution, while all of the others were returned to the U.S. in exchange for medicine and food valued at around U.S. $25 million. Castro's victory was a powerful symbol for his supporters, both at home and across Latin America, but also served to increase some internal opposition, particularly among the thousands of primarily middle-class Cubans who had been detained in the run-up to the invasion. Although most were freed within a few days, many decided to flee Castro's Cuba for Florida.

Embracing Socialism: 1961–1962

Following the Bay of Pigs Invasion, on May Day 1961, Castro officially declared the Cuban government to be socialist. He founded a new political organization, the ORI, under which he united the MR-26-7, the Communists and the Revolutionary Directorate. The Soviet government were hesitant over Cuba's open embrace of socialism, fearing U.S. retaliation, but relations between the two nations deepened, with Castro supporting the USSR during the Sino-Soviet Split and sending his son Fidelito to be schooled in Moscow. In December 1961, Castro officially proclaimed himself to be a Marxist-Leninist, and in his subsequent Second Declaration of Havana called on the peoples of Latin America to rise up in violent revolution against their governments. In response, the U.S.-dominated Organization of American States expelled Cuba, while the Soviet government privately reprimanded Castro for being reckless, believing that other Latin American governments would now crack down on communists, ultimately hindering the cause of socialism.

Castro's government brought in measures to shape society using the Soviet model, persecuting both political opponents and perceived social deviants such as prostitutes and homosexuals. Castro expressed the opinion that homosexuality was a bourgeois decadence absent from working class rural areas, proclaiming that "in the country, there are no homosexuals". Members of his government spoke out against the treatment of gay people, noting the support of homosexual intellectuals in the Cuban Revolution, and ultimately Castro agreed that while they would be prevented from involvement in education, they would not be punished. Nevertheless, many homosexuals were rounded up by police and forced into a manual labor organization for criminals, the Military Units for the Support of Production (UMAP). Decades later, Castro expressed deep regret for these actions, taking full responsibility and calling them "moments of great injustice, great injustice!".

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By 1962, the Cuban economy was in steep decline, a result of poor economic management coupled with the interference and trade embargo of the U.S. government. There were major food shortages, and the government introduced rationing, with a riot breaking out in Cárdenas. Security reports indicated that the Cuban people were increasingly associating the governing communists with austerity, shortages and persecution, and so in March 1962 Castro removed the most prominent "Old Communists" from office, labeling them too "sectarian". On a personal level, Castro was feeling increasingly lonely and isolated in his position as Prime Minister, and relations with his old friend Che Guevara became strained as the latter became increasingly anti-Soviet, instead favoring the Chinese Marxist-Leninist government of Mao Zedong in the Sino-Soviet Split.

The Cuban Missile Crisis: 1962

Soviet Premier Khrushchev believed that the USSR was vulnerable to attack from the U.S. and its NATO allies, who were both militarily superior and who had nuclear weapons in Western Europe and Turkey, within striking distance of the USSR. He developed a plan to alter the balance of power by placing Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, from where they could target the U.S. Khrushchev approached Castro with this idea, and while the Cuban leader felt conflicted, he ultimately agreed, believing that it would guarantee Soviet protection of Cuba and enhance the power of the socialist camp. In July 1962, Raúl Castro traveled to Moscow to work out the specifics.

The operation was undertaken in strict secrecy, with only the Castro brothers, Guevara, President Dorticós and security chief Ramiro Valdés knowing the full picture. It was agreed to deploy Soviet R-12 MRBMs on Cuban soil, all of which had the capacity to fire nuclear warheads at all of the U.S.' major cities. However, American Lockheed U-2 reconnaissance discovered the construction of the missile installations on October 15, 1962 before the weapons had actually been deployed. The U.S. government viewed the installation of Soviet nuclear weapons south of Key West as an aggressive act and a threat to U.S. security. As a result, the U.S. publicly announced its discovery on October 22, 1962, and implemented a quarantine around Cuba that would actively intercept and search any vessels heading for the island. Castro hit back at Kennedy, insisting that Cuba had a right to defend itself from foreign aggression.

Castro privately urged Khrushchev to heighten tensions by threatening a nuclear strike on the U.S. should Cuba be attacked, but Khrushchev was desperate to avoid nuclear war. Negotiations took place between Kennedy and Khrushchev, with Castro having no involvement. Ultimately, Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles in exchange for a U.S. commitment not to invade Cuba and an understanding that the US would secretly remove American MRBMs targeting the Soviet Union from Turkey and Italy, a measure that the U.S. implemented a few months later. After learning of the deal, Castro was furious, believing that Khrushchev had betrayed him and given in to U.S. demands. Depressed, he lost his appetite and became ill.

Furthering Socialism: 1963–1970

In February 1963, Castro received a personal letter from Khrushchev, in which the Soviet Premier had emotionally set out his reasons for coming to an agreement with the U.S. government and in which he invited Castro to come and visit the USSR. Deeply touched by the letter, Castro set aside his resentment and traveled to the country in April, ultimately staying for five weeks. Visiting 14 cities, he gave speeches and met with locals, addressing a rally in Red Square and watching the May Day parade from the wall of the Kremlin. During his visit, he was also awarded the Order of Lenin, becoming the first foreigner to do so. Despite the Soviet government's misgivings, Castro continued to call for armed revolution across the capitalist world, providing funding and support for various militant leftist groups. He supported Guevara's plan for the "Andean project", an unsuccessful plan to set up a guerrilla movement in the highlands of Bolivia, Peru and Argentina, and allowed revolutionary groups from across the world, from the Viet Cong of Vietnam to the Black Panthers of the US, to train in Cuba. In particular, he thought that Sub-Saharan Africa, much of which was dominated by western powers, was rife for revolutionary change, and in 1965 authorized Guevara to travel to Congo Kinshasa in order to train militant revolutionaries.

