X-Nico

38 unusual facts about Cuba


Alfredo Rostgaard

Alfredo Rostgaard (1943 – December 27, 2004) was a Cuban graphic designer and artist.

Ángel Castro y Argiz

Ángel María Bautista Castro y Argiz (Láncara, Lugo Province, Spain, December 5, 1875—October 21, 1956) was the father of Cuban leaders Fidel and Raúl Castro.

Antonio Núñez Jiménez

Antonio Núñez Jiménez (April 20, 1923 – September 13, 1998) was a Cuban revolutionary and academic.

Carlos Mendieta

Carlos Mendieta y Montefur (November 4, 1873 – 27 September 1960) was a Cuban politician and Provisional President of Cuba.

Centro de hoja

Centro de hoja or Center of the sheet is a kind of Cuban postage stamps where there are intersecting gutters between four panes of stamps.

Cuba Township, Becker County, Minnesota

It was named for Cuba, New York, the former hometown of the early settler Charles W. Smith.

Cuba, an African Odyssey

From Che Guevara's tragicomic epic in the Congo up to the triumph of the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, this film tells the story of the internationalists whose saga is at the basis of today's word: they won all the battles, but end up losing the war.

African revolutionaries like Patrice Lumumba, Amílcar Cabral and Agostinho Neto call on Cuban guerrillas to help them in their struggle.

Cuba: My Revolution

Cuba: My Revolution is an autobiographical graphic novel written by Inverna Lockpez with art by Dean Haspiel and colours by Jose Villarubia.

Danny Miranda

Danny Miranda Agramonte (born November 12, 1978 in Morón, Cuba) is a first baseman for Ciego de Ávila of the Cuban National Series.

Egbert B. Brown

He died in the home of a granddaughter at West Plains, Missouri, on February 11, 1902, and was buried next to his wife in Cuba, Missouri.

ELAM 5 Combate Ceja del Negro

ELAM 5: Combate Ceja del Negro is a Policlinic and Faculty of Medical Sciences located in the municipality of Sandino, Pinar del Río, Cuba.

Felipe Pazos

He worked there for three years before returning to Cuba in 1950 to head the newly established National Bank of Cuba for two years at the behest of Cuban President Carlos Prío Socarrás.

Batista's rule came under increasing assault during the 1950s, and he and the Cuban military soon found themselves fighting against a young Castro and the forces of his 26th of July Movement.

Félix Pita Rodríguez

Félix Pita Rodriguez (1909-1990) was a Cuban journalist, poet and literary critic.

Foreign policy of Evo Morales

December 30, 2005: Evo Morales visits Cuba after celebrating his democratic victory in his base town of Orinoca.

Guamá

Guamá (died c. 1532) was a Taíno rebel chief who led a rebellion against Spanish rule in Cuba in the 1530s.

Hermann Blau

The Augsburg-based company operated later on with Riedinger under the name the German Blau gas company which controlled factories in Vienna, Budapest, Bucharest, Saint Petersburg, the United States, Canada and Cuba.

History of Havana

Later, they emigrated towards Miramar, and today, evermore to the west, they have settled in Siboney.

Isla de Cuba

Isla de Cuba, a Spanish second-class protected cruiser in service from 1887 to 1898 that fought in the Battle of Manila Bay during the Spanish-American War.

Julio Garceran de Vall

Julio Garceran de Vall (1907–1989) is a former Supreme Court Justice of Cuba.

Latino children's literature

Whether born in Puerto Rico or the United States, or emigrated from such countries as Mexico, Chile, Ecuador, or Cuba, the term includes their significant contributions to the field of writing for children in the United States.

Leoncio Vidal

Leoncio Vidal y Caro (September 12, 1864 - March 23, 1896) was a Cuban revolutionary that fought in the Cuban War of Independence.

Manuello Paganelli

In the late 1980s he was one of the few US photographers to visit Cuba.

Narváez expedition

After meeting with his wealthy friend Vasco Porcallo, Narváez sent part of the fleet to Trinidad to collect horses and other supplies from his friend's estate.

Nilo Menéndez

Nilo Menéndez Barnet (Matanzas, 26 September 1902 - Burbank, California, 15 September 1987) was a Cuban-born naturalized American songwriter.

