Timeline Cuba
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The
patron
saint is Our Lady of Charity, Nuestra
Senora de la Caridad del Cobre. The patron is also recognized as Ochun,
the Yoruba goddess of rivers, love, money, joy and abundance in the
Santeria
religion.
(WSJ, 10/14/95, p.A-1)(SFEC, 1/25/98, p.A19)
1492
Oct 28, Christopher Columbus discovered Cuba and
claimed it for Spain.
(http://tinyurl.com/dfzzk)
1492 Nov 5, Christopher Columbus
learned of maize (corn) from the Indians of Cuba.
(MC, 11/5/01)
1493 Columbus landed a small herd
of swine on the island of Cuba.
(ON, 4/01, p.4)
1494 Apr 30, Christopher Columbus
arrived at Cuba on his 2nd voyage to the Americas.
(http://www1.minn.net/~keithp/v2.htm)
1508 Sebastian de Ocampo, Spanish
navigator, explored Cuba.
(TL-MB, p.9)
1511 Diego de Velazquez, Spanish
commander, occupied Cuba.
(TL-MB, p.10)
1514 Spanish soldiers conquered
the natives of Cuba.
(TL-MB, p.10)
1515 Jul 26, Santiago, Cuba, was
founded.
(SFC, 7/22/00, p.A17)
1515 Spanish conquistadores
founded Havana, Cuba.
(TL-MB, p.11)
1523 Sugar was grown in Cuba for
the first time.
(TL-MB, p.12)
1539 May 28, Hernando de Soto
sailed from Cuba to Florida with 13 pigs to help sustain his 700 men on
his gold-hunting expedition.
(ON, 4/01, p.4)(MC, 5/28/02)
c1650 Andres Manso de Contreras
built a vast fortune by intercepting Caribbean pirates in the mid-17th
century. In 1704 and 1776 his heirs sailed to London and allegedly
deposited the equivalent of some $60 million in gold at a London bank
at 5% interest.
(WSJ, 4/20/01, p.A1)
1673 Cuba began a program of
scientific research.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.A14)
1741 British troops briefly
occupied Guantanamo Bay while warning against Spanish trade interests.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1749 Brook Watson (14) lost half a
leg to a shark in Havana Harbor. In 1778 John Singleton Copley painted
"Watson and the Shark" based on the incident. Watson went on to become
the Lord Mayor of London.
(WSJ, 4/9/99, p.W16)
1762 Aug 12, The British captured
Cuba from Spain after a two month siege.
(HN, 8/12/98)
1780 Oct 10, A Great Hurricane
killed 20,000 to 30,000 in Caribbean.
(MC, 10/10/01)
1795 A set of remains that the
Spaniards believed to be of Christopher Columbus were dug up from
behind the main altar in the newly built cathedral of Santo Domingo and
shipped to a cathedral in Havana, where they remained until the
Spanish-American War broke out in 1898, when Spain brought them to
Seville. In 1877 workers digging inside the Santo Domingo cathedral
unearthed a leaden box containing 13 large bone fragments and 28 small
ones. It was inscribed "Illustrious and distinguished male, don
Cristobal Colon." The Dominicans said these were the real remains of
Columbus and that the Spaniards must have taken the wrong remains.
(SFC, 1/18/05, p.A8)
1796 Cuba exported Havana cigars
to Britain.
(WSJ, 1/11/99, p.R49)
1800-1900 Felix Varela was a 19th century Catholic
priest and Cuban independence activist.
(WSJ, 5/13/02, p.A1)
1833 Dec 3, Carlos Juan Finlay,
Cuban epidemiologist, was born.
(HN, 12/3/00)
1839 Slaves on the ship Amistad
were sold in Havana and continued sailing along the north coast when
they rebelled.
(WSJ, 12/16/97, p.A18)
1840s A New York merchant brought
the first red bananas to the US from Cuba.
(SFC, 5/27/00, p.B3)
1840s The Duchess of Bedford,
Anna, introduced on Cuba the first English afternoon snack break, the
afternoon tea.
(SFC, 5/27/00, p.B3)
1853 Jan 28, Cuban revolutionary
Jose Marti was born in Havana.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1857 Feb 16, Elisha Kent Kane
(b.1820), US Navy surgeon and Arctic explorer, died of a stroke in Cuba.
(ON, 6/09, p.5)
1859 Pres. Buchanan ordered a
blockade of Cuba to intercept American-owned slave ships.
(SSFC, 2/8/04, p.C12)
1860s The last African slave ship
landed in Cuba in the late 1860s.
(WSJ, 12/1/97, p.A20)
1862 Facundo Bacardi Masso founded
a rum business in Cuba.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.E3)
1868 Oct 10, Cuba revolted for
independence against Spain. This was the first day of open rebellion
for liberty, which was led by the man who is now known as the "Father
of Cuba," Carlos Manuel de Cespedes.
(http://tinyurl.com/ycthzj)
1873 Baseball was banned in Cuba
under Spanish rule, but was never completely quelled and came back
strong after the Spanish-American War.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.B5)
1873 The Matusalem company was
founded in Santiago, Cuba, to produce aged dark rum.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.34)
1878 Feb 10, Cuba’s 10 year war
with Spain ended with the signing of the pact of Zanjon. The
nationalist uprising failed.
(WSJ, 9/12/08,
p.W6)(www.cubagen.org/mil/war-hist.htm)
1886 Oct 7, Spain abolished
slavery in Cuba.
(SFC, 4/12/01, p.C4)(MC, 10/7/01)
1889 In Cuba Friar Jose Olallo
Valdes (b.1829), a member of the Hospitaller Order of St. John of God,
died. He earned the nickname, "father of the poor,” by caring for the
needy and chronically ill. In 2008 he was beatified in the first
ceremony of its kind on Cuban soil.
(AP, 11/30/08)
1890 Jan 22, Jose Marti formed La
Liga (Union of Cuban exiles) in NYC.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1895 Jan 31, Jose Marti and others
left NYC for invasion of Spanish Cuba.
(MC, 1/31/02)
1895 Feb 24, The Cuban War of
Independence began. [see Oct 10, 1868]
(HN, 2/24/98)
1895 Winston Churchill was
garrisoned in Havana, Cuba, and began smoking cigars at age 22. On
leave for several months from his unit, the 4th Hussars, he reported on
the events for the Daily Graphic.
(SFEM, 12/15/96, p.15)(HNQ, 1/25/01)
1896 Aug 7, Ernesto Lecuona,
composer (Malaguena), was born in Havana, Cuba.
(MC, 8/7/02)
1898 Feb 15, The battleship USS
Maine exploded and sank in Havana harbor. The explosion killed 266 of
her crew. It had been sent there to menace Imperial Spain and its
sinking helped to precipitate the Spanish-American War. The explosion-
never satisfactorily explained- brought the United States closer to war
with Spain over the issue of Cuban independence.
(Civilization, July-Aug, 1995, p.14)(NH, 4/97,
p.38)(HT, 5/97, p.64)(HN, 2/15/98)(AP, 2/15/98)
1898 Apr 11, American President
McKinley asked Congress to authorize military intervention in Cuba. The
war was fomented by New York newspapers in their own battle for
circulation.
(AP, 4/11/07)(WSJ, 5/19/98, p.A20)
1898 Apr 19, US Congress passed a
resolution recognizing Cuban independence and demanding that Spain
relinquish authority over Cuba. President McKinley was authorized to
use military force to put the resolution into effect.
(AP, 4/19/97)
1898 Apr 20, President
McKinley signed a congressional resolution recognizing Cuban
independence from Spain. He signed the Joint Resolution for War with
Spain that authorized U.S. military intervention to Cuban independence.
(AP, 4/20/97)(SFC, 1/19/02, p.A19)
1898 Apr 21, The Spanish-American
War began. The US North Atlantic Fleet, under the command of Rear
Admiral William T. Sampson, was ordered to begin the blockade of Cuba.
The fleet with the armored cruiser New York steamed out of Key West,
Fla., at 6:30 a.m. the next morning. The fleet had hardly left port
when it pursued and captured a Spanish merchant vessel, Buenaventura.
The Spanish-American War had begun. In 1998 David Traxel published
“1898: The Birth of the American Century,” a history of the
Spanish-American War.
http://lcweb.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/subjects.html
(HN, 4/21/98)(SFEC, 7/5/98, BR p.6)(HNPD, 4/25/99)
1898 Apr 22, With the United
States and Spain on the verge of formally declaring war, the U.S. Navy
began blockading Cuban ports under orders from President McKinley. In
the first Spanish-American War action the USS Nashville captured a
Spanish merchant ship, the Buenaventura, off Key West, Fla. Also,
Congress authorized creation of the First U.S. Volunteer Cavalry,
popularly known as the "Rough Riders." In 1998 the book “Empire by
Default” by Ivan Musicant retold the story of the was in detail.
(AP, 4/22/97)(WSJ, 2/23/98, p.A20)(AP, 4/22/98)(HN,
4/22/98)(MC, 4/22/02)
1898 Apr 25, The United States
formally declared war on Spain. The US House passed the declaration 311
to 6.
(AP, 4/25/97)(HN, 4/25/98)(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.A1)
1898 Jun 10, During the
Spanish-American War, U.S. Marines landed in Cuba and camped at
Guantanamo Bay where 2 Marines became the 1st war casualties.
(HN, 6/10/98)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1898 Jun 15, US marines attacked
the Spanish off Guantanamo, Cuba.
(MC, 6/15/02)
1898 Jun 22, US forces, 6000
soldiers under Lawton, Bates, Rafferty and Wheeler and under the
general command of General Shafter, landed at Daiquiri, Cuba. Col.
Leonard Wood and Lt. Col. Theodore Roosevelt led the Rough Riders, a
volunteer cavalry regiment, onto the beach at Daiquiri in the Spanish
American War.
(www.loc.gov/rr/hispanic/1898/chroncuba.html)(http://tinyurl.com/ckvj3)
1898 Jun 24, American troops drove
Spanish forces from La Guasimas, Cuba.
(MC, 6/24/02)
1898 Jul 1, American troops took
San Juan Hill and El Caney, Cuba, from the Spaniards. During the
Spanish-American War, Theodore Roosevelt and his "Rough Riders" waged a
victorious assault on San Juan Hill in SE Cuba. Lieutenant Colonel
Theodore Roosevelt was unsatisfied with the lack of clear orders and
decided to lead a charge up San Juan Hill himself. At first, Regular
troops were resistant to following a volunteer officer, but Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt and his eager Rough Riders managed to
rally enough troops and convince enough officers to charge. By
nightfall, the Spaniards had retreated and the heights overlooking
Santiago were in American hands. The black Buffalo Soldiers captured
San Juan Hill. As the Rough Riders shipped off to war the band played:
“There’ll Be A Hot Time in the Old Town Tonight.”
(WUD, 1994, p.1267)(AP, 7/1/97)(SFEC, 4/5/98,
p.C14)(HNPD, 7/1/99)
1898 Jul 1, Major Gen. Joseph
Wheeler (63) led a cavalry division in the Battle of San Juan Hill.
(HNQ, 2/13/02)
1898 July 3, The Spanish cruisers
Cristóbal Colón, Almirante Oquendo, Vizcaya and Infanta
Maria Teresa, and two torpedo-boat destroyers, lay bottled up in
Santiago Harbor, with seven American ships maintaining a blockade just
outside. Without warning, the Spanish squadron attempted to break out,
and the Americans attacked, sinking one torpedo boat and immediately
running the other aground. The Americans gave chase to Oquendo, Vizcaya
and Colón. Henry Reuterdahl's painting shows the American
battleships Texas and Oregon, and the Spanish cruisers Maria Teresa,
Colón and Oquendo. After a four-hour battle, all the Spanish
warships were overtaken and practically all were destroyed, with only
two American causalities, both from the U.S. armored cruiser Brooklyn.
(AP, 7/3/98)(HNPD, 7/3/98)
1898 Jul 17, U.S. troops under
General William R. Shafter took Santiago de Cuba during the
Spanish-American War. Spain surrendered to the United States at
Santiago, Cuba.
(AP, 7/17/97)(HN, 7/17/98)
1898 Aug 12, The peace protocol
ending the Spanish-American War was signed after three months and 22
days of hostilities. 460 US soldiers died in battle. The US paid Spain
$20 million to vacate Cuba, Guam, Puerto Rico and the Philippines. Over
the next 3 years US casualties in the Philippines war totaled over
4,000. [see Dec 10]
(AP, 8/12/97)(WSJ, 2/23/98, p.A20)(HN,
8/12/00)(SSFC, 3/30/03, p.D1)(WSJ, 7/2/03, p.B1)
1898 Dec 10, The United States and
Spain signed a treaty in Paris ending the Spanish-American War in the
Caribbean and the Pacific.
(AP, 12/10/97)(HN, 12/10/98)
1898 The 1998 novel “Cuba Libre”
by Elmore Leonard was set in this time and place.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, BR p.3)
c1898 Valeriano Weyler y Nicolau
was the governor of the Spanish colony of Cuba. He was the inventor of
the concentration camp.
(SFEC, 8/16/98, BR p.8)
1900 Jun 26, A commission that
included Dr. Walter Reed began the fight against the deadly disease
yellow fever. Walter Reed (1851-1902), U.S. Army doctor, went to Cuba
and verified that yellow fever was caused by a mosquito. [see May 1901]
(HN, 9/13/98)(WSJ, 10/22/99, p.B1)(AP, 6/26/97)
1900-1902 US Colonel Leonard Wood served as governor
of Cuba. He cleaned up unsanitary conditions and supported medical
investigations that tied yellow fever and malaria to mosquitoes.
(WSJ, 12/7/05, p.D12)
1901 Jan 16, Fulgencio Batista
(d.1973), later president and dictator of Cuba (1933-44, 1952-59), was
born. He was overthrown by Fidel Castro and died in Spain.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista)
1901 Mar 2, Congress passed the
Platt amendment, which limited Cuban autonomy as a condition for
withdrawal of U.S. troops.
(HN, 3/2/99)
1901 May 1901, Walter Reed (49)
led the Yellow Fever Commission, a 4-man team, to Cuba to search for
the cause of the disease. 200 American soldiers had died from the
disease over the previous 18 months. Aristides Agramonte, pathologist,
James Carroll, bacteriologist, and Jesse W. Lazear, entomologist, were
the other team members. Cuban Dr. Carlos Finlay believed that yellow
fever was spread by mosquitoes.
(ON, 10/01, p.7)
1901 Jun 12, Cuba agreed to become
an American protectorate by accepting the Platt Amendment.
(HN, 6/12/98)
1901 Aug 27, In Havana, Cuba, U.S.
Army physician James Carroll allowed an infected mosquito to feed on
him in an attempt to isolate the means of transmission of yellow fever.
Days later, Carroll developed a severe case of yellow fever, helping
his colleague, Army Walter Reed, prove that mosquitoes can transmit the
sometimes deadly disease.
(MC, 8/27/02)(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1901 Aug, Major Walter Reed, M.D.,
visited Dr. Carlos Finlay in Havana, who informed him that the mosquito
Culex fasciatus was the most likely transmitter of yellow fever.
(ON, 10/01, p.7)
1901 Sep, Dr. Jesse Lazear, a
member of the Yellow Fever Commission, died of yellow fever.