Domestically, Castro agreed to allow anyone wishing to leave Cuba – with the exception of males aged between 15 and 26 – to do so. This helped rid the government of many of its opponents, but thousands took up the government's offer, many more than Castro had wanted. In October 1965, the government officially changed its name to the Cuban Communist Party, and published the membership of its Central Committee. In 1966 he staged the first Tri-Continental Conference of Africa, Asia and Latin America in Havana, further establishing himself as a significant player on the world stage despite the small and dependent nature of Cuba's economy. Castro himself suffered personal tragedy when his friend Guevara was killed by CIA-backed troops in Bolivia in October 1967, publicly attributing it to Che's disregard for his own safety in the revolutionary cause.

In 1968, Castro proclaimed a Great Revolutionary Offensive in Cuba, influenced by the Great Leap Forward in China. As a part of this, any remaining privately-owned shops and businesses were shut down, with Castro denouncing their owners as capitalist counter-revolutionaries. On August 23, 1968, Castro made a public gesture to the USSR that caused the Soviet leadership to reaffirm their support for him. Two days after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia to repress the Prague Spring, Castro took to the airwaves and publicly denounced the Czech rebellion. Castro warned the Cuban people about the Czechoslovakian "counterrevolutionaries", who "were moving Czechoslovakia towards capitalism and into the arms of imperialists". He called the leaders of the rebellion "the agents of West Germany and fascist reactionary rabble."

In January 1969, Castro publicly celebrated the tenth anniversary of his administration in Revolution Square, but used the occasion to ask the assembled crowds if they would tolerate greater sugar rations, reflecting the economic problems facing the country. The majority of the country's sugar crop was being sent to the Soviet Union to maintain Cuba's trade quota, but the 1969 crop was heavily damaged by a hurricane. As a result, the government postponed the Christmas and New Year holidays of 1969/1970 so that the harvest could continue with detailed monthly targets being set for every mill, while the military were drafted in to aid in the agricultural effort. Ultimately, the country failed to achieve that year's production quota for sugar. Castro publicly proclaimed it to be a worse set-back for the Revolution than the failed Moncada Barracks Attack, and offered to resign, but assembled crowds denounced the idea, cheering their support for Castro. Despite the country's economic problems, Castro remained hugely popular in Cuba, whose population were largely supportive of the "Achievements of the Revolution" in education, medical care and road construction, as well as the government's policy of "direct democracy".

Economic stagnation and Third World politics: 1970–1974

In May 1970, Alpha 66, a militant Cuban dissident group based in Florida, sank two Cuban fishing boats and captured their crews, demanding the release of Alpha 66 members imprisoned in Cuba. Under U.S. government pressure, the hostages were released, with Castro welcoming them back as heroes. In April 1971, Castro gained international condemnation after ordering the arrest of Herberto Padilla, a Cuban poet who had won an international prize but whose views were critical of the government. Padilla fell ill, with Castro visiting him in hospital; soon after, the poet publicly confessed his guilt and was released. Soon, the government formed the National Cultural Council through which it ensured that intellectuals and artists produced work that supported their administration.

In 1971, Castro made his first foreign visit since 1964, this time to Chile, where the Marxist President Salvador Allende (1908–1973) had just been elected as the head of a left-wing coalition. Implementing socialist reforms by nationalizing industry, Allende gained Castro's support, and Castro spent 23 days touring the country, giving speeches and press conferences, talking to both admiring socialists and right wing opponents. He was however cautious of the Chilean military, which remained staunchly right wing and anti-socialist and advised Allende to purge such opponents from the armed forces before they led a coup. Castro was proved right. In 1973, the military, backed by the U.S. government, led a coup d'etat against Allende's government, banning elections and establishing a military junta led by Commander-in-Chief Augusto Pinochet. Castro considered it a tragedy, but was unsurprised.

Following his trip to Chile, Castro traveled to West Africa to meet with Sékou Touré (1922–1984), the President of Guinea. A socialist and nationalist, Touré had much in common with Castro, and they forged an alliance; the Cuban even told a crowd of Guineans that theirs was the greatest leader in Africa. From Guinea he went on a seven week tour visiting various other leftist allies in Africa and Eurasia: Algeria, Bulgaria, Hungary, Poland, East Germany, Czechoslovakia and then the Soviet Union. On every trip he seemed eager to travel among the people by visiting factories and farms, and chatted and joked with those whom he met. Although publicly highly supportive of these governments, in private he urged them to do more to aid revolutionary socialist movements in other parts of the world, and in particular in Vietnam, where the Vietnam War was then raging between the Chinese-backed communists and U.S.-backed capitalists. In September 1973 he returned to Algiers in order to attend the Fourth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). Various members of the NAM were critical of Castro's attendance, claiming that Cuba was aligned to the USSR and its Warsaw Pact block and therefore should not be at the conference, particularly as he praised the Soviet Union in his speech and asserted that it was not imperialistic in nature.

In 1974, Castro broke off relations with the Israeli government over both their treatment of Palestinian civilians during the Israel-Palestine conflict and their increasingly close relationship with the United States. This earned him respect from leaders throughout the Arab world. In particular he was praised by Muammar Gaddafi (1942–2011), the socialist president of the Libyan Arab Republic, with Castro and Gaddafi becoming friends and allies. That year, Cuba also experienced an economic boost, due primarily to the high international price of sugar, but also influenced by new trade credits with Canada, Argentina, and various countries in Western Europe. With such economic growth, the Cuban government decided to call the first National Congress of the Cuban Communist Party. It adopted a new constitution based upon the Soviet model, which abolished both the position of President and Prime Minister.

Presidency

Foreign wars and NAM Presidency: 1975–1979

On November 4, 1975, Castro ordered the deployment of Cuban troops to Angola, southern Africa in order to aid the Marxist MPLA-ruled government against the South African-backed UNITA opposition forces in the Angolan Civil War. Altogether, 15,000 Cuban troops were stationed in the country by January 1976, and played a major part in defeating UNITA and the invading South African military. Celebrating this victory, Castro, Angolan President Agostinho Neto, Guinean President Sékou Touré and Guinea-Bissaun President Luís Cabral met together and agreed to help support the government of Mozambique from the threat of white supremacist Rhodesia. Castro was highly supportive of socialism in Africa, considering it to be "the weakest link in the imperialist chain." Heading north in February, Castro visited his allies in Algeria and then Libya, where he spent ten days in the company of friend and ally President Muammar Gadaffi. Moving on to talks with the Marxist government of South Yemen, he then traveled to Somalia, where he entered into talks with the pro-Soviet government of President Siad Barre. Biarre's government wanted to annex the Ogaden region of neighboring Ethiopia to create a Greater Somalia, something Castro unsuccessfully tried to convince him against. Castro went on visit Tanzania, Mozambique and Angolan, being greeted by crowds as a hero for Cuba's role in opposing the apartheid government of South Africa.