Nitza Villapol

Nitza Villapol (1923–1998) was a chef, cookbook writer, and television host in Cuba.

Operation Anadyr

A part of Operation Anadyr was Operation Kama, a plan to forward-base seven Soviet ballistic missile submarines in Mariel, Cuba, much like the United States bases ballistic missile submarines in Holy Loch, Scotland.

Plácido Acevedo

He founded the Mayarí Quartet in the 1930s, in honor of a town in Cuba.

Raúl Chibás

He was a Major of the Cuban Army in 1960 when he decided to defect to the United States via a motor boat to Miami.

Río Cauto

Río Cauto, Cuba, a municipality and City in Granma Province, Cuba

Saturnino and Mariano Lora

The War of Independence of Cuba started on 24 February 1895, under the intellectual leadership of the writer and philosopher José Martí, often called Father of the Country in Cuba.

Servando Cabrera Moreno

Servando Cabrera Moreno (1923 - 1981) was a Cuban painter.

Timeline of the Cuban Revolution

1957 July 30 Cuban revolutionary Frank País is killed in the streets of Santiago de Cuba by police while campaigning for the overthrow of Batista government

It began with the assault on the Moncada Barracks on July 26, 1953, and ended on January 1, 1959, when Batista was driven from the country and the cities Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba were seized by rebels, led by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro's surrogates Raúl Castro and Huber Matos, respectively .

Trocha from Júcaro to Morón

The Trocha from Júcaro to Morón was a fortified military line built between 1869 and 1872 in Cuba by slave work force and Chinese immigrants to impede the pass of insurrectionist forces to the western part of the island during the 1st War of Independence (1868–1878) and was 68 km long between Júcaro and Morón.

Union blockade

The blockade runners were based in the British islands of Bermuda and the Bahamas, or Havana, in Spanish Cuba.

Year of the Lash

Year of the Lash (in Spanish, Año del Cuero) is a term used in Cuba in reference to 1844.


1960 Caribbean Series

The XII edition of the Caribbean Series (Serie del Caribe) was a baseball tournament held from February 10 through February 15, 1960 featuring the champion teams from Cuba (Cienfuegos), Panama (Marlboro), Puerto Rico (Caguas) and Venezuela (Rapiños).

1979 in Afghanistan

Taraki leaves for Havana, Cuba, to represent Afghanistan at the sixth summit conference of nonaligned nations, leaving the government in the hands of Amin.

A. glauca

Abarema glauca, the glaucous abarema, a tree species found only in Cuba

Aldama

Yamilé Aldama (born 1972), a triple-jumper from Cuba who has represented both Sudan and Great Britain

Aldo Rafael Forte

Aldo Rafael Forte (b. Havana, Cuba, 1953 ) is a renowned American composer of Cuban descent .

Alejandro de Humboldt National Park

16 of Cuba's 28 endemic plant species are protected in the park including such fauna as Dracaena cubensis and Podocarpus ekman.

Alton Adams

In 1931 Adams's unit was transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, when the naval government of the islands was replaced by a civilian administration, thus separating Adams from family, friends, and his source of social influence.

Angolan War of Independence

The USA granted the company Aero Associates, from Tucson, Arizona, the permission to sell seven Douglas B-26 Invader bombers to Portugal in early 1965, despite Portugal's concerns about their support for the Marxists from Cuba and the USSR.

Bonnie Bramlett

In 1979, Bonnie Bramlett travelled to Havana, Cuba, to participate in the historic Havana Jam festival that took place between 2–4 March, alongside Stephen Stills, the CBS Jazz All-Stars, the Trio of Doom, Fania All-Stars, Billy Swan, Weather Report, Mike Finnegan, Kris Kristofferson, Rita Coolidge and Billy Joel, plus an array of Cuban artists such as Irakere, Pacho Alonso, Tata Güines and Orquesta Aragón.

Brothers to the Rescue

Following the incident, the United Nations Security Council passed Security Council Resolution 1067 (1996), a U.S.-sponsored resolution condemning Cuba.