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1901 Oct 4, Dr. Walter Reed
returned to Cuba to continue his experiments on yellow fever.
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1902 Feb, Dr. Walter Reed
published his results on yellow fever. He concluded that: “The spread
of yellow fever can be most effectually controlled by measures directed
to the destruction of mosquitoes and the protection of the sick against
the bites of these insects.”
(ON, 10/01, p.8)
1902 May 20, The United States
ended its three-year military presence in Cuba as the Republic of Cuba
was established under its first elected president, Tomas Estrada Palma.
Theodore Roosevelt had criticized the government’s sluggish withdrawal
of disease-stricken US troops from Cuba.
(HN, 5/20/98)(WSJ, 11/13/98, p.A1)(AP, 5/20/02)
1903 Feb 24, The United States
signed an agreement acquiring a naval station at Guantanamo Bay in
Cuba. Pres. Roosevelt leased the site for 2,000 gold coins a year,
about $4,080 in 2002.
(AP, 2/24/98)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1903 Mar 19, The U.S. Senate
ratified the Cuban treaty, gaining naval bases in Guantanamo and Bahia
Honda.
(HN, 3/19/98)
1904 Feb 5, The American
occupation of Cuba ended.
(MC, 2/5/02)
1906 Sep 28, US troops reoccupied
Cuba. They stayed until 1909.
(MC, 9/28/01)
1906 The US established a
provisional government as revolution threatened.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1909 Jan 28, The United States
ended direct control over Cuba.
(AP, 1/28/98)
1909 Feb 1, U.S. troops left Cuba
after installing Jose Miguel Gomez as president.
(HN, 2/1/99)
1912 Jun 5, US marines invaded
Cuba (3rd time).
(MC, 6/5/02)
1915 Apr 5, Jack Johnson
(1878-1946), African-American heavyweight champion boxer since 1908,
lost the heavyweight championship in Cuba to Jess Willard in the 26th
round.
(SFC, 1/17/05,
p.D6)(www.hickoksports.com/biograph/johnsonjack.shtml)
1916 Mar 8, US invaded Cuba for
3rd time. This time "to end corrupt Menocal regime."
(MC, 3/8/02)
1917 Mar 2, Desi Arnaz (Desiderio
Alberto Arnez y de Acha III) was born in Santiago, Cuba. His father was
the mayor of Santiago.
(www.youns.com/lucy/desiarnaz.asp)
1923 Oct 15, Italo Calvino,
Italian novelist (Winter's Night a Traveler), was born in Cuba.
(HN, 10/15/00)(MC, 10/15/01)
1924 Apr 29, Open revolt broke out
in Santa Clara, Cuba.
(HN, 4/29/98)
1924 The La Sonora Matancara band
was founded in Matanzas, Cuba, by Valentin Cane. Celia Cruz joined the
band in the late 1940s when it was under the direction of Rogelio
Martinez.
(SFEM,10/19/97, DB p.40)
1925 In Cuba Gerardo Machado was
elected as president.
(AH, 4/07, p.17)
1926 Aug 13, Fidel Castro,
revolutionary leader, president, was born in Biran, Cuba.
(USAT, 8/29/97, p.8A)(HN, 8/13/98)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)
1926 Oct 20, A hurricane in Cuba
killed 600.
(MC, 10/20/01)
1927 Oct 28, Pan Am Airways
launched the first scheduled international flight. Pan Am was founded
this year as a mail carrier to Havana by Juan Terry Trippe.
(HN, 10/28/98)(SFEM, 2/13/00, p.30)
1928 May 14, Ernesto “Che” Guevara
(d. Oct 8, 1967) was born to an aristocratic family in Misiones
province, Argentina. A biography was written in 1997 by Jon Lee
Anderson: “Che Guevara: A Revolutionary of Life.” Ernesto “Che”
Guevara, chief lieutenant in the Cuban revolution and active in other
Latin American revolutionary movements, was born Ernesto Guevara de la
Serna in Rosario, Argentina. “Che” was a nickname meaning “pal.” He
played a leading role alongside Fidel Castro in the overthrow of Cuban
dictator Fulgencio Batista in 1959, wrote the book Guerrilla Warfare in
1960 and, as Cuban Minister of Industries from 1961-‘65, led the
nationalization of industry and agriculture. He left Cuba in 1966 to
lead a band of guerrillas in Bolivia, where he was tracked down and
executed by the Bolivian army in 1967.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.D3)(HNQ, 12/2/98)(HNQ, 2/10/00)
1928 Miguel Matamoros made the
first worldwide Cuban hit song with his recording of "Son de la Loma."
Son was a native Cuban folk music style.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.39)
1928 A Chinese community newspaper
was founded in Havana’s Chinatown.
(SFC, 4/12/01, p.C4)
1929 Julio Antonio Mella, the
founder of Cuba’s Communist Party, was assassinated in Mexico.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-10)
1930 Don Azpiazu, Cuban musician,
recorded "El Manicero," (The Peanut Vendor).
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.37)
1931 Nov 17, Lindbergh inaugurated
Pan Am service from Cuba to South America in a Sikorsky flying boat
American Clipper.
(HN, 11/17/98)
1933 Aug 12, In Cuba Carlos Manuel
de Cespedes, the son of Cuba's legendary leader, replaced Pres. Machado
as part of a military in a coup.
(AH, 4/07,
p.)(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl3.htm)
1933 Sep 5, In an uprising known
as the "Revolt of the Sergeants," Fulgencio Batista took over control
of Cuba. Pres. Cespedes and his cabinet abandoned the Presidential
palace the next day.
(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl3.htm)
1933 Nov 23, FDR recalled
Ambassador Welles from Havana and urged stability in Cuba.
(HN, 11/23/98)
1934 The US lease on Guantanamo
Bay was renegotiated to say that the land could only revert to Cuban
control if abandoned by the US or by mutual consent.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1937 Orestes Lopez (Cuban pianist)
and his brother bassist Israel (Cachao) Lopez (1918-2008) formalized an
improvisation they called danzon mambo.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.37)(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A2)
1938 Rita Longa (d.2000 at 87),
Cuban artist, won the National Salon Award for Painting and Sculpture.
(SFC, 6/2/00, p.D6)
1939 May 27, The ship St. Louis
sailed into Havana Bay with 937 Jewish passengers fleeing the Nazis.
The ship was turned away and headed for the Florida coast. The 1976
film "Voyage of the Damned" was based on this. [see June 4]
(SFC, 10/4/99, p.D1)
1939 Jun 4, During what became
known as the "Voyage of the Damned," the SS St. Louis, carrying 907
Jewish refugees from Germany, was turned away from the Florida coast.
Also denied permission to dock in Canada and Cuba, the ship eventually
returned to Europe. The passengers were divided among England, France,
Belgium and Holland and a number of the refugees later died in Nazi
concentration camps. By 2003 efforts to track their fates identified
935 out of the 937 passengers. Some 260 ended in Nazi killing centers.
(AP, 6/4/99)(SFC, 10/4/99, p.D3)(SSFC, 12/7/03, Par
p.5)(Econ, 6/24/06, p.44)
1939 The US upgraded its
Guantanamo base in Cuba for air and sea operations in anticipation of
WW II.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1939-1960 Ernest Hemingway (d.1961), American writer,
lived in Cuba.
(SSFC, 6/5/05, p.F8)
1940 Oct 10, General Fulgencio
Batista (1901-1973) began serving a 4-year term as Cuba's 14th
president.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista)
1940 A Cuban constitution offered
the promise of a democratic government. The Constitution established by
a national assembly that included Blas Roca, a young shoemaker who
helped organize the Revolution of 1933. The document struck a balance
between the rich and the working class, protected individual and social
rights, supported full employment and a minimum wage, extended social
security, called for equal pay for equal work and outlawed the huge
plantations known as latifundias.
(WSJ, 7/10/02,
p.D8)(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl3.htm)
1942 Aug 27, Cuba declared war on
Germany, Japan and Italy.
(MC, 8/27/01)
1943 The music "Rapsodia Negra" by
Cuban composer Ernesto Lecuona had its premier in Carnegie Hall.
Lecuona was the composer of "Malaguena."
(WSJ, 5/27/99, p.A24)
1944 Ramon Grau San Martin became
president of Cuba.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.D5)
1945 The son of a Spanish
immigrant farmer, Fidel Castro entered the School of Law at the
University of Havana. Before becoming the revolutionary communist
leader of Cuba, Castro earned a doctorate in law. He was intensely
interested in politics throughout his studies and joined the Cuban
People’s Party upon graduating in 1950. Dr. Castro’s potential career
as an elected representative came to an end when General Batista
overthrew the Socarras government and established a dictatorship.
Castro began organizing armed resistance to the regime and eventually
succeeded in the revolution of 1959. As the political leader of Cuba
for the past four decades, he has received various honorary doctorates.
(HNQ, 5/3/01)
1947 Juan Bosch of the Dominican
Republic worked as a personal secretary to Cuba’s Pres. Carlos Prio
Socarras and participated in an ill-fated attempt to organize an
anti-Trujillo invasion.
(SFC, 11/2/01, p.D6)
1948 Oct 10, Carlos Prio became
Cuba’s last democratically elected president. He was ousted by Batista
in 1952.
(WSJ, 3/26/96,
p.A-10)(http://library.thinkquest.org/18355/carlos_prio.html)
1951 Jan 22, Fidel Castro, as a
baseball pitcher, was ejected from a Winter League game after beaning a
batter.
(MC, 1/22/02)
1951 May, Kid Gavilan (d.2003),
born as Gerardo Gonzalez in Cuba (1926), won the US boxing
welter-weight title in a 15-round decision over Johnny Bratton.
(SFC, 2/15/03, p.A24)
1951 Leopoldo Romanach (b.1862),
Cuban painter, died.
(http://www.artexpertswebsite.com/pages/artists/romanach.php)
1952 Mar 7, The U.S. signed a
military aid pact with Cuba.
(HN, 3/7/98)
1952 Mar 10, General Fulgencio
Batista staged a coup in Cuba and overthrew the Socarras government.
(WSJ, 7/10/02,
p.D8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista)
1952 The Cuban band Los Munequitos
de Matanzas was founded as a percussion, song and dance ensemble.
(SFEC, 4/5/98, DB p.13)
1953 Jul 26, A band of
anti-Batistas revolted against Pres. Fulgencio Batista with an
unsuccessful attack on the Moncada army barracks in eastern Cuba.
Castro was among the moncadistas and ousted Batista six years later.
Castro was imprisoned on the Isle of Pines after the attack at Moncada.
(AP, 7/26/97)(SFEC, 8/23/98, BR p.5)(WSJ, 7/10/02,
p.D8)
1953 Aug 1, Fidel Castro was
arrested in Cuba. [see Jul 26]
(MC, 8/1/02)
1953 Oct 16, Fidel Castro in
Havana was sentenced to 15 years.
(MC, 10/16/01)
1953 Ibrahim Ferrer Planas
(d.2005), singer, joined a group called Los Bocucos, led by vocalist
Pacho Alonso in Santiago, Cuba. In 1996 he recorded with Ry Cooder for
the "Buena Vista Social Club" which was followed by his own solo album.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.37)(SFEM, 10/3/99, p.31)
1953 Beny More (d.1963 at 44),
popular Cuban singer, formed his 21-piece Banda Gigante.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.39)
1955 Aug 8, Fidel Castro formed
his "July 26th Movement."
(MC, 8/8/02)
1955 Cuban musician Perez Prado
recorded "Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White." The mambo tune became a
no. 1 hit.
(SFEC, 9/19/99, DB p.39)
1956 Apr, Ramon Barquin
(1914-2008), a former Cuban military attache in Washington, DC, was
imprisoned in Cuba after he led hundreds of soldiers in a coup that
failed when someone tipped off the government. He gained his freedom
three years later when Castro successfully toppled Batista, but he
opposed Castro soon after.
(AP, 3/6/08)
1956 Nov 25, Fidel Castro and his
81 rebel exiles departed Mexico to liberate Cuba from the corrupt
dictatorship of Fulgencia Batista. Che Guevara had recently joined
Fidel Castro and his band of Cuban rebel exiles as their doctor.
(SFC, 6/16/97, p.D3)
1956 Dec 2, Fidel Castro landed on
coast of Cuba. Castro landed with a small armed force to overthrow
dictator Fulgencio Batista. Che Guevara was one of the few who survived
the disastrous landing of the rebels’ boat, the Granma.
(TOH, 1982, p.1956)(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)(MC, 12/2/01)
1956-1958 Enrique Oltuski, Shell Oil executive and
member of the July 26 Movement, helped orchestrate the overthrow of the
government. In 2002 he authored “Vida Clandestina: My Life in the Cuban
Revolution.”
(SFC, 9/15/02, p.M2)
1957 Mar 13, Bloody battles
followed an anti-Batista demonstration in Havana, Cuba.
(MC, 3/13/02)
1957 Sep 1, Gloria Estefan, singer
(Miami Sound Machine-Conga, 1-2-3), was born in Cuba.
(SC, 9/1/02)
1957 Sep 5, Cuban dictator Batista
bombed the Cienfuegos uprising.
(MC, 9/5/01)
1957 The Cuban urban underground
was led by Frank Pais, an aspiring schoolteacher turned activist.
(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.D8)
1958 Mar 27, The Havana Hilton
opened in Cuba.
(MC, 3/27/02)
1958 Apr 3, Fidel Castro's rebels
attacked Havana.
(MC, 4/3/02)
1958 Apr 9, A Cuban general strike
was called but failed. Urban militias in Havana and Santiago were put
down by the police.
(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.D8)
1958 May 24, Cuba’s Pres. Batista
opened an offensive against Fidel Castro's rebellion.
(MC, 5/24/02)
1958 Jun 27, Cuban rebel forces
kidnapped 29 US sailors and Marines and held them until Jul 18.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1958 Aug 18, Fidel Castro made a
speech on Cuban pirate radio Rebelde.
(MC, 8/18/02)
1958 Dec 31, Cuba’s dictator Juan
Batista fled as Rebels under Fidel Castro marched into Havana.
(MC, 12/31/01)
1958 Graham Greene published his
novel “Our Man in Havana.” It captured Cuba on the cusp of sweeping
change.
(WSJ, 8/25/06, p.A1)
1958 Che Guevara commanded rebels
in the capture of Santa Clara, Cuba.
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)
1958 Johnny Weissmuller played in
a celebrity golf tournament and saved himself from Castro’s guerrillas
by beating his chest and performing his famous yell thereby invoking
requests for autographs.
(SDUT, 6/6/97, p.E2)
1958-1998 See the reference for Cuban history over
this period.
(http://www.state.gov/www/regions/ara/cuba_chronology.html)
1959 Jan 1, Fidel Castro led Cuban
revolutionaries to victory over Fulgencio Batista, who fled to the
Dominican Republic. American mafia scrambled to secure their cash and
close casinos ahead of crowds that took to the streets and trashed
their businesses. In 2008 T.J. English Morrow authored “Havana
Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba …and Then Lost It to the Revolution.”
(SFC,10/15/97, p.C2)(AP, 1/1/98)(SFC, 1/28/00,
p.A14)(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)
1959 Jan 3, Castro took command
of the Cuban army.
