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Fidel Castro (Birth and Death (Birth (August 13, 1926), Death (November 25…

- - - - In 1960, Castro nationalized all U.S.-owned businesses, including oil refineries, factories and casinos. This prompted the United States to end diplomatic relations and impose a trade embargo that still stands today.
        
        On July 31, 2006, Castro transferred all his powers to Raul, his brother, on account of his failing health. However, with time, his health recovered and he took part in the important issues of the government.
      - After taking power, Castro abolished legal discrimination, brought electricity to the countryside, provided for full employment and advanced the causes of education and health care, in part by building new schools and medical facilities. But he also closed down opposition newspapers, jailed thousands of political opponents and made no move toward elections. Moreover, he limited the amount of land a person could own, abolished private business and presided over housing and consumer goods shortages. With political and economic options so limited, hundreds of thousands of Cubans, including vast numbers of professionals and technicians, left Cuba, often for the United States.
        
        From the 1960s to the 1980s, Castro supplied military and financial aid to various leftist guerilla movements in Latin America and Africa. Nonetheless, relations with many countries, with the notable exception of the United States, began to normalize. Cuba’s economy foundered when the Soviet Union collapsed in the early 1990s and the United States expanded sanctions even further. Yet Castro, who by this time had switched his title from prime minister to president, found new trading partners and was able to cling to power until 2006, when he temporarily gave control of the government to Raúl after undergoing emergency intestinal surgery. Two years later, in 2008, he permanently resigned.
        
        He was widely criticized for his reformative policies which led to the formation of anti-Castro groups. The group opposed the government, which was duly suppressed by Castro. Even journalists and writers who wrote against the government were forced to publish clarification at the end to every article that opposed the government, thus leading to press censorship.
        
        In 1965, Castro formed the Cuba Communist party. Serving as the head of the organization, he initiated a campaign which supported armed struggle against imperialism in Latin America and Africa.
        
        Cuba’s emergence as a socialist state meant abolishing the position of the President and the Prime Minister and adoption of a new constitution based on the lines of the Soviet Union.
        Castro was proffered with the position of the Presidency of both Council of State and Council of Ministers, which made him the head of state and head of government
  - - - In 2015, U.S. and Cuban officials announced they had agreed to terms on the normalization of relations between the two nations, with mutual embassies and diplomatic missions opening in each country.
  - - - Though he denied being a Communist and argued of having Marxist-type governance, much of his policies reflect the Soviet-style control of economy and the communist influence on the governance.
        
        Along with Cuban Presidency, Castro also remained the President of the Non-Aligned Movement until 1982. Under his rule, the literacy rate of Cuba increased to 98% as hundreds and thousands of new schools were opened. The infant mortality rate of the country also reduced dramatically to 1.1% under the Castro regime.
        Civil liberties, however, crumpled under his administration, as labor unions lost the right to strike. Independent newspapers were forced to shut down as were religious institutions.
        Anyone who stood at the opposite end of Castro was removed either through imprisonment or execution and sometimes forced emigration, which was prevalent in the 1980s when Castro opened the port of Mariel to allow Cubans who wished to move to the U. S.
- - - - In 1958, Batista tried to snuff out the uprising with a massive offensive, complete with air force bombers and naval offshore units. The guerrillas held their ground, launched a counterattack and wrested control from Batista on January 1, 1959. Castro arrived in Havana a week later and soon took over as prime minister. At the same time, revolutionary tribunals began trying and executing members of the old regime for alleged war crimes.
    - - According to Castro, the revolutionaries started reorganizing with only two rifles,. But by early 1957 they were already attracting recruits and winning small battles against Rural Guard patrols.
- - - - Academically, Castro was just an average student but he had a profound liking for sports and excelled in the same. He played for the school’s baseball team.
    - - University of Havana
        Belen Jesuit Preparatory School
- - - - Meanwhile, in April 1961, about 1,400 Cuban exiles trained and funded by the CIA landed near the Bay of Pigs with the intent of overthrowing Castro. Their plans ended in disaster, however, partially because a first wave of bombers missed their targets and a second air strike was called off. Ultimately, more than 100 exiles were killed and nearly everyone else was captured. In December 1962, Castro freed them in exchange for medical supplies and baby food worth about $52 million.