| Early History | The Colonial Era | Before The Revolution | After The Revolution |
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1929 |
October. The
Wall Street crash drags Cuba into its worse economic crisis. From 1928 to
1932, the price of sugar drops from 2.18 cents per pound to an all-time low
of 0.57 cents. The sugar crop value totals $225,100,000. By the end of the year, tobacco exports represent a total value of $43,067,000. |
1930 |
January. The
government announces a general reduction in the salaries of all public
employees (except soldiers), and a new law forbids all public demonstrations
by political parties or groups not legally registered. March. Throughout the island, masses protest the government's delay in paying salaries of teachers and agricultural workers. May 19. In Artemisa (near Havana) a meeting of Nationalists is interrupted by a group of soldiers. Eight people are killed and several dozen injured. The tragedy creates a national commotion and many national leaders are arrested. May 28. Railroad workers declare a general strike. The army takes over the running of the trains, and several labor leaders are arrested. September 30. Tipped by José Soler of a planned demonstration by the Student Directory, police block the streets around the University of Havana and confront the students. After several arrests, two students and one policeman are injured. October 1. The government suspends constitutional guarantees, charging that the students were "following orders from Moscow." Machado warns that he will act "without weakness or hesitation." November 11. In Pinar del Río, Santiago de Cuba, Santa Clara and several other cities, students lead violent demonstrations against the government. By the end of November all schools are closed in Cuba, and Diario de la Marina, the oldest newspaper on the island, is forced to suspend publication. |
1931 |
January 4. The
entire membership of the Student Directory is arrested. They remain in
prison until March. June 21. Congress authorizes the suspension of constitutional guarantees. July 9. Captain Calvo, chief of the government's repressive corps, is shot from a passing car and killed. After this event, terrorism and brutality become frequently used weapons by the government and the opposition. August 10. Mendieta and Menocal attempt an uprising in the interior of the island, supposedly co-ordinated with members of Machado's army. August 14. Mendieta and Menocal are easily captured in Río Verde, Pinar del Río. |
1933 |
As the year
begins, Machado is deeply entrenched in power, using official brutality in
an attempt to crush the opposition. March. In Miami, a revolutionary junta is created including representatives from the principal opposition to Machado. July 25. Bus drivers declare a general strike. July 26. The government approves a law that gives a general amnesty to all prisoners. August 1. Streetcar workers join the strike. August 4. The strike of bus drivers grows into a general strike that nearly paralyzes Havana. To break the strike, Machado reaches a compromise with Communist leaders, but before any action can be taken, the announcement of his resignation by a radio station sends jubilant crowds to the streets. As the crowds march towards the presidential palace they are met by police and about 20 people are killed, others injured. August 9. The strike spreads throughout the island. August 12. After an anti-Machado conspiracy in the army is forced into the open, a group of officers take possession of some military barracks and proclaim a rebellion against the government. Machado visits the Columbia Military Barracks to assess the situation, and a group of officers that includes Julio Sanguily and Erasmo Delgado inform him that to save Cuba from intervention he should resign. Machado resigns the presidency, and flies to Nassau in the Bahamas. Carlos M. Céspedes, the son of Cuba's legendary leader, takes over as provisional president. September 5. In an uprising known as the "Revolt of the Sergeants," Fulgencio Batista takes over control of the island. Céspedes and his cabinet abandon the Presidential palace the next day. September 10. From the balcony of the Presidential Palace, Ramón Grau San Martín takes the oath of office in front of large crowds. This government lasts 100 days, but engineers radical changes in Cuban society. It nullifies the Platt Amendment (except for the Guantánamo naval base lease) sets up an 8-hour working day, establishes a Department of Labor, opens the university to the poor, grants peasants the right to the land they were farming, gives women the right to vote, and reduces electricity rates by 40 percent. The new government includes Antonio Guiteras as Vice President. He is credited with keeping this government together for the time it lasts. U.S. Ambassador Sumner Welles refers to these changes as "communistic" and "irresponsible," and the U.S. government never recognizes the Grau-Guiteras government. September 20. Decree No. 1693 establishes an eight-hour day for workers, and Decree No. 1703 requires that all professionals (lawyers, physicians, architects, etc.) become members their respective professional organizations in order to continue practicing. September 22. The Student Left Wing (formed by students who have moved away from the Student Directory) begins to protest the removal of certain professors from Havana schools. September 29. The police uses weapons to disperse a demonstration organized by the Communist party to honor Julio Antonio Mella, whose ashes were just brought back from Mexico. October 2. The Department of Labor is created. October 2. The Army attacks the National Hotel. 