In an invasion planned by the United States Central Intelligence Agency and approved by the Kennedy administration, US-backed Cuban anti-Castro forces landed at the Bay of Pigs but were overcome by Castro’s troops. More than 1100 men were captured in an embarrassing defeat. The prisoners were eventually ransomed back to the US in exchange for food and medicine.
President Kennedy learned of Soviet plans for missile installation in Cuba and announced a blockade on Cuba to prevent more missiles from entering the country. In the following days, Kennedy and Khrushchev exchanged messages under mutual threat of nuclear war. On October 28, Khrushchev agreed to halt missile work in Cuba, and Kennedy promised to withdraw missiles from Turkey. The agreement put an end to the crisis and averted an escalation to major nuclear conflict.
Enrique Dupuy de Lôme was the Spanish minister to the United States just prior to the Spanish-American War. In early 1898, Cuban insurgents leaked a letter from De Lôme in which the Spanish minister harshly criticized the character of President McKinley. De Lôme quickly resigned, but the letter, printed in the New York Journal, sparked anti-Spanish sentiment and contributed to the United States going to war with Spain.
Fulgencio Batista (1901–1973) ruled Cuba from 1934 to 1944 and from 1952 to 1958. After rising through the ranks of the army, Batista overthrew the Cuban government in 1933 with support from the United States. He installed an American-friendly government and ruled the country through a puppet government. He officially became president in 1940, and after his presidential term ended in 1944, Batista left Cuba and briefly lived in Florida. In 1952, he returned and deposed Cuban President Carlos Prio Socarras. Back in power, Batista ruled as a...
Fidel Castro (1926– ) led the Communist revolution in Cuba that overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959. In 1960, Castro made a trade agreement with the Soviet Union, which heightened Cold War tension. Eventually the United States severed economic and diplomatic ties with the island nation. Castro remained Cuba’s leader until 2008, when he turned over power to his brother Raúl Castro.
Up to our own day American history has been in a large degree the history of the colonization of the Great West....The frontier is the line of the most rapid and effective Americanization....The frontier promoted the formation of a composite nationality for the American people....The legislation which most developed the powers of the national government, and played the largest part in its activity, was conditioned on the frontier....The pioneer needed the goods of the coast, and so the...