As Somalia invaded Ethiopia in the Ogaden War, Castro sided with the latter, whose Marxist President Mengistu Haile Mariam of the Workers' Party of Ethiopia appealed to fellow Marxist governments for help. Like the Soviet Union, Castro complied, sending troops to aid the overwhelmed Ethiopian army and ordering General Arnaldo Ochoa to take command of them. In addition, Castro extended support to Marxist revolutionary movements throughout Latin America, such as aiding the Sandinista National Liberation Front in overthrowing the government of right wing president Anastasio Somoza Debayle in Nicaragua, leading to their victory in July 1979. It has been claimed by the Carthage Foundation-funded Center for a Free Cuba that an estimated 14,000 Cubans were killed in Cuban military actions abroad.

In 1979, the Conference of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) was held in Havana, while that year Castro was selected as the president of the NAM, a position that he would hold till 1982. In his capacity as both President of the NAM and of Cuba he appeared at the United Nations General Assembly in October 1979, giving a speech on the disparity between the Earth's rich and poor. His speech was greeted with much applause from other world leaders, although American anti-communist protesters demonstrated against him outside the building. Relations between Cuba and other North American states improved, with the Mexican President Luis Echeverría reiterating ties between the two countries in the face of U.S. domination and the Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau even proclaiming "Viva Castro!". Relations with the U.S. also improved following the election of Democrat Party candidate Jimmy Carter in 1977. Carter continued to criticize the human rights abuses of Castro's government, but took a more respectful approach which gained Castro's attention. Believing Carter to be well meaning and sincere, Castro freed some political prisoners and allowed some Cuban exiles to visit relatives on the island, hoping that in turn Carter would abolish the U.S. economic embargo and halt the CIA's support for militant dissident groups.

Reagan and Gorbachev: 1980–1989

By the start of the 1980s, the Cuban economy was again in trouble, following a decline in the price of sugar on the open market and a decimated harvest following 1979's bad weather and plant infestations. Increasing numbers of Cubans began hijacking boats and fleeing toward Florida, enticed by the wealth and consumer goods of the U.S., leading Castro to call them traitorous "scum". In one incident, 10,000 Cubans eager to leave had stormed the Peruvian Embassy requesting asylum, embarrassing both the Peruvians and Cubans. The U.S. agreed that it would accept 3,500 Cubans, and so an angry Castro agreed that those who wanted to leave could do so from the port of Mariel. Hundreds of boats arrived from the U.S., leading to a mass exodus of 120,000; Castro's government took advantage of the situation by unloading criminals and the mentally ill onto the boats destined for Florida.

In 1980, the Republican Party nominee Ronald Reagan was elected to the U.S. Presidency, pursuing a hard line approach against Castro, and by 1981, Castro was accusing the U.S. of undertaking biological warfare against Cuba. Although he despised the right wing military junta in Argentina, Castro supported them in the 1982 Falklands War against the British, even offering military aid, although British forces had defeated the Argentinians before this ever materialized. Cuba had also been supportive of the leftist New Jewel Movement that had seized power in Grenada in 1979, sending in doctors, teachers, and technicians, and Castro had befriended its Marxist president, Maurice Bishop. When Bishop was murdered by members of his own government in October 1983, Castro cautiously continued supporting the Grenadine government, which remained Marxist. However, the U.S. and six Caribbean nations opposed the coup as a basis for invading the island and overthrowing the government; those Cuban soldiers who fought alongside their Grenadian comrades were killed. Castro denounced the invasion and compared the U.S. to Nazi Germany, with condemnation also coming from the Soviet Union and the U.N. General Assembly. Fearing a U.S. invasion of Nicaragua, Castro sent General Ochoa to help train the Sandinistas, particularly in the tactics of guerrilla warfare, but received little support from the Soviet Union.

The Cuban government were desperate for money to boost the economy and fund its internationalist ambitions, in doing so turning to almost any economic transaction, however un-socialist. They began secretly selling off paintings from the national collections on the international market and illicitly traded to obtain U.S. electronic goods through Panama. Castro became passionate in his denunciation of the Third World debt problem, arguing that the Third World would never escape the debt that the First World banks and governments had imposed upon it. In 1985 alone Havana hosted five international conferences on the world debt problem.

In October 1985, Castro gave up regularly smoking Cuban cigars on medical advice, helping to set an example for the rest of the populace.

Cuba's "Special Period": 1990–2000

When Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev visited Cuba in 1989, the camaraderie between Havana and Moscow was strained by Gorbachev's implementation of economic and political reforms in the USSR. "We are witnessing sad things in other socialist countries, very sad things", lamented Castro in November 1989, in reference to the changes that were sweeping such communist allies as the Soviet Union, East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. The subsequent dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 had an immediate and devastating effect on Cuba.

José María Aznar, former Spanish Prime Minister, wrote that the embargo was Castro's greatest ally, and that Castro would lose his presidency within three months if the embargo was lifted. Castro retained control after Cuba became bankrupt and isolated following the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991. The synergistic contraction of Cuban economy resulted in eighty-five percent of its markets disappearing, along with subsidies and trade agreements that had supported it, causing extended gas and water outages, severe power shortages, and dwindling food supplies. In 1994, the island's economy plunged into what was called the "Special Period"; teetering on the brink of collapse. Cuba legalized the US dollar, turned to tourism, and encouraged the transfer of remittances in US dollars from Cubans living in the USA to their relatives on the Island. After massive damage caused by Hurricane Michelle in 2001, Castro proposed a one-time cash purchase of food from the U.S. while declining a U.S. offer of humanitarian aid.