14 officers are killed in the battle, 17 wounded and the rest taken prisoner. By noon, the rebels capture several police stations in Havana, and two planes attack the presidential palace. Rumors of the insurrection are spreading throughout the city. Batista later orders the Army to fight on the side of the government. December. A new law called "El Derecho de Tanteo" (The right of estimate) is passed, giving the government the right to be considered a potential buyer in any sugar transaction. This law is meant to eliminate the way American and Cuban companies avoid paying taxes by seling their sugar mills or land at very low prices to another company, often a subsidiary. December 8. Guiteras announces that any one caught stealing or damaging government property is to be shot on the spot. December 22. A huge pro-government demonstration gathers in front of the Presidential Palace to thank the government for its nationalistic stance. In 1933 Batista meets with mobster Meyer Lansky, and they forge a friendship and business relationship that lasts three decades. |
1934 |
January 2. A
new decree provides free registration at the University for low income
students. January 20. The U.S. government recognizes the Batista-installed government government with Carlos Mendieta as President. May 29. Cuba and the U.S. sign the "Treaty on Relations," which eliminates the Platt Amendment and the Permanent Treaty of 1903, but allows the U.S. to continue using Guantánamo Bay. Cuban women win the right to vote. |
1936 |
Civil war
breaks out in Spain. About one thousand Cubans fight with the International
Brigades to defend Spanish democracy.
Colonel Batista becomes General Batista. |
1939 |
Cuban-owned sugar mills account for 22% of the island's total sugar production. |
1940 |
The
Constitution of 1940 is established by a national assembly that
includes Blas Roca, a young shoemaker who helped organize the Revolution of
1933. The document strikes a balance between the rich and the working class,
it protects individual and social rights, supports full employment and a
minimum wage, extends social security, calls for equal pay for equal work
and outlaws the huge plantations known as latifundias. General Batista is elected Cuba's fourteenth president. |
1943 |
Batista legalizes Cuba's Communist Party (established in 1925). |
1944 |
Fidel Castro,
a student about to enter a Jesuit high school in Havana, is proclaimed the
best high school athlete in Cuba for the year 1943-44. Ramón Grau San Martín is elected president. |
1945 |
October. Fidel
Castro enters the University of Havana. October 24. Cuba joins the United Nations. |
1946 |
Famed mobster Lucky Luciano calls a summit in Havana. Attendees at the Hotel Nacional meeting include: Meyer Lansky, Frank Costello, Tommy Lucchese, Vito Genovese, Joe Bonanno, Santo Trafficante Jr. and Moe Dalitz. Among the topics discussed is the assasination of Bugsy Siegel. Coincidentally, Frank Sinatra makes his singing debut in Havana. |
1947 |
May 15. The Cuban People's Party (Partido Del Pueblo Cubano) is formed. It becomes known as the Orthodox Party (Partido Ortodoxo). |
1948 |
June 1. Carlos Prío Socarrás is elected president. October 10. Carlos Prío succeeds Grau San Martín as president of Cuba. Fulgencio Batista is elected in Las Villas to the Cuban Senate. |
1951 |
December. The popular weekly magazine, "Bohemia," holds a public opinion poll that shows Batista (who's running for president) as a distant third. |
1952 |
Fidel Castro,
two years out of law school, runs for Congress as a candidate of the
Orthodox Party. March 10. Fulgencio Batista takes over in a coup de etat. Elections, three months away, are canceled. March 27. Washington recognizes Batista's government. |
1953 |
July 26. Fidel Castro leads a revolt in which 100 men and women attack the Moncada army barracks near Santiago de Cuba. The attack is a failure and Castro is arrested. Most of his men are tortured and killed. October 16. At his defense trial, Castro delivers a historic statement that ends with the phrase "history will absolve me" (la historia me absolverá). He is sentenced to 15 years in prison. |
1954 |
May. A Cuba-wide campaign seeking amnesty for Castro and the Mocada prisoners is organized. |
1955 |
May 15. Fidel
Castro and the revolutionaries are released from prison in a general
amnesty. June 24. Fidel Castro leaves for Mexico. |
1956 |
June 24 - July
3. In Mexico City, 28 Cuban revolutionaries and supporters are arrested.
Castro is not released until July 24, and Che Guevara is released a week
later.
