Map showing the maximum range of Soviet missiles deployed in Cuba during the crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (Spanish: Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (Russian: Карибский кризис, romanized: Karibskiy krizis), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey were matched by Soviet deployments of nuclear missiles in Cuba. The crisis lasted from 16to28 October 1962. The confrontation is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into full-scale nuclear war.
In 1961, the US government put Jupiter nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey. It had trained a paramilitary force of Cuban exiles, which the CIA led in an attempt to invade Cuba and overthrow its government. Starting in November of that year, the US government engaged in a violent campaign of terrorism and sabotage in Cuba, referred to as the Cuban Project, which continued throughout the first half of the 1960s. The Soviet administration was concerned about a Cuban drift towards China, with which the Soviets had an increasingly fractious relationship. In response to these factors the Soviet and Cuban governments agreed, at a meeting between leaders Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro in July 1962, to place nuclear missiles on Cuba to deter a future invasion. Construction of launch facilities started shortly thereafter. (Full article...)
Image 7Banrarra Afro-Cuban dance troupe (from Culture of Cuba)
Image 8A 1736 colonial map by Herman Moll of the West Indies and Mexico, together comprising "New Spain", with Cuba visible in the center. (from History of Cuba)
Image 12Capablanca playing chess with his father José María Capablanca in 1892 (from Culture of Cuba)
Image 13Cuban victims of Spanish reconcentration policies (from History of Cuba)
Image 14Rebel leaders engaged in extensive propaganda to get the U.S. to intervene, as shown in this cartoon in an American magazine. Columbia (the American people) reaches out to help oppressed Cuba in 1897 while Uncle Sam (the U.S. government) is blind to the crisis and will not use its powerful guns to help. Judge magazine, 6 February 1897. (from History of Cuba)
... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?
... that José Ramón Balaguer fought as a soldier-medic for Fidel Castro's rebel army before becoming Cuba's minister of public health?
... that Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Melissa Fumero is the daughter of Cubans who fled to the U.S. as teenagers?
... that Rudi Kappel, co-founder of the first airline of Suriname, was arrested both on entering and leaving Santiago de Cuba?
Eusebia Cosme Almanza (5 March 1908 – 11 July 1976) was a Cuban poetry reciter and actress who gained widespread fame in the 1930s. Because of racial segregation, Cosme did not pursue an acting career in the traditional Cuban theater, instead focusing on the art of declamation, or poetry reading. She was the sole Cuban woman and one of the few black women to participate in African-themed declamation. Her performances went beyond reciting the poems, as she used gestures, facial expression and vocal rhythm to convey the emotion of the written word. Focusing on works that served as social commentary on race, gender, and the disparity of the position of blacks in both Latin America and the United States, Cosme was recognized as a master of her craft. Beginning her career in variety shows, she performed in Cuba until the late 1930s, before embarking on international tours.
In 1938, Cosme moved to the United States. She became a naturalized US citizen in the 1940s. She performed to sold-out houses at venues including Carnegie Hall, The Town Hall, and historically black universities. She performed with both Marian Anderson and Langston Hughes, and brought the works of African-American poets to Hispanic audiences via The Eusebia Cosme Show, which aired on CBS Radio from 1943 to 1945. She performed recitations in the United States through the late 1950s, worked as an abstract painter in the 1960s, and began acting in film and television in 1964. Cosme lived in Mexico City from 1966 to 1973, when she appeared in such films as The Pawnbroker and White Roses for My Black Sister. Her most noted role was as "Mamá Dolores", which she played repeatedly in her career. She first played this character, from Felix B. Caignet's radio drama El Derecho de nacer (The Right of Birth), in a 1955 stage performance in New York City. She repeated it in both the 1966 film and telenovela by the same name. In 1971 she filmed a spin-off, Mamá Dolores. Her performance in the 1966 film was recognized with the Premio Ónix as best actress. (Full article...)
...that soon after the Cuban Revolution of 1959, Fidel Castro pledged to underwrite the debts of the Havana Sugar Kings baseball team, by playing an exhibition contest between his own pickup squad Los Barbudos ("The Bearded Ones") and a military police team?
...that Organopónicos are urban Hydroponic units in Cuba that provide on the average 215 grams of organic vegetables per day to Cuban city dwellers?
...that Arsenio Rodríguez, a Cuban musician and top band leader who developed the son montuno in the 1920s, was blind for most of his life having been kicked by a horse as a child?
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