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Fidel Castro (born August 13, 1926) has been the ruler of Cuba since 1959.

Born in Biran, Holguin, Cuba, into a wealthy farming family, he was educated at Jesuit schools and then the Jesuit preparatory school Colegio Belen in Havana. Leaving school in 1945 he went to the University of Havana to study law, graduating in 1950.

He practiced law in a small partnership, 1950-52. Castro intended to stand for parliament in 1952 for the Ortodoxo Party but the coup d'etat of General Fulgencio Batista overthrew the government of Carlos Prio Socarras and canceled the election. Castro charged Batista with violating the constitution in court but his petition was refused. In response Castro organized a disastrous armed attack on the Moncada Barracks in Oriente province on July 26, 1953. Over eighty of the attackers were killed, and Castro was taken prisoner, tried, and sentenced to fifteen years in prison. (Castro used the closing arguments in the case to deliver "History Will Absolve Me", a passionate speech defending his actions and explaining his political views.) He was released in a general amnesty in May 1955 and went into exile in Mexico and the United States.

He returned to Cuba with a number of other exiles as the 26th of July Revolutionary Movement. Most of the eighty men were killed in their first action in Oriente province on December 2, 1956. Only twelve survived to retreat into the Sierra Maestra mountains and from there wage a guerrilla war against the Batista government. The survivors included Che Guevara, Raul Castro, and Camilo Cienfuegos. Castro's movement gained popular support and grew to over 800 men. On May 24, 1958, Batista launched seventeen battalions against Castro in Operación Veran. Despite being outnumbered, Castro's forces scored a series of stunning victories, aided by massive desertion and surrender amongst Batista's army. On New Year's Day 1959 Batista fled the country, and Castro's forces took Havana.

Initially the United States was quick to recognize the new government. Castro assumed the position of premier in February and friction soon occurred when the new government began expropriating property owned by American companies (United Fruit in particular), paying little compensation. In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. The United States broke diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon after.

The United States then sponsored an unsuccessful attack on Cuba. On April 17, 1961, a force of 1,300 Cuban exiles, financed and trained by the CIA, landed in the south at the Bay of Pigs. The CIA's assumption was that the invasion would spark a popular rising against Castro. There was no rising and what part of the invasion force made it ashore were all killed as President Kennedy withdrew support at the last minute.

In October, 1962, the Cuban missile crisis occurred. After the tensions were diffused, relations remained mutually hostile, and the CIA continued to sponsor a number of assassination schemes over the following years.

Fidel Castro Castro was born on Aug. 13, 1926 (some sources give 1927), on a farm in Mayari municipality in the province of Oriente. He attended good Catholic schools in Santiago de Cuba and Havana, where he took to the spartan regime at a Jesuit boarding school, Colegio de Belen. In 1945 he enrolled at the University of Havana, graduating in 1950 with a law degree. He married Mirta Diaz-Balart in 1948, but they were divorced in 1954. Their son, Fidel Castro Diaz-Balart, born in 1949, has served as head of Cuba's atomic energy commission. A member of the social-democratic Ortodoxo party in the late 1940s and early 1950s, Castro was an early and vocal opponent of the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista. On July 26, 1953, Castro led an attack on the Moncada army barracks that failed but brought him national prominence. At the time, his political ideas were nationalistic, antiimperialist, and reformist; he was not a member of the Communist party. Following the attack on Moncada, Castro was tried and sentenced to 15 years in prison but was amnestied in 1955. He then went into exile in Mexico, where he founded the 26th of July Movement, vowing to return to Cuba in order to fight against Batista. In December 1956, he and 81 others, including Che Guevara, returned to Cuba and made their way to the Sierra Maestra, from which they launched a successful guerrilla war. Castro proved himself a strong leader; he also demonstrated shrewd political skills, convinced that he had a historic duty to change the character of Cuban society. Seeing his army collapse, and unable to count on the support of the United States, Batista fled on Jan. 1, 1959, paving the way for Castro's rise to power. In its early phase, Castro's revolutionary regime included moderate politicians and democrats; gradually, however, its policies became radical and confrontational. Castro remained the unchallenged leader, and the masses--whose living conditions he improved--rallied behind him.