Cuba: The Land and the People 1950 Coronet Instructional Films; Pre-Castro Cuba
more at
http://news.quickfound.net/intl/cuba_news
.html
"This film is a general travelogue about
Cuba."
Reupload of a previously uploaded film with improved video & sound.
Public domain film from the
US National Archives, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.
The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/
3.0/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuba
Cuba, officially the
Republic of Cuba, (
Spanish:
República de 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...
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 1,199 km (745 mi) long, constituting most of the nation's land area (105,
006 km2 (40,543 sq mi)) 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 (1,975 m (6,480 ft)). The second-largest island is Isla de la Juventud (
Isle of Youth) in the
Canarreos archipelago, with an area of 3,056 km2 (1,
180 sq mi). Cuba has a total land area of
110,860 km2 (42,803 sq mi)...
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 21 °
C (69.8 °F) in January and 27 °
C (80.6 °F) 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...
The most important mineral resource is nickel, of which Cuba has the world's second largest reserves (after
Russia)...