Captaincy General of Cuba

The transfer of the Spanish part of Santo Domingo to France in 1795 in the Treaty of Basel, made Cuba the main Spanish possession in the Caribbean.

César Portillo de la Luz

The Miami Herald described Portillo as "a fundamental author of Latin American music" and "one of Cuba’s most celebrated composers".

Cordelia Botkin

He reconciled with his wife before leaving for Cuba, where he helped save survivors of the Spanish battleships that were sunk at the Battle of Santiago de Cuba on 2 July 1898.

Cuban War of Independence

Hearst, when informed by Frederic Remington, whom he had hired to furnish illustrations for his newspaper, that conditions in Cuba were not bad enough to warrant hostilities, allegedly replied, “You furnish the pictures and I'll furnish the war”.

Cucurucho

Cucurucho is a local delicacy of the city of Baracoa in eastern Cuba.

Edén Pastora

After negotiating a USD $500,000 deal with Somoza and Cardinal Miguel Obando, Pastora, Ortega and other released prisoners left for Cuba, where he claimed to have been a "prisoner" lavished with women and luxury, but not allowed to leave the country until Martín Torrijos, the son of then Panamanian strongman Omar Torrijos and Pastora's personal friend, voiced his concern and went to Cuba to rescue him personally.

Eliane Lima

Lima’s short films have screened in the Liverpool Biennial (UK), SFMOMA (SF), Victoria Theater (SF), Anthology Film Archives (NY), Pacific Film Archive (SF), Brazil, Cuba, Canada, and elsewhere.

Energy security and renewable technology

Physicist Amory Lovins has said that following hundreds of blackouts in 2005, Cuba reorganized its electricity transmission system into networked microgrids and cut the occurrence of blackouts to zero within two years, limiting damage even after two hurricanes.

Erick Baker

He ended the year performing at the official Belk Bowl FanFest in Charlotte, North Carolina, along with McCain and the rock band Daughtry, as well as at a New Year's Eve show for the U.S. troops stationed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba.

Florida State Road 989

By the late 1960s, the State Road was realigned to Moody Drive to provide increased access to the base's two northern entrance gates as the increasing intensity of the Cold War and the rise to power of Fidel Castro in nearby Cuba amplified the importance of Homestead Air Force Base to the national security of the United States.

Franklin Martins

Martins lived in Cuba, Chile and France, where he graduated at the École de Sciences Sociales of the University of Paris.

Granma Province

The province takes its name from the yacht Granma, used by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro to land in Cuba with 82 guerrillas on December 2nd, 1956; until 1976 the area formed part of the larger "Oriente Province".

Hostosian National Independence Movement

The MINH also operates various "Puerto Rico Missions", of which the most important is located in Havana, Cuba.

Internet in Cuba

According to Boris Moreno Cordoves, Deputy Minister of Informatics and Communications, the Torricelli Act (part of the United States embargo against Cuba) identified the telecommunications sector as a tool for subversion of the 1959 Cuban Revolution, and the necessary technology has been conditioned by counter-revolutionaries, but is also seen as essential for Cuba’s economic development.

JMWAVE

Under Ted Shackley's leadership from 1962 to 1965, JMWAVE grew to be the largest CIA station in the world outside of the organization's headquarters in Langley, Virginia, with 300 to 400 professional operatives (possibly including about 100 based in Cuba) as well as an estimated 15,000 anti-Castro Cuban exiles on its payroll.

Jorge Giannoni

Shortly thereafter the University of Buenos Aires was pressured by the government of Isabel Perón to close the Institute, and he had to leave the country for Peru, and then Cuba, where he resided until his return to Argentina in 1983.

José Rodríguez Fuster

In 2007 his works were exhibited at The colours of life in The North Wall Gallery, Oxford, England and in 2008 at La Galleria, Pall Mall, London where he presented his ceramics and paintings in 'The colours of Cuba'.

Justin Merriman

Merriman has photographed and covered many national and international stories, including the events of September 11 and the crash of United Flight 93, the Sago mine disaster in Sago, West Virginia, polio in India, life in Cuba, the 2008 Parliamentary Elections in Pakistan, the war in Afghanistan and stories across the country.