(HN, 1/3/99)
1959 Jan 7, The United States
recognized Fidel Castro's new government in Cuba.
(AP, 1/7/98)
1959 Jan 8, Fidel Castro rolled
into Havana a week after Batista fled. In 2002 Julia E. Sweig authored
“Inside the Cuban Revolution.”
(SSFC, 6/9/02, p.F3)(WSJ, 7/10/02, p.D8)
1959 Feb 6, Fidel Castro was
interviewed by Edward R. Murrow.
(MC, 2/6/02)
1959 Feb 7, Castro proclaimed a
new Cuban constitution.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1959 Feb 16, Fidel Castro took the
oath as Cuban premier in Havana after the overthrow of Fulgencio
Batista.
(HN, 2/16/98)(AP, 2/16/98)
1959 Apr 15, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro arrived in Washington, D.C., to begin a goodwill tour of the
United States.
(AP, 4/15/97)
1959 Apr 26, The Panamanian gov't
reported 'suppression' of attempted guerilla invasion from Cuba.
(DBD, p.824)
1959 Apr 27, US State Dept.
announced small arms stored in Canal Zone will be provided to
Panamanian forces to repel Cuban invaders.
(DBD, p.824)
1959 Apr 28, Organization of
American States voted unanimously to send a commission to Panama.
(DBD, p.824)
1959 Apr 29, Premier Castro denied
any Cuban role, direct or indirect, in a Panamanian invasion.
(DBD, p.824)
1959 May 1, Some 87 guerillas,
mostly Cubans, surrendered without resistance to Panamanian troops at
the village of Nombre de Dios in response to appeals by Castro.
(DBD, p.824)
1959 Jun 25, The Cuban government
seized 2.35 million acres under a new agrarian reform law.
(HN, 6/25/98)
1959 Oct 21, Contra
revolutionaries bombed Havana.
(MC, 10/21/01)
1959 Fidel Castro visited
Argentina following his revolution in Cuba.
(AP, 7/22/06)
1959 The US forbade its servicemen
from entering Cuban territory.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1959 The Dominican dictator
Trujillo broke relations with Cuba soon after Castro took power.
(WSJ, 4/9/98, p.A1)
1960 Feb 21, Havana placed all
Cuban industry under direct control of the government.
(HN, 2/21/98)
1960 Mar 3, The French cargo
ship "La Coubre," laden with Belgian weapons, exploded in Havana
Harbor and killed 136 [101] people. The blast was blamed on US agents.
(USAT, 10/8/97, p.8A)(SFC, 1/28/00, p.A14)
1960 Mar 4, Alberto Korda took a
photo of Che Guevara at a rally where Castro blamed the US for the
cargo ship disaster of the previous day. The photo later became famous
as a poster of Che and symbol for the Cuban revolution.
(USAT, 10/8/97, p.8A)
1960 Mar 17, Eisenhower formed
anti-Castro-exile army under the CIA.
(MC, 3/17/02)
1960 Apr 2, Cuba bought oil from
USSR.
(MC, 4/2/02)
1960 Apr, The US CIA began
planning an invasion of Cuba that culminated in the Bay of Pigs
disaster. The initial budget of $4.4 million grew to $46 million.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A19)
1960 May 7, Fidel Castro announced
Cuba’s resumption of diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union.
(AH, 4/07, p.18)
1960 Jun 30, US stopped sugar
imports from Cuba.
(MC, 6/30/02)
1960 Jul 1, Fidel Castro
nationalized Esso, Shell & Texaco in Cuba.
(MC, 7/1/02)
1960 Jul 9, Khrushchev threatened
to use rockets to protect Cuba from the US.
(PC, 1992, p.973)
1960 Jul 22, Cuba nationalized all
US owned sugar factories.
(MC, 7/22/02)
1960 Aug, The CIA recruited a
former FBI agent to approach two of America's most-wanted mobsters and
gave them poison pills meant for Fidel Castro during his first year in
power. This was only made public in 2007 in declassified papers. The
CIA recruited ex-FBI agent Robert Maheu, then a top aide to Howard
Hughes in Las Vegas, to approach mobster Johnny Roselli and pass
himself off as the representative of international corporations that
wanted Castro killed because of their lost gambling operations. From
August to May, 1961, CIA officials approved several plans to kill Fidel
Castro.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A5)(AP, 6/27/07)
1960 Sep 17, Cuba nationalized US
banks.
(www.uscubacommission.org/history3.html)
1960 Sep 19, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro, in New York to visit the United Nations, angrily checked out of
the Shelburne Hotel in a dispute with the management. Castro accepted
an invitation to stay at the Hotel Theresa in Harlem.
(AP, 9/19/07)
1960 Sep 26, Fidel Castro made the
longest speech in UN history, 4 hrs, 29 mins.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)
1960 Oct 11, Bank president
Ernesto Guevara offered sugar magnate Julio Lobo leadership of Cuba's
sugar industry in exchange for keeping one of his 14 mills and home.
Mr. Lobo declined the offer.
(WSJ, 3/11/99, p.A1)
1960 Oct 13, Opponents of Fidel
Castro were executed in Cuba.
(MC, 10/13/01)
1960 Oct 14, Cuba nationalized all
sugar assets and made itself custodian of all art and artifacts.
(WSJ, 3/11/99, p.A1)
1960 Oct 19, US President
Eisenhower imposed an embargo on exports to Cuba covering all
commodities except medical supplies and certain food products.
(AP, 10/19/98)
1960 Oct 25, Cuba nationalized all
remaining US businesses.
(MC, 10/25/01)
1960 Oct 28, In a note to the OAS
(Organization of American States), the United States charged that Cuba
had been receiving substantial quantities of arms and numbers of
military technicians" from the Soviet bloc.
(HN, 10/28/98)
1960 Oct 30, Guatemala's "La Hora"
reported a plan for the invasion on Cuba.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1960 Oct, Enrique Oltuski signed
the order to nationalize the ITT owned telephone company.
(SFC, 9/15/02, p.M2)
1960 Nov 1, US Pres. Eisenhower
announced that the US would take all steps necessary to defend its
naval base at Cuba’s Guantanamo Bay.
(AH, 4/07, p.18)
1960 Nov 14, President Dwight
Eisenhower ordered U.S. naval units into the Caribbean after Guatemala
and Nicaragua charged Castro with starting uprisings.
(HN, 11/14/98)
1960 Following the revolution
Ramon Grau Alsina (d.1998 at 80) and his sister founded the underground
Pedro Pan organization for Cuban parents to send their children to live
in the US.
(SFC, 11/6/98, p.D5)
1961 Jan 3, The United States
severed diplomatic relations with Cuba after Fidel Castro announced he
was a communist. The US Guantanamo Bay base remained under US control.
(AP, 1/3/98)(HN, 1/3/99)(MC, 1/3/02)
1961 Apr 7, Tad Szulc (d.2001)
wrote a front page NY times article on anti-Castro forces training to
fight at Florida bases and predicted a probable invasion on April 18.
The invasion took place Apr 17.
(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C4)
1961 Apr 14, Cuban-American
invasion army departed Nicaragua.
(MC, 4/14/02)
1961 Apr 15, Anti-Castro Cuban
pilots, under the hire of the US CIA, knocked out part of the Cuban air
force. 54 people were killed in the attacks on 3 military bases
including two airfields and the Antonio Maceo Airport. Two “defecting”
B-26 bombers flew to Miami.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A19)(AH, 4/07, p.18)
1961 Apr 16, Fidel Castro declared
that Cuba is now a socialist state. Pres. Kennedy called off the CIA
air strikes in Cuba. The message did not reach the 1,511 commandos
headed for the Bay of Pigs.
(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A19)(SFC, 2/202/08, p.A3)
1961 Apr 17, About 1,500
CIA-trained Cuban exiles launched the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion
of Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the government of Fidel
Castro. The US clandestinely invaded Cuba in the Bay of Pigs operation
and the operation failed completely without any of the promised air
support from the United States. Cuban forces killed 200 rebels and
captured 1,197 in less than 72 hours. The command vessel Marsopa and
supply ship Houston were sunk and an entire battalion was lost. 26
survivors were rescued after 3 days of fighting. A single copy of a CIA
report written by inspector general Lyman Kirkpatrick was made public
in 1998. The operation, which had been devised during the Eisenhower
Administration, was nonetheless endorsed by the new president, John F.
Kennedy. In 1979 Peter Wyden wrote “Bay of Pigs: The Untold Story.”
Portion of the 1961 Taylor Report was made public in 1977 and 1986.
Most of the report was made public in 2000 and it showed that the CIA
knew that the Soviets knew the exact date of the attack. In 2009
Guadeloupe apologized to Cuba for allowing the CIA to train Cuban
exiles on its soil.
(AP, 4/17/97)(SFEC, 2/22/98, p.A19)(HNQ,
4/11/00)(SFC, 4/29/00, p.A7)(AP, 2/18/09)(AH, 4/07, p.18)
1961 Apr 18, Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev sent a letter to Pres. Kennedy with an “urgent call” to end
“aggression” against Cuba.
(SFC, 3/23/01, p.D5)
1961 Apr 19, Cuba’s air force by
this time shot down 9 of the invader’s 16 aircraft and US invaders,
with ad death toll of 114, began to surrender. Subsequently 36 died in
Cuban prisons. Many survivors were released between 1962 and 1965 after
private donors paid $53 million in food and medicine for Cuba.
(AH, 4/07, p.18)
1961 Apr 19, Howard Anderson was
executed in Cuba after being convicted of arms smuggling to
anti-Communist rebels.
(WSJ, 9/15/06,
p.A1)(www.cubanet.org/CNews/y02/jan02/09e5.htm)
1961 Apr 19, Cuban forces shot
down a B-26 bomber piloted by Captain Thomas Ray north of Larga beach,
an area they controlled. Ray was flying the bomber from Nicaragua while
on contract to the US CIA. In a 2004 trial in the US, forensics on
Ray’s body proved that the cause of his death was a small bullet entry
thru the head.
(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.A1)(http://tinyurl.com/kzeh2)
1961 Apr 30, Premier Fidel Castro
of Cuba received the Lenin Peace Prize.
(MC, 4/30/02)
1961 May 1, Fidel Castro announced
that there would be no more elections in Cuba. Radio Havana was founded.
(HN, 5/1/98)(WSJ, 6/18/02, p.D9)
1961 May 17, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro offered to exchange prisoners captured in the abortive Bay of
Pigs invasion for 500 bulldozers.
(AP, 5/17/01)(MC, 5/17/02)
1961 Jul 24, A US commercial plane
was hijacked to Cuba and began a trend.
(MC, 7/24/02)
1961 Dec 2, Cuban leader Fidel
Castro declared himself a Marxist-Leninist who would lead Cuba to
Communism.
(AP, 12/2/97)
1961 Dec 23, Fidel Castro
announced Cuba would release 1,113 prisoners from failed 1961 Bay of
Pigs Invasion for $62M worth of food and medical supplies.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1961 A cactus curtain was planted
around the US Guantanamo Base to discourage Cuban defection.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1962 Jan 3, Pope John XXIII
excommunicated Fidel Castro.
(MC, 1/3/02)
1962 Jan 31, At the Eighth Meeting
of Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the OAS, held in
Punta del Este, Uruguay, ministers suspended Cuba’s membership.
(www.cidh.oas.org/countryrep/Cuba79eng/intro.htm)(Econ, 4/11/09, p.34)
1962 Feb 3, President John F.
Kennedy banned all trade with Cuba except for food & drugs.
(HN, 2/3/99)
1962 Feb 7, President Kennedy
began the blockade of Cuba.
(MC, 2/7/02)
1962 Feb, The Joint Chiefs of
Staff and Deputy Defense Sec. Roswell Gilpatric approved a plan to
“lure or provoke Castro, or an uncontrollable subordinate, into an
overt hostile reaction against the US.”
(SFC, 1/30/98, p.A12)
1962 Mar 29, Cuba opened the trial
of the Bay of Pigs invaders.
(HN, 3/29/98)
1962 Apr 8, Bay of Pigs invaders
got thirty years imprisonment in Cuba.
(HN, 4/8/98)
1962 May, A memo from the CIA
briefing for Attorney Gen’l. Robert Kennedy revealed that $150,000 was
offered to the US mob for the assassination of Fidel Castro. The mob
insisted on doing the job at no charge.
(SFC, 7/2/97, p.A5)
1962 Aug 29, A US U-2 flight saw
SAM launch pads in Cuba.
(MC, 8/29/01)
1962 Oct 14, The CIA U-2 mission
detected Soviet ballistic missiles in Cuba. Air Force pilot Maj.
Richard Heyser and CIA contract pilot James Barnes Jr. (d.1999 at 70)
identified missile sites in separate flights.
(SFC, 9/17/97, p.A3)(SFC, 7/13/99, p.A19)
1962 Oct 16-1962 Oct 29, The Cuban
missile crises. Russia under Khrushchev removed its missiles from Cuba.
The 13-day missile crises was in part recorded by Kennedy on tape and
published in 1997: “The Kennedy Tapes,” ed. by Ernest R. May and Philip
D. Zelikow.
(SFEC, 8/25/96, Parade p.6)(TMC, 1994, p.1962)(WSJ,
9/23/97, p.A20)
1962 Oct 22, President John F.
Kennedy announced that missile bases had been discovered in Cuba and
they had the potential to attack the United States with nuclear
warheads. Kennedy ordered a naval and air blockade on further shipment
of military equipment to Cuba. The Russians had previously agreed not
to bring new offensive weapons into Cuba, but after hearing Kennedy's
announcement, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev refused to cooperate
with the quarantine. Following a confrontation that threatened nuclear
war, Kennedy and Khrushchev agree on October 28 on a formula to end the
crisis. On November 2 Kennedy reported that Soviet missile bases in
Cuba are being dismantled.
(AP, 10/22/97)(HNPD, 10/22/98)(HN, 10/22/02)
1962 Oct 23, US ambassador Adlai
Stevenson spoke at UN about Cuba crisis.
(MC, 10/23/01)
1962 Oct 24, The U.S. blockade of
Cuba during the missile crisis officially began under a proclamation
signed by President Kennedy.
(AP, 10/24/97)
1962 Oct 25, U.S. ambassador Adlai
E. Stevenson presented photographic evidence of Soviet missile bases in
Cuba to the U.N. Security Council. Ambassador Adlai E. Stevenson
demanded USSR and Zorin answer regarding Cuban missile bases saying "I
am prepared to wait for my answer until hell freezes over."
(AP, 10/25/97)(MC, 10/25/01)
1962 Oct 26, The USS Beale tracked
and dropped practice depth charges on a Soviet Foxtrot-class submarine
which was armed with a nuclear torpedo. Running out of air, the Soviet
submarine was surrounded by American warships and desperately needed to
surface to recharge its batteries. An argument broke out among three
officers on the B-39, including submarine captain Valentin Savitsky,
political officer Ivan Semonovich Maslennikov, and chief of staff of
the submarine flotilla, Commander Vasiliy Arkhipov. A totally exhausted
Savitsky became furious and ordered that the nuclear torpedo on board
be made combat ready. Accounts differ about whether Commander Arkhipov
convinced Savitsky not to make the attack, or whether Savitsky himself
finally concluded that the only reasonable choice left open to him was
to come to the surface.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_Missile_Crisis)
1962 Oct 27, Soviet Premier Nikita
Khrushchev offered to remove Soviet missile bases in Cuba if the U.S.
removed its missile bases in Turkey. It was later learned that JFK had
secretly offered this option to Khrushchev.