The U.S. authorized the shipment of food in 2001, the first since the embargo was imposed. During 2004, Castro shut down 118 factories, including steel plants, sugar mills and paper processors to compensate for the crisis due to fuel shortages, and in 2005 directed thousands of Cuban doctors to Venezuela in exchange for oil imports.

Cuba and the Pink Tide: 2001–2008

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Cuba and Panama restored diplomatic ties in 2005 after breaking them off a year prior when Panama's former president pardoned four Cuban exiles accused of attempting to assassinate Cuban President Fidel Castro in 2000. The foreign minister of each country re-established official diplomatic relations in Havana by signing a document describing a spirit of fraternity that has long linked both nations. Cuba, once shunned by many of its Latin American neighbors, now has full diplomatic relations with all but Costa Rica and El Salvador.

Although the relationship between Cuba and Mexico remains strained, each side appears to make attempts to improve it. In 1998, Fidel Castro apologized for remarks he made about Mickey Mouse which led Mexico to recall its ambassador from Havana. He said he intended no offense when he said earlier that Mexican children would find it easier to name Disney characters than to recount key figures in Mexican history. Rather, he said, his words were meant to underscore the cultural dominance of the US. Mexican president Vicente Fox apologized to Fidel Castro in 2002 over statements by Castro, who had taped their telephone conversation, to the effect that Fox forced him to leave a United Nations summit in Mexico so that he would not be in the presence of President Bush, who also attended.

At a summit meeting of sixteen Caribbean countries in 1998, Castro called for regional unity, saying that only strengthened cooperation between Caribbean countries would prevent their domination by rich nations in a global economy. Caribbean nations have embraced Cuba's Fidel Castro while accusing the US of breaking trade promises. Castro, until recently a regional outcast, has been increasing grants and scholarships to the Caribbean countries, while US aid has dropped 25% over the past five years. Cuba has opened four additional embassies in the Caribbean Community including: Antigua and Barbuda, Dominica, Suriname, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines. This development makes Cuba the only country to have embassies in all independent countries of the Caribbean Community.

Castro was known to be a friend of former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau and was an honorary pall bearer at Trudeau's funeral in October 2000. They had continued their friendship after Trudeau left office until his death. Canada became one of the first American allies openly to trade with Cuba. Cuba still has a good relationship with Canada. In 1998, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chrétien arrived in Cuba to meet President Castro and highlight their close ties. He is the first Canadian government leader to visit the island since Pierre Trudeau was in Havana in 1976.

The European Union accuses the Castro regime of "continuing flagrant violation of human rights and fundamental freedoms". In December 2001, European Union representatives described their political dialogue with Cuba as back on track after a weekend of talks in Havana. The EU praised Cuba's willingness to discuss questions of human rights. Cuba is the only Latin American country without an economic co-operation agreement with the EU. However, trade with individual European countries remains strong since the US trade embargo on Cuba leaves the market free from American rivals.

In 2005, EU Development Commissioner Louis Michel ended his visit to Cuba optimistic that relations with the communist state will become stronger. The EU is Cuba's largest trading partner. Cuba's imprisonment of 75 dissidents and the execution of three hijackers have strained diplomatic relations. However, the EU commissioner was impressed with Fidel Castro's willingness to discuss these concerns, although he received no commitments from Castro. Cuba does not admit to holding political prisoners, seeing them rather as mercenaries in the pay of the United States.

Castro is seen as an icon by leaders of recent socialist governments in Latin America. Hugo Chávez of Venezuela is a long-time admirer and reached agreements with Cuba to provide subsidized petroleum in exchange for Cuban medical assistance. Evo Morales of Bolivia has described him as "the grandfather of all Latin American revolutionaries".

Speculation on illness: 1998–2005

Due to the issue of presidential succession and Castro's longevity, there have long been rumors, speculation and hoaxing about Castro's health and demise. In 1998 there were reports that he had a serious brain disease, later discredited. In June 2001, he apparently fainted during a seven-hour speech under the Caribbean sun. Later that day he finished the speech, walking buoyantly into the television studios in his military fatigues, joking with journalists.

In January 2004, Luis Eduardo Garzón, the mayor of Bogotá, said that Castro "seemed very sick to me" following a meeting with him during a vacation in Cuba. In May 2004, Castro's physician denied that his health was failing, and speculated that he would live to be 140 years old. Dr. Eugenio Selman Housein said that the "press is always speculating about something, that he had a heart attack once, that he had cancer, some neurological problem", but maintained that Castro was in good health.

On October 20, 2004, Castro tripped and fell following a speech he gave at a rally, breaking his kneecap and fracturing his right arm. He was able to recover his ability to walk and publicly demonstrated this two months later.

In 2005, the CIA said it thought Castro had Parkinson's disease. Castro denied such allegations, while also citing the example of Pope John Paul II in saying that he would not fear the disease.

Transfer of duties, speculation on illness 2006–2007

On July 31, 2006, Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of state, President of the Council of Ministers, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to his brother Raúl Castro. This transfer of duties was described at the time as temporary while Fidel recovered from surgery he underwent due to an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding". Fidel Castro was too ill to attend the nationwide commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Granma boat landing on December 2, 2006, which also became his belated 80th birthday celebrations. Castro's non-appearance fueled reports that he had terminal pancreatic cancer and was refusing treatment, but on December 17, 2006 Cuban officials stated that Castro had no terminal illness and would eventually return to his public duties. However, on December 24, 2006, Spanish newspaper ''El Periódico de Catalunya'' reported that Spanish surgeon José Luis García Sabrido had been flown to Cuba on a plane chartered by the Cuban government. Dr. García Sabrido is an intestinal expert who further specializes in the treatment of cancer. The plane that Dr. García Sabrido traveled in also was reported to be carrying a large quantity of advanced medical equipment. On December 26, 2006, shortly after returning to Madrid, Dr. García Sabrido held a news conference in which he answered questions about Castro's health. He stated that "He does not have cancer, he has a problem with his digestive system", and added, "His condition is stable. He is recovering from a very serious operation. It is not planned that he will undergo another operation for the moment." Although most Cubans acknowledge that they are aware Castro is seriously ill, most also seem worried about a future without Castro.