Kelvis Ochoa

They rapidly met with success, with the hit record Havana Abierta on the Spanish label BMG Ariola, sold-out concerts in Spain in the 90s, a triumphant return to Cuba in 2003 for a memorable show at La Tropical and a documentary film directed by Jorge Perugorría and Arturo Soto.

Lajos Virág

Virag made his official debut at the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, where he placed second in the preliminary pool of the men's 96 kg class, against Cuba's Ernesto Peña and United States' Garrett Lowney.

Las Melli

las Melli are singers and composers Angélica and Annelis Suárez (born in Puerto Padre, Cuba, 18 December 1979).

Laughlin Air Force Base

The film from Major Heyser's mission was developed, analyzed and the photos were shown to the United Nations Security Council on October 22, 1962, proving to the world, that offensive missiles were on the island of Cuba.

Los Llanos de Aridane

In its vicinity are 11 stunning Indian laurels (Ficus microcarpa) which together with royal palm trees were brought from Cuba by migrants in the mid-nineteenth century to beautify the ride of your hometown.

Marcelino Miyares Sotolongo

Marcelino Miyares Sotolongo is a Cuban-American marketing executive and the current President of the Christian Democratic Party of Cuba, the largest political party in Cuba other than the Communist Party of Cuba.

Nelson Santovenia

Nelson Gil Santovenia Mayol (born July 27, 1961 in Pinar del Río, Cuba), is a former professional baseball player who played in the Major Leagues primarily as a catcher from 1987 to 1993.

Nicolás Ruiz Espadero

Cuba was then still a Spanish colony and in all matters of administration, economy and interior and exterior policy dependent on Madrid.

Rafael Manriquez

It was the time of socialist president Salvador Allende, and performances by foreign artists from like-minded movements such as Cuba’s Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés were commonplace at musical events supported by the Allende regime.

Sam Green

In this "live" documentary, Green narrates the 75-minute film while a live band performs the soundtrack; the film examines various topics, including an American exile in Cuba, the world's largest shopping mall (located in China), the treatment of mass graves, and the history of the man-made language Esperanto.

Serafín García Menocal

In 1956, under his leadership, the Scouts of Cuba bought the national training grounds Campo Escuela Nacional Mayabeque at Mayabeque, in the margins of the river of the same name, near Catalina de Güines in Havana Province within 50 km of the capital.

Sunchado cannons

The Americans also captured a number of sunchado howitzers in Cuba, including four at the Santa Clara Battery outside Havana.

The J Curve: A New Way to Understand Why Nations Rise and Fall

Bremmer's J Curve describes the relationship between a country's openness and its stability; focusing on the notion that while many countries are stable because they are open (the United States, France, Japan), others are stable because they are closed (North Korea, Cuba, Iraq under Saddam Hussein).

Thomas Whitcombe

During his career he also painted scenes showing the Cape of Good Hope, Madeira, Cuba and Cape Horn.

Valkiri

Development was completed in 1981, and it was fielded in 1987 and 1988 by the South African Defense Force (SADF) in southern Angola against Cuban supported People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA), specifically during operations Hooper and Moduler.

Wasta

Roughly equivalent words in other languages include Sociolismo in Cuba; Blat in Russia; Guanxi in Chinese and Vetternwirtschaft in German, protektzia in Israeli slang; in Brazilian-Portuguese it is called "Pistolão", or in the slang "peixada".

Webb Hayes

He fought in Santiago de Cuba Campaign, during which he was wounded during the crossing of the San Juan River and the assault on San Juan Hill, and later in the invasion of Puerto Rico.

William R. Royal

He moved to Manatee County, Florida during the Great Depression and operated a passenger airplane service in the Bahamas and Cuba in the late 1930s.

Yank tank

Yank tank or máquina are the words used to describe the many classic cars (for example: 1957 Chevrolet, 1953 Ford, 1958 Dodge, etc.) present in Cuba with an estimated 60,000 of them still driving the roads today.

Yoandy Garlobo

Garlobo was the designated hitter for Cuba at the tournament, where he had a .480 batting average—second only to Ken Griffey, Jr. among players with at least 20 plate appearances—and was named to the all-tournament team.