(HN, 10/27/98)(MC, 10/27/01)(NPR, 2002)
1962 Oct 27, With its batteries
running low, Soviet submarine B-59/C-19 was forced to surface and
headed east. Although surrounded by US ships, submarine captain Vitali
Savitsky realizes that they are not in a "state of war; one of the
destroyers has a lively band playing jazz. The Cony communicates with
it via flashing lights; Savitsky identifies the submarine as "Ship X"
("Korablx") and declines assistance. B-59 identifies itself to other
nearby ships as "Prinavlyet" (by the U.S.S. Murray), and "Prosnablavst"
(by the Bache and the Barry). Aircraft illuminate and photograph it.
(www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/subchron.htm)
1962 Oct 28, Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev informed the United States that he had ordered the
dismantling of Soviet missile bases in Cuba. Radio Moscow reported
nuclear missiles in Cuba deactivated. Kennedy and Khrushchev agreed on
a formula to end the Cuban missile crisis: the Russians would dismantle
their bases and the United States would publicly promise not to invade
Cuba.
(AP, 10/28/97)(HN, 10/22/98)(HNPD, 10/22/98)(MC,
10/28/01)
1962 Nov 2, Pres. Kennedy reported
that Soviet missile bases in Cuba were being dismantled.
(HN, 10/22/98)
1962 Nov 15, Cuba threatened to
down U.S. planes on reconnaissance flights over its territory.
(HN, 11/15/98)
1962 Nov 19, Fidel Castro accepted
the removal of Soviet weapons.
(MC, 11/19/01)
1962 Nov 20, USSR agreed to remove
bombers from Cuba and US lifted its blockade.
(MC, 11/20/01)
1962 Dec 21, A US and Cuba accord
released Bay of Pigs captives.
(MC, 12/21/01)
1962 Dec 23, Cuba started
returning US prisoners from Bay of Pigs invasion.
(MC, 12/23/01)
1962 Dec 25, The Bay of Pigs
captives who were ransomed, vowed to return and topple Castro.
(HN, 12/25/98)
1962 Cuban bassist Israel Lopez
(1918-2008), known as “Cachao,” left Cuba for Spain and soon relocated
to NYC, where he performed with leading Latin bands.
(SSFC, 3/23/08, p.A2)
1963 Feb 6, The United States
reported that all Soviet offensive arms are out of Cuba.
(HN, 2/6/99)
1963 Feb 19, The Soviet Union
informed President Kennedy it would withdraw "several thousand" of an
estimated 17,000 Soviet troops in Cuba.
(AP, 2/19/98)
1963 Feb 22, Moscow warned the
U.S. that an attack on Cuba would mean war.
(HN, 2/22/98)
1963 Feb 27, The USSR said that
10,000 troops would remain in Cuba.
(HN, 2/27/98)
1963 Apr 27, Cuban premier Fidel
Castro arrived in Moscow.
(MC, 4/27/02)
1963 Jul 8, US banned all monetary
transactions with Cuba.
(MC, 7/8/02)
1963 Oct 4-1963 Oct 8, Hurricane
Flora, killed some 7-8,000 people in Cuba and Haiti.
(SFC, 11/30/98, p.A2)
1963 Nov, Pres. Kennedy, just
before his murder, approved a probe to see whether relations with Fidel
Castro could be improved. In 1999 Mark J. White edited "The Kennedy's
and Cuba: The Declassified Documentary History."
(WSJ, 11/15/99, p.A48)
1964 Feb 6, Cuba blocked the water
supply to Guantanamo Naval Base in rebuke of the United State's seizure
of four Cuban fishing boats and fines on Cuban fishermen near Florida.
The US imposed water rationing and built desalination plants in
response.
(HN, 2/6/99)(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1964 Feb 18, The U.S. cut military
aid to five nations in reprisal for having trade relations with Cuba.
(HN, 2/18/98)
1965 Apr 24, Che Guevara, his
second-in-command Victor Dreke, and twelve of the Cuban expeditionaries
arrived in the Congo. Guevara, Cuba’s head of the national bank and
minister of industry, left Cuba to foment revolution in the Congo. He
spent most of 1965 and 1966 in Central Africa, helping anti-Mobuto
revolutionaries in the Republic of Congo. This turned out to be a
disaster and he went to Bolivia.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara)
1965 Dec 1, An airlift of refugees
from Cuba to the United States began in which thousands of Cubans were
allowed to leave their homeland.
(AP, 12/1/97)
1965 Carlos Rafael Rodriguez
(d.1997 at 84), “El Tio,” was a founding member of the Cuban Communist
Party. From 1962-1965 he was the head of the National Institute of
Agrarian Reform and became a deputy prime minister in charge of foreign
affairs in 1972.
(SFC,12/10/97, p.C5)
1966 The US Cuban Readjustment Act
granted any Cuban who reached American soil the right to stay.
(SFC, 12/2/99, p.A15)
1967 Jan, Ernesto "Che" Guevara
began organizing the National Liberation Army in Bolivia.
(SFC, 5/12/96, Z1p.4)
1967 The Orquesta de Musica
Moderna, a government sponsored group, was formed in Cuba. It was the
basis for the later jazz group Irakere.
(SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.42)
1968 Mar 12, A Miami-bound flight
was commandeered to Cuba.
(SFC, 3/14/03, p.E8)
1968 Nov 23, Five Cubans hijacked
a US B-727 jet, from Chicago to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Nov 24, Three Latins hijacked
a US B-707 jet, from New York’s Kennedy Int’l. to Cuba. Pena Soltren, a
US citizen, and two accomplices used weapons hidden in a diaper bag to
hijack the Pan Am flight. In 2009 Luis Armando Pena Soltren (66)
voluntarily returned to the same airport to surrender and face
prosecution.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)(AP, 10/12/09)
1968 Nov 30, Montesino
Sanchez, a Cuban, successfully hijacked a B-720 from Miami to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 5, Eduardo Castera, a
Latin successfully hijacked a B-727 from Tampa to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1968 Dec 11, Two blacks
successfully hijacked a DC-8 from St. Louis to Cuba.
(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1969 Jan 27, Byron Vaughn Booth
and fellow convict Clinton Robert Smith, also a robber, escaped from
the California Institution for Men at Chino. The next day they bought a
ticket for a flight from Los Angeles to Miami with a connection in New
Orleans. National Airlines Flight 64 was hijacked over the Gulf of
Mexico after the plane left New Orleans. Booth was arrested in Nigeria
in 2001 and returned to the US.
(SFC, 2/24/01,
p.C14)(http://articles.latimes.com/2001/may/17/local/me-64627)
1969 Mar 6, Black Panther Anthony
Garnet Bryant, aka Tony Bryant (d.1999 at 60), hijacked a National
Airlines plane enroute from NY to Miami and directed it to Cuba. He was
arrested in Cuba and spent a year and a half in jail and was pardoned
in 1980. His 1984 book "Hijack" described his experience in Cuban
prisons.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.C10)(http://tinyurl.com/aopyo)
1969 Jun 4, A 22-year-old man
sneaked into wheel pod of a jet parked in Havana & survived a 9-hr
flight to Spain despite thin oxygen levels at 29,000 ft.
(MC, 6/4/02)
1969 Jun 17, Black Panther William
Brent (1931-2006) became the 28th person this year to hijack a US
airplane to Cuba. The Cubans put him in jail for two years. He
published his memoir in 1996 titled "Long Time Gone."
(SFC, 6/3/96, BR p.3)(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.C10)
1969 Oct 5, Lieutenant Eduardo
Guerra Jimenez, a Cuban defector, entered US air space undetected and
landed his Soviet-made MiG-17 at Homestead Air Force Base near Miami,
Florida, where the presidential aircraft Air Force One was waiting to
return President Richard M. Nixon to DC.
(www.missilesofkeywest.bravepages.com/penetrated.htm)
1969 Christmas was dropped as a
holiday by the Castro government.
(SFC,12/26/97, p.A1)
1970 Jesus (Chucho) Valdez formed
his jazz group Irakere in Cuba.
(SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.42)
1972 Oct 29, Hijackers of a German
Lufthansa passenger jet demanded the release of the three surviving
terrorists, who had been arrested after the Fürstenfeldbruck
gunfight and were being held for trial. Palestinian guerrillas killed
an airport employee and hijacked a plane, carrying 27 passengers, to
Cuba. They forced West Germany to release 3 terrorists who were
involved in the Munich Massacre.
(HN,
10/29/98)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Munich_massacre)
1972 Nov 10, Three black men
successfully hijacked a Southern Airways DC-9 after a stopover in
Birmingham, Ala., and flew to multiple locations in the United States
and one Canadian city and finally to Cuba with $2 million (actual cash,
Presidential "grant" totaled $10 million) and 10 parachutes. Co-pilot
Halroyd was wounded; they threatened to crash the plane into one of the
Oak Ridge nuclear installations; at McCoy Air Force Base, Orlando, the
FBI shot out the tires; they forced pilot William Haas to take off. The
plane finally landed in Havana; two were sentenced in Cuba to 20 years,
one to 15 years. They returned to Alabama in 1980 and received 20-25
year sentences.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Cuba-US_aircraft_hijackings)(USAT,
6/11/03, p.2B)(http://cuban-exile.com/doc_176-200/doc0180.html)
1973 Feb 15, The US and Cuba
reached an anti-hijacking agreement.
(SFC, 7/9/96,
p.A8)(www.historyofcuba.com/history/time/timetbl4.htm)
1973 Aug 6, Fulgencio Batista y
Zaldivar (b.1901), dictator Cuba (1940-58), died in Estoril, Portugal.
(http://tinyurl.com/9h6yj)
1975 Oct 23, A Battle between
Cuban and South Africa troops took place in Angola.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_intervention_in_Angola_(1975-1991))
1975 Nov 20, An interim report by
the US Senate’s Church Committee said that the CIA failed to
assassinated Fidel Castro at least 8 times. The report also covered CIA
activity in Chile, the Congo, the Dominican Republic and elsewhere.
(WSJ, 8/5/06,
p.A9)(http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Church_Committee)
1975 The first national congress
of the Communist Party of Cuba elected Raul Castro as the 2nd in
command.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.)
1976 Feb 24, Cuba's revised
socialist constitution went into effect. Article 88 of this year’s
Cuban Constitution said any citizen who collects the signatures of at
least 10,000 registered voters can petition the National Assembly for a
referendum on any subject.
(http://usgovinfo.about.com/library/news/aa041300a.htm)(WSJ, 5/13/02,
p.A1)
1976 Aug 9, John Roselli (b.1905),
Chicago mobster hired by the CIA to kill Castro, was found murdered.
His decomposing body was found in a 55-gallon steel fuel drum floating
in Dumfounding Bay near Miami, Florida. Roselli had been strangled and
stabbed and his legs were sawed off.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnny_Roselli)
1976 Oct 6, A Cuban aircraft from
Venezuela with 73 people onboard was blown up on a flight over the
Caribbean. Castro blamed the explosion on the US. Luis Posada Carriles,
a veteran of the Cuban exile’s war against Castro, was charged and
twice acquitted in the bombing. Venezuelan authorities kept him in jail
for 9 years until his escape in 1985 when he settled in El Salvador. In
April, 2005, Posada sought asylum in the US. In May, 2005, declassified
documents were made public that linked Posada to the bombing and
indicated he was on the CIA's payroll for years.
(SFC, 7/9/96, p.A8)(SFC,11/17/97, p.A14)(AP,
4/15/05)(AP, 5/11/05)
1976 Dec 3, Fidel Castro was
elected president of Cuba.
(WSJ, 8/5/06, p.A9)
1977 Mar 9, Pres. Carter proposed
an end to travel restrictions to Cuba, Vietnam, N. Korea and Cambodia
effective as of March 18.
(www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/print.php?pid=7139)
1978 Oct 18, Jaume Ramon Mercader
del Rio Hernandez (b.1914), aka Jacques Mornard, Spanish Communist and
murderer of Leon Trotsky, died in Cuba. Declassified archives showed
that he was a Soviet agent. In 1940 Mercader fatally wounded Trotsky
with an ice axe in his study at his home in Coyoacan, then a village on
the southern fringes of Mexico City.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram%C3%B3n_Mercader)
1978 The Cuban jazz band Irakere
performed at the Newport Jazz Festival.
(SFC, 6/16/96, BR p.42)
1979 Apr 28, Carlos Muniz Varela,
a Cuban travel agent and an activist for Puerto Rico's independence,
was killed in Puerto Rico.
(AP, 3/29/06)(www.rocla.org/Actions/MunizVarela.html)
1979 The Soviet Union established
a brigade in Cuba.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1980 Apr 15, The Mariel boatlift
officially began. When it ended on Oct 31, some 207,000 refugees
entered the US of which 125,00 were Cubans.
(NG, Oct. 1988, p.
594)(www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/mariel-boatlift.htm)
1980 Apr 20, The first Cubans
sailing to the United States as part of the massive Mariel boatlift
reached Florida.
(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)(AP, 9/26/97)(AP,
4/20/00)
1980 Sep 18, Cosmonaut Arnoldo
Tamayo, a Cuban, became the first black to be sent on a mission in
space.
(HN, 9/18/98)
1980 Sep 26, The Cuban government
abruptly closed Mariel Harbor, ending the freedom flotilla of Cuban
refugees that began the previous April. By this time the danzon,
“Cuba’s national dance,” had all but disappeared.
(AP, 9/26/97)(SFC,12/13/97, p.A14)
1981 Sebastian Arcos Bergnes
(d.1997 at 65), a dentist, helped found the Committee for Human Rights
in Cuba. He was arrested in 1981 and imprisoned for 7 years in the
Combinado del Este prison and again in 1992 on charges of disseminating
“enemy propaganda.” In 1995 he left for the US for medical treatment.
(SFC,12/27/97, p.E2)
1981 The Cuban-American national
Foundation was founded in Florida by Jorge Mas Canosa (d.1997), as the
voice of Cuban exiles dedicated to weakening the Castro regime through
politics.
(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A21)
1981 Farmer’s markets emerged in
Cuba but were closed by Castro in 1986.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A10)
1981 Costa Rica under Pres.
Rodrigo Carazo Odio broke off relations Cuba. Ties were restored in
2009.
(AP, 12/9/09)
1982 Sep 11, Wilfredo Lam
(b.1902), Cuban artist, died in Paris, France. He is best known for
“The Jungle” (1943), later acquired by NYC’s MOMA.
(WSJ, 4/29/08, p.D7)
1982 The US State Dept. added Cuba
to its terror list following US accusations that the Castro government
was aiding Colombian guerrillas.
(WSJ, 9/15/06, p.A10)
1982 Robert Lee Vesco (b.1935),
who fled the US in 1971 to avoid charges of bilking mutual fund
investors of $224 million, moved to Cuba.
(SFC, 8/21/96,
p.A8)(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Vesco)
1982 The cow named Ubre Blanca
(10), crossed from a Holstein and a Zebu, produced 241 pounds of milk
in a single day. The town of Nueva Geron, Cuba, erected a marble statue
for her after her death in 1985.