On January 16, 2007, the Spanish newspaper, ''El País'', citing two unnamed sources from the Gregorio Marañón hospital —who employs Dr. García Sabrido— in Madrid, reported Castro was in "very grave" condition, having trouble wound healing, after three failed operations and complications from an intestinal infection caused by a severe case of diverticulitis. However, Dr. García Sabrido told CNN that he was not the source of the report and that "any statement that doesn't come directly from [Castro's] medical team is without foundation." Also, a Cuban diplomat in Madrid said the reports were lies and declined to comment, while White House press secretary Tony Snow said the report appeared to be "just sort of a roundup of previous health reports. We've got nothing new." On January 30, 2007, Cuban television and the paper ''Juventud Rebelde'' showed fresh video and photos from a meeting between Castro and Hugo Chávez said to have taken place the previous day.

In mid-February 2007, it was reported by the Associated Press that Acting President Raúl Castro had said that Fidel Castro's health was improving and he was taking part in all important issues facing the government. "He's consulted on the most important questions", Raúl Castro said of Fidel. "He doesn't interfere, but he knows about everything." On February 27, 2007, Reuters reported that Fidel Castro had called into ''Aló Presidente'', a live radio talk show hosted by Hugo Chávez, and chatted with him for thirty minutes during which time he sounded "much healthier and more lucid" than he had on any of the audio and video tapes released since his surgery in July. Castro reportedly told Chávez, "I am gaining ground. I feel I have more energy, more strength, more time to study", adding with a chuckle, "I have become a student again." Later in the conversation, he made reference to the fall of the world stock markets that had occurred earlier in the day and remarked that it was proof of his contention that the world capitalist system is in crisis.

Reports of improvements in his condition continued to circulate throughout March and early April. On April 13, 2007, Chávez was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that Castro has "almost totally recovered" from his illness. That same day, Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Roque confirmed during a press conference in Vietnam that Castro had improved steadily and had resumed some of his leadership responsibilities. On April 21, 2007, the official newspaper ''Granma'' reported that Castro had met for over an hour with Wu Guanzheng, a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party who was visiting Havana. Photographs of their meeting showed the Cuban president looking healthier than he had in any previously released since his surgery.

As a comment on Castro's recovery, U.S. President George W. Bush said: "One day the good Lord will take Fidel Castro away", Hearing about this, Castro, who is thought to be atheist, ironically replied: "Now I understand why I survived Bush's plans and the plans of other presidents who ordered my assassination: the good Lord protected me."

In January 2009 Castro asked Cubans not to worry about his lack of recent news columns, his failing health, and not to be disturbed by his future death. At the same time pictures were released of Castro's meeting with the Argentine president Cristina Fernández on January 21, 2009.

Later years and retirement: 2008-present

In a letter dated February 18, 2008, Castro announced that he would not accept the positions of president and commander in chief at the February 24, 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying "I will not aspire to nor accept—I repeat I will not aspire to or accept—the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," effectively announcing his retirement from official public life. The letter was published online by the official Communist Party newspaper ''Granma''. In it, Castro stated that his health was a primary reason for his decision, stating that "It would betray my conscience to take up a responsibility that requires mobility and total devotion, that I am not in a physical condition to offer".

On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly of People's Power unanimously chose his brother, Raúl Castro, as Fidel's successor as President of Cuba. In his first speech as Fidel's successor, he proposed to the National Assembly of People's Power that Fidel continue to be consulted on matters of great importance, such as defense, foreign policy and "the socioeconomic development of the country". The proposal was immediately and unanimously approved by the 597 members of the National Assembly. Raúl described his brother as "not substitutable". Castro had already given up the post of First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba on July 31, 2006.

Since his retirement, Castro has written a regular column in ''Granma'' called "Reflections", in which he writes on world affairs, and has occasionally made pre-taped appearances on television greeting visitors such as Hugo Chávez in his room. In July 2010, he made his first public appearance greeting workers at a science center and gave his most prominent television interview since falling ill, on the Cuban program ''Mesa Redonda'' speaking for an extended period about tensions between the United States, Iran and North Korea.

On August 7, 2010, Castro gave his first speech to the Cuban National Assembly in four years. He addressed the body for ten minutes on international affairs and then remained to listen and respond to questions for a further 70 minutes. In his comments he urged the United States not to go to war with Iran or North Korea and warning about the dangers of a nuclear holocaust. When asked whether Castro may be re-entering government, Culture minister Abel Prieto told the BBC, "I think that he has always been in Cuba's political life but he is not in the government...He has been very careful about that. His big battle is international affairs."

On April 19, 2011, Castro resigned from the Communist Party central committee, thus stepping down as leader of the party. Raúl Castro was selected as his successor.

Politics

Castro has proclaimed himself to be "a Socialist, a Marxist, and a Leninist". As a socialist, Castro believes strongly in converting Cuba, and the wider world, from a capitalist system in which business and industry is owned by private individuals and organizations, into a socialist system in which all business and industry are owned by the state on behalf of the populace. In the former, there is a class divide between the wealthy classes who control the means of production (i.e. the factories, farms, media etc) and the poorer working classes who labor on them, whilst in the latter, socialists argue, this class divide would be obliterated as society becomes more egalitarian.

Marxism is the sociopolitical theory developed by German sociologists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels in the mid-19th century. It holds as its foundation the idea of class struggle; that society mainly changes and progresses as one socioeconomic class takes power from another. Thus Marxists believe that capitalism replaced feudalism in the Early Modern period as the wealthy industrial class, or bourgeoisie, took political and economic power from the traditional land-owning class, the aristocracy and monarchy. In the same process, Marxists predict that socialism will replace capitalism as the industrial working class, or proletariat, seize power from the bourgeoisie through revolutionary action. In this way, Marxism is believed by its supporters to provide a scientific explanation for why socialism should, and will, replace capitalism in human society.