November 25. On a 60-foot yacht named "Granma," 81 men, lead by Fidel Castro, set sail for Cuba. November 30. In Santiago de Cuba, 300 young men led by Frank País, wearing olive green uniforms and red and black armbands with the July 26 emblem attack police headquarters, the Customs House and the harbour headquarters. December 2. Delayed by weather and logistical problems, icluding poor communications between the expeditionaries and the Cuban underground, the Granma lands in Las Coloradas, Oriente province. December 5. The rebels are surprised by Batista's troops while resting on the edge of a cane field at Alegría de Pío, not far from the Sierra Maestra. The majority of the revolutionaries are killed or captured, but few escape to the Sierra Maestra, including the Castro brothers Fidel and Raúl, Che Guevara, Juan Almeida, Calixto García and a handful of others. December 18. Twelve survivors of the "Granma" expedition regroup at Purial (in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra mountains) and organize the first guerilla unit. |
1957 |
January. Cuban
Defense Minister Santiago Rey visits Washington as an official guest of the
U.S. government. January 2. In Santiago, four youths are found dead in an empty building, including 14-year old William Soler. They had been arrested as suspects in revolutionary activities and tortured. January 4. A procession of five-hundred women dressed in black, headed by William Soler's mother, moves slowly through the streets of Santiago. They carry a banner: "Stop the murders of our sons." January 17. The war opens with a successful rebel attack on a small army garrison at the mouth of the La Plata River. The Rebel Army has 23 usable weapons. January 21. Lt. Angel Sánches Mosquera leads a company of elite Batista troops into the Sierra Maestra mountains to search for the rebels. A larger unit, lead by Major Joaquín Casillas, follows. March 11. In Santiago, Frank País is arrested for his participation in the November 30 uprising. March 13. Student leader José Echeverría and a small group take over a radio station in Havana. He is killed while retreating to the university. In a simultaneous attack on the presidential palace, 35 rebels and 5 palace guards are killed. March 30. The new Shell oil refinery is inaugurated by Batista, who tells the press that there are no guerrillas in the Sierra Maestra mountains. April 6. The Havana Hilton opens with a party attended by half of Batista's cabinet. April 23. In the Sierra Maestra, Castro is interviewed on film by U.S. journalist Robert Taber. The film is shown by CBS-TV in May. May 14. Arthur Gardner, U.S. Ambassador to Cuba and a close friend of Batista, is removed from office. He is replaced a month later by Earl Smith. May 18. A shipment of over two dozen automatic weapons and 6,000 rounds of ammunition (sent by the July 26 Movement in Santiago) reach the rebels in the Sierra Maestra. May 26. In Matanzas, a bomb seriously damages the old Tinguaro mill. May 28. The first major battle of the war is a rebel attack on the El Uvero garrison in a small town south of the Sierra Maestra range. "For us," writes Guevara, "it was a victory that meant that our guerrillas had reached full maturity. From this moment on, our morale increased enormously, our determination and hope for victory also increased, and though the months that followed were a hard test, we now had the key to the secret of how to beat the enemy." June 4. United Press International (UPI) reports that 800 U.S.-trained and equipped Cuban troops will be sent to fight against the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra. July 12. After days of discussion in the mountains, the Manifesto of the Sierra Maestra is issued, signed by Fidel Castro, Raúl Chibás and Felipe Pazos. Most of it is written by Castro, and calls for all Cubans to form a civic revolutionary front to "end the regime of force, the violation of individual rights, and the crimes of the police." August 20. At Palma Mocha, in the Las Cuevas region, the Rebel Army, lead by Fidel Castro, is victorious over Batista's army. September 5. Members of the July-26-Movement in Cienfuegos attack the naval police headquarters and the garrison of the Rural Guards. October. Ex-president of the Cuban Medical Association, Dr. Augusto Fernandez Conde, denouces the atrocities of the Batista regime at the World Medical Association meeting in Istanbul,Turkey. November. The Miami Pact is signed by officials from the Authentic Party, Orthodox Party, Revolutionary Directorate, and others. The Pact creates the Cuban Liberation Junta, controlled by bourgeois opposition forces and it does not oppose U.S. intervention. November 4. El Cubano Libre, (The Free Cuban) the newspaper of the Rebel Army, is published by Guevara in the Sierra Maestra. November 29. Rebel captain Ciro Redondo is killed in battle at Mar Verde. He is posthumously promoted to commander. December 6. Led by Lt. Lalo Sardiñas, rebel troops clash with Batista's army at El Salto. A weekly news magazine, Revista Carteles, reports that twenty members of the Batista government own numbered Swiss bank accounts, each with deposits of more than $1 million. American firms make profits of $77 million from their Cuban investments, while employing little more than 1 percent of the country's population. |
| By the late
1950’s, American capital control: 90% of Cuba’s mines 80% of its public utilities 50% of its railways 40% of its sugar production 25% of its bank deposits |
|
1958 |
Early in the
year Batista receives $1,000,000 in military aid from the
U.S. All of Batista's arms, planes tanks, ships, and military supplies come
from the U.S., and his army is trained by a joint mission of the three
branches of the U.S. armed forces.