(WSJ, 5/21/02, p.A1)
1984 Eriberto Mederos, aka El
Enfermero (the Nurse), joined the Cuban boat lift to America. He became
a US citizen in 1993. He had worked as the administrator of electric
shock therapy to political opponents of the Castro regime. In 2001 he
was arrested and faced deportation for lying about his former
occupation. In 2002 Mederos (79) was convicted in Florida for
concealing his past.
(SFC, 11/16/01, p.E3)(SFC, 8/2/02, p.A6)
1985 May 20, US began broadcasts
to Cuba on Radio Marti.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radio_Mart%C3%AD)
1985 Castro gave a series of
interviews to Frei Betto, a Brazilian friar, that were later published
as “Fidel and Religion.”
(SFC, 1/22/98, p.B3)
1986 Fidel Castro closed the
farmer’s markets that had emerged in 1986 and promised to wage a battle
against private farmers.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A10)
1986 Cuba defaulted on a $12
billion debt owed mainly to European and Latin American governments.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.34)
1986 Tad Szulc (d.2001) authored
“Fidel: A Critical Portrait.”
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A9)(SFC, 5/24/01, p.C4)
1988 Mar 22, In Angola the battle
of Cuito Cuanavale changed the region's political landscape,
accelerating the independence of Namibia and the fall of apartheid in
South Africa. While the Cuban and Angolan forces claimed victory, South
Africa claimed it lost only 31 soldiers against 4,785 who fell on the
other side.
(AP, 3/22/08)
1988 Jul, The apartheid regime in
South Africa, having entered into discussions with the ANC, agreed to
elections in Namibia in exchange for the withdrawal of Cuban troops
from Angola.
(AP, 3/22/08)
1988 The Grand Master of The Order
of St. John (Knights of Malta) died. Fidel Castro declared a national
day of mourning in Cuba.
(WSJ, 12/30/94, p.A6)
1989 Jan 10, Cuba began
withdrawing its troops from Angola, more than 13 years after its first
contingents arrived.
(AP, 1/10/99)
1989 Apr 2, Soviet leader Mikhail
S. Gorbachev began a visit to Cuba amid differences with President
Fidel Castro over the type of reforms Gorbachev was instituting in the
Soviet Union.
(AP, 4/2/99)
1989 Jul 13, Cuba executed four
military officers for conspiring to smuggle drugs to the United States.
Antonio de la Guardia, a colonel in the Interior Ministry, was executed
along with army general Arnaldo Ochoa and 2 other officers in a drug
trafficking case. Gen’l. Patricio de la Guardia, Antonio’s twin, was
sentenced to 30 years in prison. Patricio was released in 1997.
Patricio had led an int’l. para-military brigade in Chile during the
Allende years that was estimated at 15,000 men.
(SFC, 3/19/97, p.A14)(WSJ, 10/30/98, p.A19)(AP,
7/13/99)
1989 Sep 3, A Cubana de Aviacion
jetliner crashed after takeoff in Havana, killing all 126 aboard and 26
people on the ground.
(AP, 9/3/99)
1990 Mar 27, The U.S. began test
broadcasts of TV Marti to Cuba, which promptly jammed the signal.
(AP, 3/27/00)
1990 Rainaldo Arenas (b.1943), gay
writer, took his own life in the US after suffering from AIDS. He left
Cuba during the 1980 Mariel boatlift. His books included “Before Night
Falls” (1993) and “The Color of Summer” the 4th of 5 called the
“Pentagonia” a “secret history of Cuba.” In 2000 the film version of
Before Night Falls was directed by Julian Schnabel
(SFEC, 7/30/00, BR p.4)(SSFC, 12/17/00, DB p.49)
1990-1991 Cuba was producing 90 million cigars
annually.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A9)
1991 May 23, Last Cubans troops
left Angola.
(www.iie.com/research/topics/sanctions/cuba.cfm)
1991 Aug 3, The Pan Am games
opened in Havana.
(SC, 8/3/02)
1991 Sep 11, Soviet President
Mikhail S. Gorbachev announced the Kremlin would withdraw thousands of
troops from Cuba, a move bitterly denounced by the Havana government.
(AP, 9/11/01)
1991 The organization Brothers to
the Rescue was founded in Florida to conduct search and rescue missions
for Cubans fleeing Cuba in the Florida Straits.
(WSJ, 3/26/96, p.A-18)
1991 Five Cubans stole and flew a
Russian-made Antonov AN-2 biplane to the Miami.
(WSJ, 9/20/00, p.A1)
1991 Haitian refugees fled to the
US base at Guantanamo. Hundreds were refused further passage to the US,
many because of HIV infection.
(SSFC, 1/20/02, p.A7)
1991 Cuban composer Julian Obron
died in exile.
(WSJ, 5/27/99, p.A24)
1992 Feb 2, The U.S. Coast Guard
shipped home 250 more Haitian refugees from the Guantanamo Bay Naval
Base in Cuba, a day after repatriating a shipload of about 150 Haitians.
(AP, 2/2/02)
1992 Feb 28, La Lupe (53), Cuban
singer, died of a heart attack in the Bronx.
(MC, 2/28/02)
1992 Feb, An execution was held
for a Cuban exile who tried to infiltrate the island.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A8)
1992 May 25, A 7.0 earthquake on
the Caribbean Plate hit Cuba.
(WSJ, 1/21/97,
p.A18)(http://neic.usgs.gov/neis/eqlists/sig_1992.html)
1992 Cuban poet Dulce Maria Loynaz
(d.1997 at 94) won the prestigious Cervantes Award. She wrote the novel
“Garden” between 1928 and 1935 in a style considered a precursor to
“magical realism.” It wasn’t published until the 1950s. Other works
included “Lyric Works” (1935); “Verses” (1920-1938); “Love Letter for
King Tutankhamen” (1953), “Collected Poems” (1984); “Bestiary” (1985)
and “A Summer in Tenerife” (1987).
(SFC, 4/29/97, p.A20)
1993 Dec 20, Alina Fernandez
Revuelta, a daughter of Cuban President Fidel Castro, flew to Spain,
where she was granted political asylum by the U.S. Embassy.
(AP, 12/20/98)
1993 Robert Quirk authored "the
biography: Fidel Castro."
(SFC, 1/18/00, p.A9)
1993 The autobiography of Marita
Lorenz was published. Lorenz at age 19 had been Fidel Castro's mistress
and was suspected to have been involved in a plot to assassinate him. A
1999 American TV movie, "My Little Assassin," was roughly based on her
life.
(WSJ, 10/8/99, p.W11)
1993 Cuba allowed limited freedom
for small private businesses in 157 spheres of activity.
(Econ, 10/16/04, p.33)
1993 In Cuba the dollar stores
were opened in large part to fight a growing black market in which
goods were traded in dollars without passing through the state's hands.
(AP, 5/11/04)
1993 Pernod Ricard SA acquired the
Cuban Rum Havana Club in a 50-50 joint venture with the Cuban
government.
(Econ, 4/16/05, p.34)(WSJ, 9/7/05, p.B2)
1994 May, Francisco Chaviano,
president of the Cuban National Council for Civil Rights, was arrested.
He was sentenced behind closed doors by a military court about a year
later for allegedly revealing state secrets while documenting the cases
of rafters who disappeared or died trying to leave Cuba. Chaviano was
released in 2007, 2 years shy of his 15-year sentence.
(AP, 8/11/07)
1994 Jun 29, US reopened
Guantanamo Naval Base to process refugees.
(http://tinyurl.com/8j53m)
1994 Aug 5, Some desperate Cubans
invaded foreign embassies to demand asylum. Others hijacked Havana
harbor ferries and tried to take them to the United States. Hundreds of
Cubans spilled onto Havana's seaside Malecon boulevard, picked up rocks
and debris from crumbling buildings and hurled them at police. Fidel
Castro arrived in an army jeep to quiet the disturbance. His appearance
prompted some demonstrators to drop their stones and applaud. In summer
of 1994, food and fuel were scarce and islanders sweated through
hours-long blackouts that stilled fans, air conditioners and water
pumps.
(AP, 8/5/09)
1994 Aug 19, President Clinton
abruptly halted the nation's three-decade open-door policy for Cuban
refugees.
(AP, 8/19/99)
1994 Aug 20, President Clinton
slapped new sanctions on Cuba that included prohibiting payments by
Cuban-Americans to their relatives in Cuba.
(AP, 8/21/04)
1994 Aug 27, The US State
Department said the US and Cuba had agreed to resume talks on Cuban
migration, with the hope of stemming the flow of refugees headed toward
Florida.
(AP, 8/27/99)
1994 Sep 7, After a brief meeting,
the United States and Cuba temporarily suspended talks on stemming the
Cuban refugee exodus.
(AP, 9/7/99)
1994 Sep 9, The United States
agreed to accept at least 20,000 Cuban immigrants a year in return for
Cuba's promise to halt the flight of refugees.
(AP, 9/9/99)
1994 Oct, A Cuban exile took part
in a commando raid during which Arcilio Rodriguez Garcia, a local
official, was shot dead. Humberto Real Suarez and six others were
captured several hours after landing by boat. He was sentenced to death
in 1996 and the others were sentenced to 30-years in prison.
(SFC, 4/26/96, p.A-14)
1994 Nov 8-1994 Nov 21, Hurricane
Gordon caused 1,137 deaths in the Caribbean and eight in the United
States. The storm hit Nicaragua, Cuba and Haiti before striking Florida.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1994 Adam Kufeld, photographer,
had his book “Cuba” published by Norton.
(SFEM,11/16/97, p.28)
1994 Private farmer’s markets
returned to Cuba following huge food shortages due to the collapse of
the Soviet Union.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A10)
1994 Oakland, Ca., adopted a
friendship agreement with Santiago, Cuba.
(SFC, 7/22/00, p.A17)
1994 UNESCO introduced the Marti
prize on the initiative of Cuba to recognize an individual or
institution contributing to the unity and integration of countries of
Latin America and the Caribbean.
(AP, 2/3/06)
1995 May, In Cuba Robert Lee Vesco
was arrested on charges of marketing Trixolane, a cancer and arthritis
drug, without the government’s knowledge.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A8)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.91)
1995 Cuban cigar production
dropped to 50 million per year.
(SFC, 7/13/96, p.A9)
1995 Pres. Castro and his
ministers celebrated a deal with York Medical Inc. for a joint venture
to develop Cuban pharmaceuticals.
(SFC, 3/17/99, p.A14)
1996 Feb 23, Juan Pablo Roque,
Cuban defector and author of "The Deserter," vanished from Miami and
returned to Cuba. In 1999 his wife sued the Cuban government for sexual
battery.
(SFEC, 8/15/99, p.A5)
1996 Feb 24, Cuban war planes shot
down two unarmed private planes flown by a refugee group in Florida.
Cuba claimed the planes violated its airspace. 4 men were killed
including 3 US citizens. In 2001 Gerardo Hernandez (36) was convicted
of conspiracy in the deaths of the aviators. Antonio Guerrero (43),
convicted for spying while working a Navy base in Florida, was
sentenced to life in prison on Dec 27. In 2009 Guerrero’s sentence was
reduced to 20 years.
(WSJ, 2/23/96, p.A-1)(SFC,12/18/97, p.A6)(AP,
2/24/98)(WSJ, 12/13/01, p.A1)(SFC, 10/14/09, p.A4)
1996 Feb 26, President Clinton
moved to step up economic sanctions on Cuba in response to Cuba’s
downing of two unarmed airplanes belonging to the Cuban-American exile
group Brothers to the Rescue.
(AP, 2/26/01)
1996 Mar 12, Pres. Clinton signed
the Helms-Burton Act. It shut off visas to executives and shareholders
of firms doing business in Cuba on property confiscated from Americans.
(SFC, 8/22/96, p.E4)(http://tinyurl.com/lgpgt)
1996 May 1, Cubans began paying
income taxes for the first time in decades.
(SFC, 5/18/96, p.A-9)
1996 Jun 3, The Chilean State Bank
granted an additional $15 mil credit to the Nat’l. Bank of Cuba for
financing Chilean exports to the island.
(WSJ, 8/8/95, p. A10)
1996 Jun 6, Cuba announced plans
to create free trade zones on the island.
(SFC, 6/7/96, p.A15)
1996 Jun 12, Nation of Islam
leader Louis Farrakhan said he has sent a team to Cuba to study the
country’s health and education systems. He praised the Castro regime
for the virtual elimination of illiteracy.
(SFC, 6/12/96, p.A9)
1996 Aug 26, Robert Vesco was
sentenced in Cuba to 13 years in prison for economic crimes against the
state.
(SFC, 8/27/96, p.A8)
1996 Aug, Walter Van Der Veer
(52), an American, was arrested for promoting armed action against
Cuba. He went on closed trial in 1997. He was convicted and
sentenced to 15 years in prison.
(SFC, 10/3/97, p.B2)(SFC,11/27/97, p.B2)
1996 Oct 21, An American crop
duster flew over Cuba on its way to Bogota, Columbia. In 1997 Cuba
claimed before the UN that the plane dusted Cuban fields with a
biological pest, thrips palmi.
(SFC, 8/26/97, p.A4)
1996 Oct 24, A UN report said
Hurricane Lili destroyed 5,460 homes and damaged over 78,000. The
Clinton administration waived a ban on air service and approved a
charter flight for relief aid.
(SFC, 10/24/96, p.D5)
1996 The Buena Vista Social Club,
a Cuban recording group organized by Ry Cooder and Nick Gold, recorded
its debut album (released in 1997), at EGREM studios in Havana. The
group featured Orlando "Cachaito" Lopez, Compay Segundo, Omara
Portuondo, Ry Cooder and others. In 1999 the documentary film “Buena
Vista Social Club” was made by Wim Wenders.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.B1)(SFEM, 10/3/99, p.31)
1997 Jan 21, The construction of 2
Russian style VVER-440 nuclear reactors was continuing at Juragua
despite structural problems.
(WSJ, 1/21/97, p.A18)
1997 Jan 22, Canada and Cuba
announced a 14-point agreement. They pledged cooperation on human
rights and sought to shield foreign investors targeted for punishment
by Washington.
(SFC, 1/23/96, p.A8)
1997 Feb 12, The Clinton
administration gave permission to 10 U.S. news organizations to open
bureaus in Cuba.
(AP, 2/12/98)
1997 Apr-1997 Sep, In Cuba
terrorist bombings during this period were carried out by a ring of
Salvadoran car thieves hired by Cuban exiles in Miami for $15,000. The
money was raised by Luis Posada Carriles. Posada at first acknowledged
and then denied a role in the attacks.
(SFC,11/17/97, p.A14)(SFC, 5/18/05, p.A9)
1997 May 5, Farmers in Loma del
Gato founded a work cooperative named Transicion and announced that
they would no longer do business with the government. The government
responded with harassing tactics.
(SFC, 1/5/99, p.A10)
1997 Jul 11, A Cuban An-24
passenger plane with 44 people plunged into the sea after take-off from
Santiago de Cuba enroute to Havana.