Leninism refers to the theories put forward by Russian revolutionary, political theorist and politician Vladimir Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik Party who was a leading figure in the October Revolution that overthrew the Russian capitalist government and replaced it with a socialist alternative in 1917. Taking Marxism as its basis, Leninism revolves around putting forward ideas for how to convert a capitalist state into a socialist one. Castro used Leninist thought as a model upon which to convert the Cuban state and society into a socialist form.

Castro has described two historical figures as being particular influences on his political viewpoints; the Cuban anti-imperialist revolutionary José Martí (1853–1895) and the German sociologist and theorist Karl Marx (1818–1883).

Personal and public life

In his biography of the Cuban leader, entitled ''The Real Fidel Castro'' (2003), the Briton Leycester Coltman described the Cuban as being "fiercely hard-working, dedicated[,] loyal... generous and magnanimous" but also noted that he could be "vindictive and unforgiving" at times. He went on to note that Castro "always had a keen sense of humor and could laugh at himself" but could equally be "a bad loser" who would act with "ferocious rage if he thought that he was being humiliated." In her book, ''Red Heat: Conspiracy, Murder and the Cold War in the Caribbean'' (2011), the British historian Alex Von Tunzelmann commented that "though ruthless, [Castro] was a patriot, a man with a profound sense that it was his mission to save the Cuban people", contrasting him strongly to his Haitian contemporary François Duvalier.

Castro was known for his busy working hours, often only going to bed at 3 am or 4 am in the morning. He enjoyed reading but was uninterested in music, and also spent much of his time trying to keep fit, undertaking regular exercise. He took a great interest in gastronomy, as well as wine and whisky, and as Cuban leader was known to wander into his kitchen to discuss ingredients and cookery with his chefs.

Family

By his first wife Mirta Díaz-Balart, whom he married on October 11, 1948, Castro has a son named Fidel Ángel "Fidelito" Castro Díaz-Balart, born on September 1, 1949. Díaz-Balart and Castro were divorced in 1955, and she remarried Emilio Núñez Blanco. After a spell in Madrid, Díaz-Balart reportedly returned to Havana to live with Fidelito and his family. Fidelito grew up in Cuba; for a time, he ran Cuba's atomic-energy commission before being removed from the post by his father. Díaz-Balart's nephews are Republican U.S. Congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, vocal critics of the Castro government.

Fidel has five other sons by his second wife, Dalia Soto del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Alexis, Alexander "Alex" and Ángel Castro Soto del Valle.

While Fidel was married to Mirta, he had an affair with Natalia "Naty" Revuelta Clews, born in Havana in 1925 and married to Orlando Fernández, resulting in a daughter named Alina Fernández-Revuelta. Alina left Cuba in 1993, disguised as a Spanish tourist, and sought asylum in the United States. She has been a vocal critic of her father's policies. Alina was assisted by Elena Diaz-Vernon Amos, wife of AFLAC founder John Amos. Alina lived with Elena in Columbus, Georgia, for several years.

By an unnamed woman he had another son, Jorge Ángel Castro. Fidel has another daughter, Francisca Pupo (born 1953) the result of a one night affair. Pupo and her husband now live in Miami.

His sister Juanita Castro has been living in the United States since the early 1960s. When she went into exile, she said "I cannot longer remain indifferent to what is happening in my country. My brothers Fidel and Raúl have made it an enormous prison surrounded by water. The people are nailed to a cross of torment imposed by international Communism."

Public image

By wearing military-style uniforms and leading mass demonstrations, Castro projected an image of a perpetual revolutionary. He was mostly seen in military attire, but his personal tailor, Merel Van 't Wout, convinced him to occasionally change to a business suit. Within Cuba, Castro is often nicknamed "''El Caballo''", meaning "The Horse", a label that was first attributed to Cuban entertainer Benny Moré, who on hearing Castro passing in the Havana night with his entourage, shouted out "Here comes the horse!" The name itself is an allusion to Castro's well known womanizing during the 1950s and early 1960s.

During the revolutionary campaign, fellow rebels knew Castro as "The Giant". Large throngs of people gathered to cheer at Castro's fiery speeches, which typically lasted for hours. Many details of Castro's private life, particularly involving his family members, are scarce as the media is forbidden to mention them. Castro's image appears frequently in Cuban stores, classrooms, taxicabs, and national television. Despite this, Castro has stated that he does not promote a cult of personality.

Religious beliefs

Castro was baptized and raised a Roman Catholic as a child but did not practice as one. He has publicly stated that "I have never been a believer", and has total conviction that there is only one life. Pope John XXIII excommunicated Castro in 1962 after Castro suppressed Catholic institutions in Cuba. Castro has publicly criticized what he sees as elements of the Bible that have been used to justify the oppression of both women and people of African descent throughout history. In his 2009 spoken autobiography, Castro said that that Christianity exhibited "a group of very humane precepts" which gave the world "ethical values" and a "sense of social justice", before relating that "If people call me Christian, not from the standpoint of religion but from the standpoint of social vision, I declare that I am a Christian."

Recognition and legacy

Various leftist governments across the world have granted Castro awards for his work in promoting socialism and providing international humanitarian aid. The Juche government of North Korea for instance awarded him "the Golden Medal (Hammer and Sickle) and the First Class Order of the National Flag", whilst Muammar Gaddafi's Arab socialist government of Libya bestowed upon him a "Libyan human rights award". On a visit to South Africa in 1998 he was warmly received by President Nelson Mandela. President Mandela gave Castro South Africa's highest civilian award for foreigners, the Order of Good Hope.

In Harlem, Castro is seen as an icon because of his historic visit with Malcolm X in 1960 at the Hotel Theresa.

After the fall of apartheid and the independence of Namibia, the country's capital, the city of Windhoek, renamed many streets, including one that now bears the name of Fidel Castro Street.

Honors and awards

Hero of the Soviet Union Order of Lenin, three times; (Soviet Union) 1963, "for their successful struggle for freedom and independence of heroic Cuban people, who has made a worthy contribution to the great cause of peace and socialism and his great role in strengthening and development of the fraternal Soviet-Cuban"; 1972; 1986 "for his contribution to the promotion of fraternal relations between the USSR and Cuba".

