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Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 11 million inhabitants.

Cuba is a socialist state, in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian Government where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. It is a multiethnic country whose people, culture and customs derive from diverse origins, including the Taíno Ciboney peoples, the long period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of enslaved Africans and a close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. (Full article...)

Alberto Korda's photograph of Che Guevara

Guerrillero Heroico (English: "Heroic Guerrilla Fighter") is an iconic photograph of Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara taken by Alberto Korda. It was captured on March 5, 1960, in Havana, Cuba, at a memorial service for victims of the La Coubre explosion. By the end of the 1960s, the image, in conjunction with Guevara's subsequent actions and eventual execution, helped solidify the leader as a cultural icon. Korda has said that at the moment he shot the picture, he was drawn to Guevara's facial expression, which showed "absolute implacability" as well as anger and pain. Years later, Korda would say that the photograph showed Che's firm and stoic character. Guevara was 31 years old at the time the photograph was taken.

Emphasizing the image's ubiquitous nature and wide appeal, the Maryland Institute College of Art called the picture a symbol of the 20th century and the world's most famous photograph. Versions of it have been painted, printed, digitized, embroidered, tattooed, silk-screened, sculpted or sketched on nearly every surface imaginable, leading the Victoria and Albert Museum to say that the photograph has been reproduced more than any other image in photography. Jonathan Green, director of the UCR/California Museum of Photography, has speculated that

Korda's image has worked its way into languages around the world. It has become an alpha-numeric symbol, a hieroglyph, an instant symbol. It mysteriously reappears whenever there's a conflict. There isn’t anything else in history that serves in this way.

The history and contemporary global impact of the image is the basis for the 2008 documentary Chevolution, directed by Trisha Ziff, along with the 2009 book Che's Afterlife: The Legacy of an Image by Michael Casey. (Full article...)
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Konnan in 2011

Charles Rudy Ashenoff (born Carlos Santiago Espada Moises; January 6, 1964), better known by his ring name Konnan, is a Cuban-born American professional wrestling personality, manager, and former professional wrestler. He is currently signed to Lucha Libre AAA Worldwide (AAA). In Impact, he was the manager of The Latin American Xchange (LAX) and currently serves as a member of the creative team. During a career spanning almost three decades, he has wrestled for independent and national promotions in the United States and Mexico, and held fifteen title belts in nine promotions. He was also involved in the creation of Lucha Underground, where he was supposed to serve as a writer and producer, but ended up in an on-camera role as manager to Prince Puma throughout the first season. Outside of wrestling, Konnan is an occasional rapper.

He is best known to United States audiences for his run in World Championship Wrestling as part of the nWo stable and as part of The Filthy Animals. He also formed

the 3 Live Kru for Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA) in the early 2000s and later the Latin American Xchange (LAX) stable there. In Mexico, Konnan was the first-ever CMLL World Heavyweight Champion, and the leader of the Foreign Legion in AAA when they were the top stable. (Full article...)

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Nicolás Cristóbal Guillén Batista (10 July 1902 – 16 July 1989) was a Cuban poet, journalist and political activist. He is best remembered as the national poet of Cuba.

Born in Camagüey, Cuba, he studied law at the University of Havana, but abandoned a legal career and worked as both a typographer and journalist. His poetry was published in various magazines from the early 1920s; his first collection, Motivos de son (1930) was strongly influenced by his meeting that year with the African-American poet, Langston Hughes. He drew from son music in his poetry. West Indies, Ltd., published in 1934, was Guillén's first collection with political implications. Cuba's dictatorial Gerardo Machado regime was overthrown in 1933, but political repression intensified. After being jailed in 1936, Guillén joined the Communist Party the next year, traveling to Spain for a Congress of Writers and Artists, and covering the Spanish Civil War as a magazine reporter. (Full article...)
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A street in Trinidad, Cuba, part of the UNESCO World Heritage.
A street in Trinidad, Cuba, part of the UNESCO World Heritage.
Credit: Elemaki
View of a street in Trinidad, Cuba, part of the UNESCO World Heritage.

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that there was, on average, one aircraft hijacking incident every eleven days in 1969 involving flights from United States being forcibly redirected to Cuba?
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Cuban priest Félix Varela championing Cuba’s independence from Spain.

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