(SFC, 7/12/97, p.A14)
1997 Jul 16, In Cuba Vladimiro
Roca, Martha Beatriz Roque, Felix Bonne, and Rene Gomez Manzano were
detained for issuing a document "La Patria es de Todos," criticizing
the political system. They were scheduled for a trial on charges of
sedition in 1999. The Prosecution recommended a 6 year sentence for
Roca and 5 year sentences for the others after the 4 rejected a
government offer to go into exile. Roca was sentenced to 5 years,
Manzano and Bonne to 4 years, and Roque to 3 ½ years.
(USAT, 10/9/98, p.13A)(SFC, 2/27/99, p.A17)(SFC,
3/3/99, p.A10)(SFC, 3/16/99, p.A8)
1997 Jul 23, Elio Reve Matos,
salsa musician, died in a road accident. He developed the rhythm known
as “charangon,” a combination of salsa styles that included “changui”
and “son.”
(SFC, 7/26/97, p.A24)
1997 Aug 4, In Cuba a small
explosion damaged a lobby in a Havana hotel. US-based groups were
blamed for this and a pair of bombings from 3 weeks ago. Otto Rene
Rodriguez Llerena confessed to the explosion at the Melia Cohiba Hotel,
which caused no injuries and little damage. He was sentenced to death
in 1999.
(WSJ, 8/5/97, p.A1)(SFC, 4/2/99, p.D2)
1997 Sep 4, In Cuba an explosion
shook 3 tourist hotels and one Italian tourist was killed. Raul Ernesto
Cruz Leon (25) of Salvador was arrested and accused of carrying out a
half-dozen hotel attacks. He worked for Luis Posada Carriles, who was
supported by the Cuban-American National Foundation. Cruz was sentenced
to death in 1999.
(SFC, 9/5/97, p.A12)(SFEC, 7/12/98, p.A21)(WSJ,
3/24/99, p.A1)
1997 Sep 10, A former Salvadoran
soldier was arrested and confessed to carrying out a series of bomb
attacks. A statement said that Raul Ernesto Cruz was paid $4,500 for
each bomb he planted and that he had been trained in El Salvador.
(SFC, 9/11/97, p.A12)
1997 Oct 10, Fidel Castro was
re-elected president at the close of the 5th national congress. His
brother Raul was re-elected as 2nd in command.
(SFC, 10/12/97, p.A19)
1997 Oct 17, The remains of
revolutionary Ernesto "Che" Guevara (1928-1967) were laid to rest in
his adopted Cuba in Santa Clara, 30 years after his execution in
Bolivia.
(SFC,10/18/97, p.A10)(AP, 10/17/98)
1997 Oct 22-1997 Oct 28, Fidel
Castro was hospitalized for hypertensive encephalopathy.
(SFEC, 7/20/98, p.A9)
1997 Oct 27, The US Coast Guard
arrested 3 Cuban American men on a yacht with sniper rifles,
ammunition, night-vision goggles and satellite navigation equipment.
They were stopped off Puerto Rico and were headed for Margarita Island
where Fidel Castro was to attend a summit. The men and 2 others were
acquitted in 1999 of plotting to kill Castro.
(SFC, 12/9/99, p.A5)
1997 Nov 6, In Cuba a train-bus
crash killed at least 56 people at Urbano Rey in the eastern sugar
province of Holguin.
(WSJ, 11/7/97, p.A1)
1997 Nov 23, Jorge Mas Canosa,
Cuban exile leader and head of MasTec, died in Miami. He helped create
Radio Marti and TV Marti and served as chairman of the US Information
Agency stations that beamed uncensored news to Cuba.
(SFC,11/24/97, p.A21)
1997 Dec 14, Cuban President Fidel
Castro declared Christmas 1997 an official holiday to ensure the
success of Pope John Paul II's upcoming visit in January.
(SFC,12/15/97, p.B1)(AP, 12/14/98)
1997 Dec 17, A US court ordered
Cuba to pay $187.6 million for three men killed when their planes were
shot down Feb 24, 1996 by MiG fighters.
(WSJ, 12/18/97, p.A1)
1997 Dec 20, Pope John Paul II
sent Christmas greetings to the Cuban people in advance of his visit to
the island.
(AP, 12/20/98)
1997 Joseph Scarpaci co-authored
"Havana: Two Faces of the Antillean Metropolis."
(SFC, 5/17/99, p.A8)
1997 The film “Guantanamera” was
directed by Tomas Gutierrez and Juan Carlos Tabio. it was about
contemporary life in Cuba.
(WSJ, 8/19/97, p.A17)
1998 Jan 17, It was reported that
the US military had begun to clear away over 50,000 land mines around
Guantanamo Naval base. The base was defended by 400 marines.
(SFC, 1/17/98, p.A10)
1998 Jan 21-1998 Jan 25, Pope John
Paul II was scheduled to visit Cuba.
(SFC, 1/8/98, p.B2)
1998 Jan 22, On the first full day
of his visit to Cuba, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass, preaching the
message, "Be not afraid."
(AP, 1/22/99)
1998 Jan 23, Pope John Paul II
condemned the US embargo against Catholic Cuba.
(www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/latin_america/jan-june98/pope_1-23.html)
1998 Jan 24, Pope John Paul II,
delivering blunt political messages during his visit to Cuba, called
for the release of "prisoners of conscience" and respect for freedom of
expression, initiative and association.
(AP, 1/24/99)
1998 Jan 25, In Cuba Pope John
Paul II spoke in Revolution Square on his final day in the country. He
urged Castro to respect human rights.
(WSJ, 1/26/98, p.A1)
1998 Feb 12, The Cuban government
announced that over 200 inmates held on political and other charges
would be released.
(SFC, 2/13/98, p.D2)
1998 Mar 12, Manuel Pineiro
(b.1934), the leader of Cuba’s intelligence apparatus, died in a car
crash at age 63.
(SFC, 3/14/98, p.A19)
1998 Mar 19, Pres. Clinton eased
US restrictions on humanitarian aid and travel to Cuba. Cuban-American
households would be allowed to send back $1,200 a year.
(WSJ, 3/20/98, p.A1)
1998 Mar 27, Two oil tankers
collided and spilled heavy crude into Matanzas Bay, 60 miles east of
Havana.
(SFC, 3/28/98, p.A9)
1998 Apr 8, Cuba restored
relations with the Dominican Republic.
(WSJ, 4/9/98, p.A1)
1998 Apr 26, Jean Chretien, Prime
Minister of Canada, visited Cuba and with Fidel Castro inaugurated a
new $40 million terminal at the Havana airport.
(SFC, 4/20/98, p.A10)(SFC, 4/27/98, p.A12)
1998 Apr 27, Canada’s PM Chretien
urged Fidel Castro to release four leading dissidents. It was reported
that about 350 political prisoners were currently held.
(SFC, 4/28/98, p.A6)
1998 Jul 2, From California the
Oakland Youth Orchestra performed at the Gran Teatro de la Habana in
Cuba. The group had already performed in Mexico City, Toluca and
Cuernavaca.
(SFC, 7/11/98, p.B6)
1998 Jul 15, Direct flights
between the US and Cuba resumed after 2 years. US authorities expanded
a “security zone” to include most of the Florida coast to prevent
anti-Castro protestors from entering Cuban waters.
(SFC, 7/16/98, p.A10)
1998 Aug 20, Fidel Castro (72)
visited the Dominican Republic for a regional meeting on trade
negotiations with Europe. He was greeted by Pres. Leonel Fernandez (44).
(SFC, 8/21/98, p.A15)
1998 Aug 29, In Quito, Ecuador, a
Cuban plane with 90 people onboard crashed. 80 people were killed
including 5 children playing on the ground. At least 8 people survived
the crash of the Russian-made Tupelov-154.
(SFEC, 8/28/98, p.A15)(SFC, 8/31/98, p.A10)(AP,
8/29/08)
1998 Sep 14, In Miami ten
suspected Cuban spies were arrested for trying to penetrate the
military and exile groups. Five men later pleaded guilty to lesser
charges; the trial of the other five has been postponed until May 2000.
The 5 remaining men were convicted in June, 2001, for acting as
unregistered agents and conspiracy to commit crimes against the US. In
2009 a federal judge lowered the life sentence of Ramon Labanino to 30
years. The 19-year sentence against Fernando Gonzalez was reduced to
about 18 years.
(WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A1) (WSJ, 9/15/98, p.A1)(AP,
9/14/99)(SSFC, 8/5/07, p.A19)
1998 Sep 15-1998 Oct 1, Hurricane
Georges caused 602 deaths in the Caribbean and four in the United
States. The storm hit the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Puerto Rico,
Antigua, Guadeloupe, St. Kitts and Nevis, Anguilla and British and U.S.
Virgin Islands before striking Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and
Florida.
(AP, 9/11/04)(www.wunderground.com)
1998 Sep 23, The death toll from
hurricane Georges reached 110. 17 people were killed in Haiti and 17 in
the Dominican Republic as the storm hit Cuba.
(SFC, 9/24/98, p.A12)(WSJ, 9/24/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 24, The death toll from
Hurricane Georges reached 6.
(SFC, 9/25/98, p.A16)(SFC, 10/3/98, p.A11)
1998 Sep, Two Italian tourists,
Fabio Usubelli and Michelle Niccolai, were killed during a robbery. In
1999 Sergio Antonio Durate Scull and Carlos Rafael Pelaez Prieto were
convicted and sentenced to death.
(SFC, 1/29/99, p.E9)
1998 Oct 14, The UN for a 7th year
called for an end to the US economic embargo against Cuba. Only the US
and Israel cast negative votes.
(SFC, 10/15/98, p.C4)
1998 Nov 7, Japan offered more
than $9 million in aid to Cuba with most of the money as a direct
donation to buy rice. A 5 month drought followed by Hurricane Georges
caused heavy agricultural losses.
(SFEC, 11/8/98, p.A28)
1998 Nov 22, Rolando Laserie,
Cuban vocalist, died at age 75 in Florida. He was known as El
Guapachoso, or the Ebullient One.
(SFC, 11/25/98, p.B4)
1998 Dec 1, Granma, the only daily
newspaper, recommended that Christmas be re-established as a permanent
holiday.
(SFC, 12/2/98, p.A10)
1998 Dec 17, A boatload of Cubans
capsized off Elliot Key, Fla., during an immigrant-smuggling attempt
and at least 8 people were drowned.
(SFC, 12/19/98, p.A7)
1998 The Latin American School of
Medical Science opened in Cuba. It was created as a regional initiative
after two hurricanes devastated Caribbean and Central American nations.
The first class of 1,500 students graduated in 2005.
(AP, 8/21/05)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.35)
1999 Jan 1, President Fidel
Castro, marking 40 years as Cuba's leader, portrayed his socialist
nation as a defender of humanity against rapacious capitalism.
(AP, 1/1/00)
1999 Feb 6, The Health Ministry
said 14 people died from food poisoning in Manguito. They had all eaten
products from a food vendor who also died.
(SFC, 2/8/99, p.A11)
1999 Feb 25, Cuba cut phone
service to AT&T and MCI WorldCom for unpaid bills. The phone
companies were withholding payments pending a lawsuit by relatives of 4
Cuban Americans, whose aircraft were shot down in Feb 1996.
(SFC, 2/26/99, p.A14)
1999 Mar 18, A US federal judge
ordered US telephone companies to pay $6.2 million owed to Cuba to the
families of 3 Cuban Americans killed in 1996.
(SFC, 3/19/99, p.A12)
1999 May 3, In Baltimore the Cuban
baseball team beat the Baltimore Orioles 12-6. 7 members missed the
departure the next day and one coach, Rigoberto Betancourt Herrera, was
reported to have defected, as the others over slept. The 6 stragglers
departed May 5.
(SFC, 5/5/99, p.A1,6)(SFC, 5/6/99, p.A7)
1999 May 11, In Cuba 2 tornadoes
killed 5 people.
(WSJ, 5/12/99, p.A1)
1999 May 14, Cuba and Russia
agreed on a joint venture to complete a nuclear reactor at the Juragua
power station in Cuba.
(SFC, 5/15/99, p.A14)
1999 May 28, In Cuba Pres. Castro
replaced Roberto Robaina (43) as foreign minister with Felipe Perez
Roque (34). Robaina had served in the office for 6 years.
(SFC, 5/29/99, p.A13)
1999 Jun 1, Cuba filed a $181.1
billion compensation claim against the US for deaths and injuries in
what it called a 40 year "dirty war" against Pres. Castro's government.
(SFC, 6/2/99, p.A12)
1999 Jun 7, In Cuba some 25
dissidents, led by Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, went on a hunger strike and
demanded the release of scores of people described as political
prisoners.
(SFC, 6/8/99, p.A12)(SFC, 6/15/99, p.C5)
1999 Jun 20, The Cuban Evangelical
Celebration, billed as the first Protestant gathering of its kind, was
held in Havana's Plaza of the Revolution with Castro present.
(SFC, 6/21/99, p.A10)
1999 Jul 3, A boat smuggling 11
people out of Cuba capsized and one person was killed. Joel Dorta
Garcia (27) and David Garcia Capote (33) were arrested and accused of
charging $8,000 for smuggling each passenger.
(SFC, 8/28/99, p.A11)
1999 Jul, Marta Beatriz Roque
began a liquids only hunger strike after she was imprisoned in Cuba for
her role in writing "The Homeland Belongs to All."
(WSJ, 8/27/99, p.A9)
1999 Aug 4, Cuban high jumper
Javier Sotomajor was stripped of his gold medal from the Pan American
Games after he tested positive for cocaine.
(WSJ, 8/5/99, p.A1)
1999 Oct 11, Israel confirmed that
some 400 Jews from Cuba were brought to Israel over the last 5 years in
a secret operation.
(SFC, 10/12/99, p.A8)
1999 Oct 14, Hurricane Irene
drenched Cuba and proceeded to the Florida keys.
(SFC, 10/15/99, p.D4)
1999 Nov 6, The UN General
Assembly approved for the 8th time in 8 years a resolution condemning
the US embargo of Cuba.
(SFC, 11/27/99, p.A14)
1999 Nov 16, A 2-day
Ibero-American summit for heads of state from Latin America, Spain and
Portugal met in Havana. Int'l. finance and the effects of economic
globalization on developing countries was the central theme. The 18
heads of state signed a Havana Declaration.
(SFEC, 11/14/99, p.A22)(SFC, 11/17/99, p.A20)
1999 Nov 25, A 5-year-old boy, one
of 14 escapees from Cuba, was saved by sport fisherman off Florida
while 9 people drowned. The fate of Elian Gonzalez was in question
after his father called for his return to Cuba. This set off an
international custody battle between relatives in Miami and Elian's
father in Cuba.
(SFC, 11/26/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/1/99, p.A7)(AP,
11/25/06)
1999 Dec 3, Regular but restricted
passenger service from NY to Havana was resumed for the 1st time in
nearly 4 decades with a flight by Marazul Charters.
(SFC, 12/4/99, p.A6)
1999 Dec 13, In Louisiana 8 Cuban
nationals at the St. Matin Parish jail in St. Martinville took as
hostage Warden Todd Louvierre, 2 deputies, and 5 inmates. They demanded
either freedom or deportation. 2 Cubans surrendered on Dec 17 and freed
3 female hostages. An agreement was reached Dec 18 for the Cubans to
return to Cuba.