Lenin Peace Prize for Strengthening International Peace Among Peoples (Soviet Union, 1961)

Jubilee Medal "Thirty Years of Victory in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945" (Soviet Union, 1975) Order of the October Revolution (Soviet Union, 1976)

Star of the Republic of Indonesia, Fourth Class

Guerrilla Star (Indonesia, 1960)

Order of the Star of the Romanian Socialist Republic, First Class (1972; "for special merits in the revolutionary struggle for national liberation and social development of Cuba, for the defense of national independence and sovereignty of the motherland socialism against imperialism, for the special contribution made to the expansion of multilateral relations of cooperation, international friendship and solidarity between the Communist Party of Cuba and the Romanian Communist Party, between the Republic of Cuba and the Socialist Republic of Romania, between Cuba and the Romanian people". Order of the White Lion, First Class (Czechoslovakia, 1972) Order of Georgi Dimitrov (Bulgaria, 1972) Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (1973)

Order of Courage (Libya) (1977)

Somali Order, First Class (1977) Order of Jamaica (1977) Order of Merit of Jamaica Great Order of the Star Honor of Socialist Ethiopia (1978), for Cuban aid to victory in the Ogaden War Jorge Dimitrov Prize for Peace (Bulgaria, 1980)

Order of the Gold Star (Vietnam, 1982)

Hero of the People's Republic of Korea Order of National Flag, First Class (North Korea, 1986) Order of Karl Marx (German Democratic Republic)

Collar of the Order of the Aztec Eagle (Mexico, 1987)

Gold Medal of the Senate of Spain (1988)

Order of Klement Gottwald (Czechoslovakia, 1989) "for outstanding personal merits for the expansion of fraternal and friendly partnership and cooperation between Cuban and Czechoslovak Communist parties, the two countries and their peoples". Order Agostinho Neto (Angola, 1992) Order of Merit of Duarte, Sanchez and Mella, Grand Cross Gold Plate (Dominican Republic, 1998) Order of Good Hope, First Degree (South Africa, 1998) Grand Cross of the Order Mali National (July 1998) Order of Prince Yaroslav the Wise (Ukraine, 2000), for medical assistance to victims of the Chernobyl disaster Independence Medal of Qatar (15 September 2000) Order of the Republic of Yemen (2000) Grand Collar of the Order of the Liberator (Venezuela, October 2000) Grand Collar of the Order Agostura Congress (Venezuela, 2001) Honorary Medal of the Algerian Liberation Army (May 6, 2001) Order of the Crown of the Realm (Malaysia, 11/05/2001) Medal of the City of Buenos Aires (2003) Hero of Working (North Korea, 2006) Order of National Flag First Class (North Korea, 2006) to "promote the reunification of the Korean peninsula and build socialism" Amilcar Cabral Medal (Guinea Bissau, 2007) for "having contributed to the establishment and strengthening of Guinea Bissau" Sports Merit Medal (Ministry of Sports of Ecuador, 2007) Order of the Ancient Welwitschia Mirabilis (Namibia, March 2008) "for his support of African liberation struggles" Ubuntu Award (National Heritage Council of South Africa, 2008) "a life dedicated to solidarity and ethics, highlighting the importance of human values ​​and dedication to humanity" Medal of Honor of Dominica (November 2008) for "the support provided by Cuba and its leader since independence in Dominica" Great Extraordinary Cross of Order of Omar Torrijos Herrera (Panama, January 2009) Grand Collar of the Order of the Quetzal (February 2009) "in appreciation for the more than 17 million consultations and more than 40,000 operations of the Operation Miracle Eye, made by Cuban doctors for the benefit of the Guatemalan people" Order of Oliver Reginald Tambo, Fellow in Grade Gold South Africa "for his contribution to the eradication of racism, colonialism, apartheid and inequality in human society"

Order of Honour and Glory (Russian Orthodox Church, October 19, 2008) - for his contribution to strengthening inter-religious cooperation in connection with the consecration of the church of Our Lady of Kazan in Havana

Order of the Eagle of Zambia, First Degree (Zambia, September 2009) "for having inspired many to fight for dignity and equality" Order of Merit, first grade (Ukraine, March 2010) "for his important contribution to restoring the health of the children of Chernobyl, after an accident in 1986 in the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic" General Eloy Alfaro Award (Ecuador, May 2010) for its "exceptional merit and dignity" East Timor Order, Great Collar (November 2010) "for Cuban support in health and education"

Controversy and criticism

Description as a dictator

Many observers refer to Castro as a "dictator", and his rule was the longest to-date in modern Latin American history.

Castro publicly refuted any allegations that he was a dictator and repeatedly told foreign journalists that under his government, Cuba was more democratic than Western nations, with greater consultation of the populace than that found in liberal democracies. He repeatedly emphasized that constitutionally, he actually held less political power than most heads of state, including that of the U.S. president, although critics nonetheless argued that he held an enormous amount of unofficial influence over the country.

Allegations of human rights abuses

The Human Rights Watch organization has suggested that Castro constructed a "repressive machinery" which "continues to deprive Cubans of their basic rights".

Castro has publicly defended his government from such accusations, using the "standard Marxist answers" to such criticisms; that the state must limit the freedoms of individuals in order to protect the rights of the collective populace, such as the right to employment, education and health care.

Allegations of corruption

In their book, ''Corruption in Cuba'', Sergio Diaz-Briquets and Jorge F. Pérez-López Servando state that Castro "institutionalized" corruption and that "Castro's state-run monopolies, cronyism, and lack of accountability have made Cuba one of the world's most corrupt states". Servando Gonzalez, in ''The Secret Fidel Castro'', calls Castro a "corrupt tyrant".

In 1959, according to Gonzalez, Castro established "Fidel's checking account", from which he could draw funds as he pleased. The "Comandante's reserves" were created in 1970, from which Castro allegedly "provided gifts to many of his cronies, both home and abroad". Gonzalez asserts that Comandante's reserves have been linked to counterfeiting business empires and money laundering.

