Fidel Castro waving to a cheering crowd upon his arrival in Havana on January 8, 1959, not long after dictator Fulgencio Batista fled the island.
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From 1956 through 1959, Fidel Castro, founder of the 26th of July Movement led a successful guerrilla style revolution against Fulgencio Batista’s government in Cuba. Castro was able to defeat Batista’s army of 30,000 soldiers with only a small force of 800 guerrillas by using propaganda, sporadic raids, labor strikes, destruction of property, kidnappings, and death threats for political candidates. The final battle of the revolution was led by Che Guevara on December 27th, 1958 in Santa Clara. Guevara’s troops captured the garrison and an armored train filled with arms and ammunition desperately needed by the government troops, due to a U.S. arms embargo imposed during the revolution. Batista resigned as President and fled Cuba on January 1, 1959.
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