(SFC, 12/15/99, p.A3)(SFC, 12/18/99, p.A3)(SFEC,
12/19/99, p.A18)
1999 Dec 25, A Cuban airplane,
Russian-made YAK-42, with 22 people crashed just before landing in the
northern Venezuelan state of Carabobo.
(SFEC, 12/26/99, p.D6)
2000 Jan 5, Touching off angry
protests by Cuban-Americans in Miami, the US government decided to send
six-year-old Elian Gonzalez back to Cuba. After a legal battle, and the
seizure of Elian from the home of his US relatives, the boy was
returned to Cuba in June.
(SFC, 1/6/00, p.A1)(AP, 1/5/01)
2000 Jan 12, US Attorney General
Janet Reno said that the Florida court order granting temporary custody
of Elian Gonzalez to his great uncle had no force or effect on the INS
decision that the boy should be returned to his father in Cuba.
(SFC, 1/13/00, p.A3)
2000 Jan 14, In a massive
demonstration demanding the return of Elian Gonzalez, tens of thousands
of Cuban women marched to the U-S mission in Havana, waving Cuban flags
and chanting, “Bring back our son!”
(AP, 1/14/01)
2000 Feb 26, Jose Imperatori, vice
consul at the Cuban interests section in Washington, was expelled from
the US after he refused to leave voluntarily under charges of spying.
(SFEC, 2/27/00, p.A15)
2000 Feb 27, Jose Imperatori, the
Cuban diplomat expelled from the US for spying, took refuge in the
Cuban embassy in Ottowa.
(SFC, 2/28/00, p.C2)
2000 Mar 21, A US Federal Judge
ruled that Elian Gonzalez should be returned to his father in Cuba.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A3)
2000 Apr 6, Juan Miguel Gonzalez,
the father of Elian Gonzalez, arrived in Washington DC with his wife
and baby son to press his case for the return of his son from relatives
in Miami.
(SFC, 4/7/00, p.A1)
2000 Apr 12, Attorney General
Janet Reno met in Miami with the US relatives of Elian Gonzalez, after
which she ordered them to bring the six-year-old boy to an airport the
next day so he could be taken to a reunion with his father in
Washington. Elian was seized by federal agents ten days after Reno’s
order to turn him over.
(SFC, 4/13/00, p.A1)(AP, 4/12/01)
2000 Apr 14, Leaders of developing
nations called for a “New Global Human Order’ to spread the world’s
wealth and power. The Group of 77, expanded to 133, made the call
during a 3 day summit in Havana.
(SFC, 4/15/00, p.A12)
2000 Jun 17, In Cuba, more than
300,000 people turned out to protest the continued stay of Elian
Gonzalez in the United States; it was the largest such demonstration
since the previous December, when Cuba launched a national campaign of
mass gatherings demanding the boy’s return.
(AP, 6/17/01)
2000 Jul 26, In Cuba over 1
million protestors marched in Havana against the US trade embargo.
(SFC, 7/27/00, p.C3)
2000 Jul 27, In Cuba Oakland’s
Mayor Jerry Brown signed an agreement with Mayor Nicolas Carbonell
Igarza of Santiago, Cuba, for people-to-people exchanges as sister
cities. The next day Brown met and lunched with Pres. Castro.
(SFC, 7/29/00, p.A17)
2000 Sep 19, Nine Cubans were
rescued at sea after their Antonov AN-2 biplane plunged into the Gulf
of Mexico. The cargo ship Chios Dream pulled found the survivors and a
10th body. Immigration officials soon granted their legal entry to the
US.
(SFC, 9/20/00, p.A12)(SFC, 9/22/00, p.A9)
2000 Sep 25, In Cuba thousands of
protestors joined Fidel Castro to protest US immigration policies.
(SFC, 9/26/00, p.A14)
2000 Oct 26, In Venezuela Pres.
Chavez greeted Fidel Castro and they planned an accord for oil
shipments to Cuba in exchange for bartered products and services.
(SFC, 10/27/00, p.D2)
2000 Oct, Cuba imposed a new
telephone tax in response to the US decision to use $58 million in
frozen Cuban assets to pay the families of Cuban American pilots shot
down by Cuban fighter jets in 1996.
(SFC, 12/16/00, p.A21)
2000 Oct, Pres. Clinton signed
into law the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act (TSRA),
which for the first time allowed US companies to sell agricultural
products, medical supplies, and processed foods on a cash basis
directly to Cuba.
(www.uiowa.edu/ifdebook/issues/cuba/perspectives/carrasco.shtml)
2000 Nov 17, In Panama Luis
Posada, an anti-Castro terrorist, was arrested along with other
Cuban-Americans associated with anti-Communist groups, after Fidel
Castro arrived for a regional summit.
(SFC, 11/22/00, p.A19)
2000 Dec 8, Fidel Castro spoke in
Havana at the unveiling of a statue to John Lennon of the Beatles.
(WSJ, 6/14/01, p.A18)
2000 Dec 13, Russia’s Pres. Putin
traveled to Cuba for business and rest. There was a $20 billion debt
owed by Cuba to the former Soviet Union.
(SFC, 12/14/00, p.C8)(SSFC, 12/17/00, p.D2)
2000 Dec 14, Vladimir Putin, the
first Russian president to visit Cuba since the collapse of the Soviet
Union, held talks with Fidel Castro in Havana.
(AP, 12/14/02)
2000 Dec 17, Cuba and Russia
agreed to abandon the nuclear power plant at Juragua. Pres. Putin
pushed Castro to recognize a small portion of the Soviet-era debt,
estimated at $20 billion.
(SFC, 12/18/00, p.E6)
2000 Dec 24, Heavy weekend rains
swamped Havana and left 2 people dead.
(SFC, 12/27/00, p.C4)
2000 Dec 24, Alberto Vazquez (17)
and Maikel Fonseca (16) died from freezing temperatures after they
climbed into the wheel well of a British Airways Boeing 777 destined
for London.
(SFC, 1/18/01, p.A14)
2001 Feb 5, Cuba freed 2 prominent
Czechs held for over 3 weeks for attempting to meet with dissidents.
(WSJ, 2/6/00, p.A1)
2001 Apr 19, A US cargo ship
departed from Jacksonville, Fla., for Cuba, the 1st scheduled ship in
40 years. 2 days later the ship failed to dock in Cuba.
(SFC, 4/20/01, p.A13)(WSJ, 4/23/01, p.A1)
2001 May 15, Fidel Castro arrived
in Syria from Qatar for a 2-day visit.
(SFC, 5/16/01, p.D14)
2001 May 31, A group of
journalists led by Raul Rivero formed an independent association, the
1st under Castro’s rule.
(SFC, 6/1/01, p.D3)
2001 Jun 8, Five Cuban men were
convicted in the US for operating as unregistered foreign agents.
Gerardo Hernandez (36) was sentenced to life in prison on Dec 12 for
conspiracy in the deaths of 4 aviators shot down by Cuba in 1996.
Antonio Guerrero (43), convicted for spying while working a Navy base
in Florida, was sentenced to life in prison on Dec 27. In 2009
Guerrero’s sentence was reduced to 20 years.
(SFC, 12/13/01, p.A4)(SFC, 12/28/01, p.A5)(SFC,
10/14/09, p.A4)
2001 Jul 13, Pres. Bush ordered
toughened enforcement of the sanctions against Cuba and promised to
expand support for human rights activists there.
(SFC, 7/14/01, p.A11)
2001 Aug 1, A boatload of Cubans
capsized off Key West and at least 2 people died. 4 were missing and 22
were rescued.
(WSJ, 8/2/01, p.A1)
2001 Aug 17, Gen. Raul Menendez
Tomassevitch, a founding member of the Communist Party of Cuba, died.
(SFC, 8/18/01, p.E3)
2001 Aug 23, Frank Emilio Flynn,
blind pianist and Latin jazz pioneer, died at age 80 in Havana.
(SFC, 8/30/01, p.C2)
2001 Sep 21, Ana Belen Montes, an
employee of the US Defense Intelligence Agency since 1985, was charged
with spying for Cuba. She pleaded guilty in 2002 and was sentenced to
25 years in jail.
(SFC, 9/22/01, p.A20)(WSJ, 3/20/02, p.A1)(SFC,
10/16/02, p.A9)
2001 Nov 4, Hurricane Michelle hit
Cuba and forced the evacuation of 750,000. At least 5 people were
killed.
(SFC, 11/5/01, p.A1)(SFC, 11/6/01, p.A13)
2001 Nov 20, A speedboat, believed
to be carrying 30 smuggled Cubans, capsized in the Florida Straits and
all were believed drowned.
(SFC, 11/21/01, p.A17)
2001 Dec 12, Gerardo Hernandez,
the leader of a Cuban spy ring, received a life sentence in federal
court in Miami for his role in the infiltration of US military bases
and the deaths of four Cuban-Americans in 1996.
(AP, 12/12/02)
2001 Dec 14, The US shipped a load
of corn to Cuba, the 1st American food shipment there since 1963.
(SFC, 12/15/01, p.A8)
2001 Dec 16, The first U.S.
commercial food shipments since 1963 arrived in communist Cuba. The
Mexican freighter N.V. Ikon Mazatlan arrived in Cuba with 26,400 tons
of American corn a day after 500 tons of American frozen chicken parts
were received.
(SFC, 12/17/01, p.A3)(AP, 12/16/02)
2001 Dec 18, Cuba reported that
attackers killed a visiting Florida couple, their 8-year-old grandson
and 2 others during a highway robbery in Matanzas province.
(SFC, 12/19/01, p.A4)(WSJ, 12/19/01, p.A1)
2001-2003 Cuba ran up an oil debt to Venezuela of
some $752 million.
(WSJ, 2/2/04, p.A1)
2001-2004 Activists of Oswaldo Paya’s Christian
Liberation Movement gathered 25,000 signatures in a vain attempt to
persuade Cuba’s National Assembly to change the constitution to allow
multi-party democracy.
(Econ, 12/17/05, p.38)
2002 Jan 4, George and Marisol
Gari, members of the Wasp network Cuban spy ring, were sentenced in
Florida to 7 and 3.5 years.
(SFC, 1/5/02, p.A6)
2002 Jan 6, Construction began to
expand Camp X-Ray at the US Guantanamo base in Cuba to house detainees
from Afghanistan. The 1st prisoners arrived Jan 11. As the number of
prisoners rose Camp Delta was added.
(WSJ, 1/26/05, p.A10)
2002 Jan 10, A US military
transport took off carrying al Qaeda and Taliban prisoners to the US
Guantanamo Bay naval base in Cuba. Prisoners were set up in an area
called Camp X-Ray. In 2004 David Rose authored “Guantanamo: The War on
Human Rights.”
(SFC, 1/11/02, p.A5)(SFC, 1/26/02, p.A10)(SSFC,
11/21/04, p.E6)
2002 Jan 27, Honduras restored
diplomatic ties with Cuba just before Ricardo Maduro took office.
(WSJ, 1/28/02, p.A1)
2003 Feb 1, Mongo Santamaria
(81/85), Cuban-born Latin jazzman, died in Miami.
(WSJ, 2/3/03, p.A1)(SFC, 2/5/03, p.A22)(SSFC,
12/28/03, p.E4)
2002 Feb 3, In Havana Fidel Castro
met with Pres. Fox of Mexico.
(SFC, 2/4/02, p.A4)
2002 Feb 4, In Havana Pres. Fox of
Mexico met with 7 prominent dissidents.
(SFC, 2/5/02, p.A7)
2002 Feb 27, In Havana 21 Cubans
took refuge in the Mexican Embassy after plowing through its gates in a
stolen bus. Mexican diplomats found the Cubans to be economic refugees
and requested a raid. A Cuban special unit arrested the asylum seekers
on Mar 1.
(SFC, 3/1/02, p.A16)(SFC, 3/2/02, p.A8)
2002 May 5, In Cuba Fidel Castro
freed Vladimiro Roca (59), jailed 5 years ago for sedition, ahead of
Pres. Carter’s visit.
(SFC, 5/6/02, p.A3)
2002 May 10, In Cuba activists of
the Varela Project delivered 11,000 petitions for greater freedom to
Pres. Castro. Oswaldo Paya created the project based on Article 88 of
the 1976 Constitution.
(SFC, 5/11/02, p.A9)(WSJ, 5/13/02, p.A1)
2002 May 12, Former US Pres. Jimmy
Carter arrived in Cuba and Castro offered him an unfettered access. He
was the 1st US president, in or out of office, to visit since the 1959
revolution that put Fidel Castro in power.
(WSJ, 5/13/02, p.A1)(AP, 5/12/03)
2002 May 13, In Cuba former US
Pres. Carter challenged US government conservatives to prove charges
that Cuba has developed biological weapons and shared such technology
with renegade states.
(SFC, 5/14/02, p.A9)
2002 May 14, Former Pres. Carter
addressed the Cuban people and said the US should end its embargo and
that Cuba should become more democratic.
(SFC, 5/15/02, p.A1)
2002 May 16, Jimmy Carter met with
over 20 dissidents and urged them to continue fighting for democratic
change and human rights.
(SFC, 5/17/02, p.A14)
2002 May 17, Former President
Jimmy Carter ended a historic visit to Cuba sharply at odds with the
Bush administration over how to deal with Fidel Castro, saying limits
on tourism and trade often hurt Americans more than Cubans.
(AP, 5/17/03)
2002 May 20, Pres. Bush marked
Cuban Independence Day with a speech that offered Cuba greater economic
and political ties in exchange for free and transparent elections and
an open economy.
(WSJ, 5/20/02, p.A3)(SFC, 5/21/02, p.A3)
2002 Jun 12, Fidel Castro led
hundreds of thousands of people in support of a constitutional
amendment declaring Cuba's socialist state "untouchable." It was a
protest to President Bush's policies toward Cuba and defiance for
democratic reforms of his one-party system. A proposed amendment
outlined Cuba as a socialist state of workers… organized with all and
for the good of all…”
(AP, 6/12/02)(SFC, 6/12/02, p.A13)
2002 Jun 27, Cuba's one-party
socialist state was engraved in the constitution as "irrevocable" after
Fidel Castro's communist parliament followed his lead and rejected
domestic and foreign efforts to introduce democratic reforms.
(AP, 6/27/02)
2002 Jul 8, Ralph Nader attended a
dinner with Cuban leader Fidel Castro as the consumer advocate began a
three-day visit to the communist nation.
(AP, 7/8/02)
2002 Jul 8, Cuban poet and writer
Cintio Vitier was named winner of Mexico's Juan Rulfo Prize for
literature.
(AP, 7/8/02)
2002 Jul 22, North Dakota's Gov.
John Hoeven headed to Cuba to promote trade of peas, wheat and other
foods to the communist island from his state. It was only the 2nd visit
to Cuba by a sitting American governor in some 40 years.
(AP, 7/22/02)
2002 Jul 29, In Canada at least 23
young Cubans from a group who traveled to see Pope John Paul II decided
not to return to the communist-ruled island.
(Reuters, 7/29/02)
2002 Aug 29, Assailants entered a
home in Artemisa, a village in western Cuba and killed five people,
including four members of a family, apparently by cutting their throats.
(AP, 8/31/02)
2002 Sep 29, Cuba struck deals to
buy more than $66 million of American food during a mammoth
agribusiness show aimed at bringing more U.S. farm products to the
communist island. More contracts were expected.