As early as 1968, a once-close friend of Castro's wrote that Castro had huge accounts in Swiss banks. Castro's secretary was allegedly seen using Zürich banks. Gonzalez wrote that Cuba's paucity of trade with Switzerland contrasts oddly with the National Office of Cuba's relatively large office in Zurich. Castro has denied having a bank account abroad with even a dollar in it.

Allegations of wealth

A KGB officer, Alexei Novikov, stated that Castro's personal life, like the lives of the rest of the Communist elite, is "shrouded under an impenetrable veil of secrecy". Among other things, he asserted that Castro has a personal guard of more than 9,700 men and three luxurious yachts.

In 2005, American business and financial magazine ''Forbes'' listed Castro among the world's richest people, with an estimated net worth of US$550 million. The estimates, which the magazine admitted were "more art than science", claimed that the Cuban leader's personal wealth was nearly double that of Britain's Queen Elizabeth II, despite anecdotal evidence from diplomats and businessmen that the Cuban leader's personal life was notably austere. This assessment was drawn by making economic estimates of the net worth of Cuba's state-owned companies, and used the assumption that Castro had personal economic control. ''Forbes'' later increased the estimates to US$900 million, adding rumors of large cash stashes in Switzerland. The magazine offered no proof of this information, and according to CBS News, Castro's entry on the rich list was notably brief compared to the amount of information provided on other figures. Castro, who had considered suing the magazine, responded that the claims were "lies and slander", and that they were part of a US campaign to discredit him. He declared: "If they can prove that I have a bank account abroad, with US$900m, with US$1m, US$500,000, US$100,000 or US$1 in it, I will resign." President of Cuba's Central Bank, Francisco Soberón, called the claims a "grotesque slander", asserting that money made from various state owned companies is pumped back into the island's economy, "in sectors including health, education, science, internal security, national defense and solidarity projects with other countries."

Authored works

Fully or partially by Fidel Castro

''Capitalism in Crisis: Globalization and World Politics Today'', Ocean Press, 2000, ISBN 1-876175-18-4

''Che: A Memoir'', Ocean Press, 2005, ISBN 1-920888-25-X

''Cuba at the Crossroads'', Ocean Press, 1997, ISBN 1-875284-94-X

''Fidel Castro: My Life: A Spoken Autobiography'', Scribner, 2008, ISBN 1-4165-5328-2

''Fidel Castro Reader'', Ocean Press, 2007, ISBN 1-920888-88-8

''Fidel My Early Years'', Ocean Press, 2004, ISBN 1-920888-09-8

''Fidel & Religion: Conversations with Frei Betto on Marxism & Liberation Theology'', Ocean Press, 2006, ISBN 1-920888-45-4

''How Far We Slaves Have Come! South Africa and Cuba in Today's World'', by Nelson Mandela & Fidel Castro, Pathfinder Press, 1991, ISBN 0-87348-729-X

''Playa Giron: Bay of Pigs : Washington's First Military Defeat in the Americas'', Pathfinder Press, 2001, ISBN 0-87348-925-X

''Political Portraits: Fidel Castro reflects on famous figures in history'', Ocean Press, 2008, ISBN 1-920888-94-2

''The Declarations of Havana'', Verso, 2008, ISBN 1-84467-156-9

''The Prison Letters of Fidel Castro'', Nation Books, 2007, ISBN 1-56025-983-3

''The Strategic Victory: The War Against Batista in the Sierra Maestra'' ''[La contraofensiva estratégica: De la Sierra Maestra a Santiago de Cuba]'', Ocean Press, 2012 [2011], ISBN 0-9870779-0-2

''Time Warrior'' ''[Guerrillero del Tiempo]'', by Fidel Castro Ruz and Katiuska Blanco, Abril, 2012

''War, Racism and Economic Justice: The Global Ravages of Capitalism'', Ocean Press, 2002, ISBN 1-876175-47-8

See also

2006–2008 Cuban transfer of presidential duties

Cuban dissident movement

26th of July Movement

Left-wing nationalism

Politics of Cuba

In other media:

''638 Ways to Kill Castro''

''Comandante''

''Fidel (2001 documentary)''

''Fidel (film)''

''My Life (Fidel Castro autobiography)''

References

Footnotes

Bibliography

Further reading

External links

;By Fidel Castro

Archive of Fidel Castro's speeches in 6 languages

Fidel Castro History Archive at Marxists Internet Archive.

Collection of Castro's speeches

"We Don't Hope for Favors from the Worst of Empires"

"Where Have All the Bees Gone?"

"In Spite of Everything: Reflections on the Pan-American Games"

"Time for an Alliance of Civlizations Against Empire"

Fidel Castro in His Own Words

;Images

Castro: Early Years (1953–1961) – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Fidel Castro: A Revolutionary Life – slideshow by ''Life magazine''

Fidel Castro: A Life in Pictures – slideshow by ''BBC News''

Fidel Castro's Five Decades in Power – slideshow by ''The Washington Post''

Fidel Castro Resigns as President – slideshow by ''New York Times''

;About Fidel Castro

Fidel Castro: From Rebel to El Presidente – timeline by ''NPR''

Arthur Miller: A Visit With Castro by ''The Nation'', December 24, 2003

BBC Video: Fidel Castro Visits Boyhood Home of Che Guevara

''New York Times'' –- Interactive Feature: Three Days With Fidel

PBS American Experience Interactive site on Fidel Castro with a teacher's guide

Guide to the Cuban Revolution Collection, Manuscripts and Archives, Yale University Library

Deena Stryker Photographs of Cuba, 1963–1964, Duke University Libraries Digital Collections

NPR Audio: Cuba's Castro an Inspiration, Not a Role Model by Tom Gjelten, September 15, 2006

''The Guardian:'' "The Fidel I Think I Know" by Gabriel García Márquez, August 12, 2006

''Washington Post:'' Fidel Castro Will Always Lead Cuba, Locals Say February 22, 2008

Castro's Legacy by Wayne S. Smith, US Interests Section in Havana Chief from 1979 to 1982

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