February 24. On the 63rd anniversary of the beginning of Martí's War of Independence, Radio Rebelde begins transmission from "the free territory of Cuba." March 1. Raúl Castro and Juan Almeida leave the Sierra Maestra with a column of sixty-seven men to open a second front in the mountains north of Santiago-the Sierra Cristal. In March, forty-five civic institutions sign an open letter supporting the July-26-Movement, including the national organizations of lawyers, architects, public accountants, dentists, electrical engineers, social workers, professors, and veterinarians. April 9. A national strikes fails due to timing errors and lack of popular support. This is a serious setback for the rebels. May. Batista launches a vast offensive against the guerillas in the Sierra Maestra mountains. May 25. In the Sierra Maestra mountains, the Rebel Army holds the first peasant assembly attended by 350. Among the topics discussed is a plan for agrarian reform. June 29. In Santo Domingo, on the Sierra Maestra mountains, the rebels achieve a serious victory with many captured prisoners and supplies. (Prisoners are later released.) July 11-21. The Battle of Jigüe lasts about ten days and marks a turning point in the war. July 20. From the Sierra Maestra, Radio Rebelde broadcasts the text of the Caracas Pact, signed by Castro and others. It calls for armed insurrection to establish a provisional government and an end for U.S. support of Batista. September 4. In the Sierra Maestra, the Mariana Grajales Platoon, consisting of women fighters, is formed. September 18. The Rebel Army defeats Batista's forces at Yara. September 27-28. The Mariana Grajales Platoon participates in the battle to destroy Batista's military garrison in Cerro Pelado, Oriente. October 9. The Rebel Army creates a new front to operate in the Oriente province. This Fourth Front is commanded by Delio Gómez Ochoa. October 10. Law no. 3 of the Sierra Maestra is issued by the Rebel Army. It states that tenant farmers and sharecroppers are entitled to the land they work. October 26-27. The Rebel Army captures the army garrison at Güinía de Miranda. October 31. U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his wife dine with the Cuban Ambassador at the Cuban Embassy in Washington to commemorate Teddy Roosevelt (who refused to allow the Cuban liberating army from entering Santiago in 1898). November 2. The Rebel Army captures the army garrison at Alto Songo in Oriente province. November 3. In a mock general election, Batista's presidential candidate, Andrés Rivero Agüero, is declared the winner. December 9. The Rebel Army takes Baire and San Luis, in Oriente province. December 10. Hotel Riviera opens in Havana. (It costs $14 million, most of it supplied by the Cuban government for Meyer Lansky.) The floor show in the Copa Room is headlined by Ginger Rogers. Lansky complains that Rogers "can wiggle her ass, but she can't sing a goddam note." December 15-18. Che Guevara's column captures the city of Fomento. December 19. The Rebel Army achieves victories at Jiguaní, Caimanera and Mayajigua (in Northern Las Villas). December 22-25. The rebels capture the towns of Guayos, Cabaiguán, Placetas, Manicaragua, Cumanayagua, Camarones, Cruces, Lajas, Sagua de Tánamo, Puerto Padre and Sancti Spíritus. December 27-28. The rebels capture Caibarién, Remedios and Palma Soriano. December 29. Che Guevara takes the city of Santa Clara and captures over 1,000 prisoners. |