In 1940, Cuba implemented a new constitution, but mounting political unrest culminated in the 1952 Cuban coup d'état and the subsequent dictatorship of Batista. The Batista government was overthrown in January 1959 by the 26th of July Movement during the Cuban Revolution. That revolution established communist rule under the leadership of Fidel Castro. The country under Castro was a point of contention during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the United States, and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 is widely considered the closest the Cold War came to escalating into nuclear war.
The music of Cuba, including its instruments, performance, and dance, comprises a large set of unique traditions influenced mostly by west African and European (especially Spanish) music. Due to the syncretic nature of most of its genres, Cuban music is often considered one of the richest and most influential regional music in the world. For instance, the son cubano merges an adapted Spanish guitar (tres), melody, harmony, and lyrical traditions with Afro-Cuban percussion and rhythms. Almost nothing remains of the original native traditions, since the native population was exterminated in the 16th century.
Since the 19th century, Cuban music has been hugely popular and influential throughout the world. It has been perhaps the most popular form of regional music since the introduction of recording technology. Cuban music has contributed to the development of a wide variety of genres and musical styles around the globe, most notably in Latin America, the Caribbean, West Africa, and Europe. Examples include rhumba, Afro-Cuban jazz, salsa, soukous, many West African re-adaptations of Afro-Cuban music (Orchestra Baobab, Africando), Spanish fusion genres (notably with flamenco), and a wide variety of genres in Latin America. (Full article...)
Image 12Cuban victims of Spanish reconcentration policies (from History of Cuba)
Image 13Protests against the visit of soviet diplomat Anastas Mikoyan, dispersed by a policeman firing his gun. (February 5, 1960) (from History of Cuba)
Image 14Depiction of an engagement between Cuban rebels and Spanish Royalists during the Ten Years' War (1868–78) (from History of Cuba)
Image 16Rebel 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)
Image 17Public transportation in Cuba during the "Special Period" (from History of Cuba)
Image 18Mariel refugees on boat to Florida (1980). (from History of Cuba)
Image 19Capablanca playing chess with his father José María Capablanca in 1892 (from Culture of Cuba)
Image 27A 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 28Defense of a train attacked by Cuban insurgents (from History of Cuba)
Image 29Fidel Castro at the first congress of the Communist Party of Cuba. (from History of Cuba)
... that the 1919 foxtrot song "I'll See You in C-U-B-A" was an example of Cuba being perceived as "America's playground"?
... that José Ramón Balaguer fought as a soldier-medic for Fidel Castro's rebel army before becoming Cuba's minister of public health?
... 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"?
The Zapata rail (Mustelirallus cerverai, syn.: Cyanolimnas cerverai) is a medium-sized, dark-coloured rail. It has brown upperparts, greyish-blue underparts, a red-based yellow bill, white undertail coverts, and red eyes and legs. Its short wings render it almost flightless. It is endemic to the wetlands of the Zapata Peninsula in southern Cuba, where its only known nest was found in sawgrasstussocks. Little is known of its diet or reproductive behaviour, and its described calls may belong to a different species.
María Magdalena Campos-Pons (born July 22, 1959) is a Cuban-born artist based in Nashville, Tennessee. Campos-Pons works primarily in photography, performance, audiovisual media, and sculpture. She is considered a "key figure" among Cuban artists who found their voice in a post-revolutionary Cuba. Her art deals with themes of Cuban culture, gender and sexuality, multicultural identity (Cuban, Chinese, and Nigerian) as well as interracial family (Cuban-American), and religion/spirituality (in particular, Roman Catholicism and Santería). (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 the Carretera Central is an east-west highway spanning the length of the island of Cuba?
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