(AP, 9/30/02)
2002 Oct 21, Millions of Cubans
went to the polls to choose new municipal officials, the men and women
charged with solving all manner of neighborhood problems, from lack of
water to deteriorating buildings.
(AP, 10/21/02)
2002 Oct 23, The European
Parliament's Conference of Presidents announced that it chose Oswaldo
Paya of Cuba for the prestigious 2002 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of
Thought.
(AP, 10/24/02)
2002 Nov 11, A two-seat crop
sprayer crammed with eight members of a Cuban family, including a baby,
landed at the Key West airport in an apparent bid for asylum by those
aboard.
(AP, 11/12/02)
2002 Nov 26, Cuban musician Polo
Montanez (47), born as Fernando Borrego, died from head injuries
suffered in a Nov 20 car crash. His country-style music was hugely
popular throughout Latin America.
(AP, 11/27/02)(SFC, 11/29/02, p.A27)
2002 Dec 10, A train accident at
Coliseo, Cuba, killed 14 people and injured more than 70.
(AP, 12/11/02)(SFC, 12/12/02, p.A20)
2003 Jan 19, In Cuba more than 97
percent of voters showed overwhelming support for the nation's
socialist system by electing 609 candidates who ran uncontested for
parliament.
(AP, 1/20/03)
2003 Feb 27, In Cuba
America’s top diplomat said that the Castro government had seized some
5,101 books shipped in by the US government.
(SFC, 2/28/03, A13)
2003 Mar 2, Fidel Castro
offered to mediate with North Korea over its nuclear program, though he
acknowledged Cuba’s ability to stem the growing crisis was limited.
(AP, 3/2/03)
2003 Mar 6, Pres. Fidel
Castro was elected a sixth term and he wasted no time in criticizing
the US, warning that Cuba doesn’t need its foreign office.
(AP, 3/7/03)
2003 Mar 10, The European
Union opened a new office in Cuba.
(AP, 3/10/03)
2003 Mar 19, A Cuban airliner was
hijacked to Key West. 6 hijackers took control of the plane without
telling the 25 passengers and six crew members about their asylum
plans. The six were later convicted of federal hijacking charges.
(SFC, 3/20/03, p.A15)(AP, 3/19/04)
2003 Mar 20, Fidel Castro's agents
arrested some of the government's leading critics in a crackdown that
has netted at least 65 dissidents accused of working with US diplomats
to undermine Cuba's socialist system.
(AP, 3/21/03)
2003 Apr 1, In the second
hijacking of a Cuban plane in as many weeks, a hijacker claiming to
have two grenades surrendered an hour after forcing the aircraft to
land in Florida with 32 people aboard.
(AP, 4/2/03)
2003 Apr 3, Cuban security forces
arrested the hijackers of a passenger ferry, rescuing nearly 50
hostages.
(AP, 4/3/04)
2003 Apr 4, A standoff between
Cuban troops and the hijackers of a small ferry who had tried to sail
to Florida ended as soldiers stormed the boat and hostages jumped
overboard to safety.
(AP, 4/5/03)
2003 Apr 7, Cuba handed down
sentences of 15-27 years to the 1st 7 of 80 recently rounded
dissidents. Activists of Oswaldo Paya’s Christian Liberation Movement
made up more than two-thirds of those arrested. In response the EU
imposed diplomatic sanctions and Cuban officials boycotted embassy
functions in what came to be called the “cocktail war.” The sanctions
were suspended in 2005 and lifted in 2008.
(AP, 4/8/03)(Econ, 12/17/05, p.38)(Econ, 6/28/08,
p.44)
2003 Apr 11, Fidel Castro's
government executed three men who hijacked a ferry by firing squad in a
chilling message to anyone else who tries to commandeer a boat or plane
to the United States.
(AP, 4/12/03)
2003 Apr 17, In central Cuba a bus
and a semi truck collided on a highway, killing at least 30 people and
injuring 71.
(AP, 4/17/03)
2003 Jul 10, Cuba signed an
operating agreement with the Port of Corpus Christi, an agreement that
could help erode the long-standing US embargo of the island.
(AP, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 11, The Canadian
government gave Air Canada the right to operate scheduled passenger
flights to Cuba.
(Reuters, 7/11/03)
2003 Jul 13, Compay Segundo (95),
a once-forgotten Cuban musician who gained worldwide fame with the
"Buena Vista Social Club," died in Havana.
(AP, 7/14/03)
2003 Jul 16, Celia Cruz (77),
Cuban-born Latin music singer, died in Fort Lee, NJ.
(SFC, 7/17/03, p.A21)
2003 Jul 26, Cuba celebrated the
50th anniversary of the start of Fidel Castro's revolution against
Fulgencio Batista.
(AP, 7/26/04)
2003 Sep 26, In Cuba Brazil's
Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva signed business accords with Castro
that included an agreement to renegotiate Havana's $40 million debt
with Brazil.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 27, Brazil and Cuba
signed $200 million in new business deals in Cuba by private Brazilian
enterprises.
(AP, 9/27/03)
2003 Sep 28, Cuba's foreign
minister made an impassioned appeal for the lifting of the trade
embargo against his country, saying the blockade has cost the Caribbean
nation $72 billion in the last 42 years.
(AP, 9/28/03)
2003 Oct 3, Oswaldo Paya, top
democracy activist, launched a new challenge to Fidel Castro's
government as part of the Varela Project, turning in more than 14,000
signatures of people seeking a human rights referendum just six months
after a crackdown on the opposition.
(AP, 10/4/03)
2003 Nov 2, In Havana, Cuba, 71
American firms from 18 states and Puerto Rico opened trade fair
displays under an exception in a 42-year US trade embargo.
(AP, 11/2/03)
2003 Dec 8, Cuban pianist Ruben
Gonzalez (84), who found new fame in the mid-1990s playing with Compay
Segundo's Buena Vista Social Club band, died in Havana.
(AP, 12/9/03)
2003 Dec 13, More than 250 US
agribusiness representatives traveled to Cuba for sales talks, marking
the 2nd anniversary of the first US commercial food shipments to the
island.
(AP, 12/13/03)
2004 Jan 21, Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomew arrived in Cuba to consecrate St. Nicholas Cathedral
on Jan. 25, said Metropolitan Athenagoras of Panama and Central
America. There were 1,200 practicing Orthodox Christians in Cuba.
(AP, 1/15/04)
2004 Feb 26, President Bush
tightened U.S. travel restrictions against Cuba.
(AP, 2/27/04)
2004 Feb, UNESCO awarded its press
freedom prize to Cuba's jailed independent reporter Raul Rivero.
(AP, 3/25/04)
2004 Mar 15, The U.S. military
said it released 23 Afghan and three Pakistani citizens from the U.S.
Navy prison for terrorist suspects in Cuba, leaving about 610 still in
detention.
(AP, 3/16/04)
2004 Apr 13, Cuba agreed to buy
$13 million in food from American companies and reached a tentative
deal for up to $10 million in farm goods from California.
(AP, 4/13/04)
2004 Apr 29, Thousands of Cubans,
young and old, played their favorite game into the night to break the
world record for most people playing chess simultaneously.
(AP, 4/29/04)
2004 May 11, Cuba’s dollar-only
stores “closed for inventory.” Cuba blamed new US measures aimed at
squeezing the island’s economy.
(SFC, 5/12/04, p.A9)
2004 May 17, Cuba’s dollar-only
stores were ordered to mark up their prices 10-30% for staples.
(AP, 5/21/04)
2004 May 27, Cuba and Mexico
agreed to return their respective ambassadors following a dispute
earlier this month.
(WSJ, 5/28/04, p.A1)
2004 Jun, The US Treasury Dept.
imposed restrictions requiring that academic trips to Cuba be at least
10 weeks long. This eliminated popular 1-2 week visits offered by US
universities.
(SSFC, 4/9/06, p.F4)
2004 Jul 18, Mexico and Cuba said
they will reinstate ambassadors in each other's countries at the end of
the month.
(AP, 7/18/04)
2004 Jul 22, The Cuban government
released political prisoner Martha Beatriz Roque from a hospital where
she was serving a 20-year sentence. She is the seventh and best-known
person let out of jail in three months.
(AP, 7/23/04)
2004 Aug 13, Hurricane Charley
roared across Cuba, ripping apart roofs, downing power lines and
yanking up huge palm trees on its way to Florida. Charley hit Florida
with winds at 145mph. It flattened oceanfront homes, killed 23 people
and left thousands more homeless.
(AP, 8/13/04)(AP, 8/14/04)(AP, 8/14/04)(AP,
8/16/04)(WSJ, 8/20/04, p.A1)
2004 Aug 26, Cuba broke diplomatic
ties with Panama after the outgoing Panamanian president Mireya Moscoso
pardoned four Cuban exiles, including Luis Posada Carriles, the
communist government accuses of trying to assassinate President Fidel
Castro.
(AP, 8/27/04)(SFC, 5/18/05, p.A9)
2004 Sep 14, Hurricane Ivan
whipped western Cuba with 160 mph winds. The hurricane knocked some 25
million barrels of oil off world markets by causing undersea mudslides
in the Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 9/14/04)(WSJ, 10/27/04, p.A1)
2004 Sep 29, Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov met with President Fidel Castro and other Cuban
leaders as the countries worked on re-creating more modest versions of
political and economic alliances that unraveled after the Soviet
Union's collapse.
(AP, 9/29/04)
2004 Oct 22, Rosa Elena Simeon
(61), Cuba's minister of science, technology and environment, died.
(AP, 10/23/04)
2004 Oct 25, Cuba said that
dollars will no longer be accepted at island businesses and stores in a
dramatic change in how commercial transactions have been done here in
more than a decade.
(AP, 10/26/04)
2004 Oct 28, For the 13th straight
year, the U.N. General Assembly overwhelmingly urged the United States
to end its more than four decade trade embargo against Cuba.
(AP, 10/28/04)
2004 Nov 8, The U.S. dollar was
eliminated from circulation in Cuba.
(AP, 11/8/05)
2004 Nov 14, Religious figures and
Cuban government officials in Havana laid down the first stone of what
will become the island's first-ever Russian Orthodox church.
(AP, 11/14/04)
2004 Nov 15, In Las Vegas 43
members of “Havana Night Club” revue, a Cuban dance troupe, asked for
asylum. In 2005 the US granted asylum to 49 members of the troupe.
(SFC, 11/16/04, p.A2)(SFC, 7/22/05, p.A8)
2004 Nov 19, Cuba and Panama
agreed to restore consular relations, taking a step toward renewal of
full diplomatic ties at a meeting on the sidelines of an Ibero-American
summit.
(AP, 11/19/04)
2004 Nov 22, Chinese President Hu
Jintao met with Fidel Castro in Havana for talks focusing on the
broadening ties between Cuba and China.
(AP, 11/22/04)
2004 Nov 30, Cuba's communist
government freed dissident writer Raul Rivero from prison. Cuba
unexpectedly released three political dissidents for health reasons:
economics writer Oscar Espinosa Chepe, who has a liver ailment, Marcelo
Lopez, who has a neurological disorder, and Margarito Broche, who
suffered a heart attack in prison.
(AP, 11/30/04)
2004 Dec 17, Three days of trade
talks ended in Havana. Cuba agreed to buy about $125 million in farm
goods from attending U.S. companies.
(AP, 12/18/04)
2004 Dec 25, President Fidel
Castro said a 100-million-barrel crude oil deposit had been discovered
off Cuba by Canadian firms. Cuba imports about half the petroleum it
needs.
(AP, 12/25/04)
2005 Jan 4, Cuban Foreign Minister
Felipe Perez Roque said the island nation was renewing contacts with
France, Britain, Germany, Italy, Austria, Greece, Portugal and Sweden
after an EU panel recommended that member states stop inviting
dissidents to their National Day celebrations at their embassies in
Havana.
(AP, 1/4/05)
2005 Jan 10, Cuba said it was
resuming formal ties with all of Europe, ending a deep freeze in
relations following a 2003 crackdown on dissidents and the firing-squad
executions of three men who tried to hijack a ferry.
(AP, 1/10/05)
2005 Jan 18, Cuba's National
Gazette published a new resolution by the Commerce Ministry that
beginning on Feb. 7, smoking will be prohibited in theaters, stores,
buses, taxis and other enclosed public areas.
(AP, 1/18/05)
2005 Jan 31, EU foreign ministers
agreed to restore normal diplomatic relations with the Cuban government
while pledging to increase contacts with critics of Pres. Fidel Castro.
(AP, 1/31/05)
2005 Feb 7, Cuba began an
island-wide ban on smoking in public places such as stores, theaters,
and office buildings.
(AP, 2/7/05)
2005 Mar 17, President Fidel
Castro announced a 7 percent revaluation of Cuba's national currency,
giving Cubans slightly more buying power as the communist-run island
moves to reassert greater control over its economy.
(AP, 3/17/05)
2005 Mar 24, In a move to further
strengthen Cuba's national currency, Cuban President Fidel Castro
announced that one of two types of money accepted on the island will no
longer be automatically traded 1-1 to the US dollar. Beginning April 9,
the exchange rate for the Cuban convertible peso will no longer be on
par with the American dollar and instead will be tied to several
foreign currencies, initially marking an 8 percent revaluation. The
move will also help raise the value of the regular peso.
(AP, 3/24/05)
2005 Apr 17, Millions of Cubans
elected municipal assemblies across the communist-run island Sunday in
local elections Pres. Castro defended as "the most democratic in the
world."
(AP, 4/17/05)
2005 May 4, It was reported that
Cuba and Venezuela agreed to start a joint shipyard in Venezuela, the
latest sign of strengthening economic ties between the Latin nations.
(AP, 5/4/05)
2005 May 13, A senior Chinese
official met with President Fidel Castro during a visit aimed at
cementing political and economic ties between the two communist nations.
(AP, 5/14/05)
2005 May 21-2005 May 22, Some 160
delegates from Cuba’s opposition movement held an assembly in Havana
without government interference.
(Econ, 5/28/05, p.40)
2005 Jun 19, Local Cuban media
reported that the communist government has revoked some 2,000 licenses
from self-employed workers across the island, part of a campaign to
reassert state control over the economy.
(AP, 6/20/05)
2005 Jun 23, UN human rights
experts said they have reliable accounts of detainees being tortured at
the U.S. base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
(AP, 6/23/05)
2005 Jul 8, Hurricane Dennis
slammed Cuba, sweeping away coastal homes and sending waves crashing
over Havana's seawall. At least 10 people were killed.
(AP, 7/9/05)
2005 Jul 10, Hurricane Dennis
swamped homes, ripped off roofs and felled power lines and trees when
it hurtled into northwest Florida and Alabama with 120-mph (190-kph)
winds. The storm left at least 16 dead in Haiti. Dennis killed at least
16 people in Cuba, damaged or destroyed 15,000 homes and caused an
estimated $1.4 billion in property damage.
(Reuters, 7/11/05)(WSJ, 7/11/05, p.A1)(AP, 7/12/05)
2005 Aug 6, Ibrahim Ferrer Planas,
Cuban singer, died. In 1996 he recorded with Ry Cooder for the "Buena
Vista Social Club" which was followed by his own solo album.
(Econ, 8/20/05, p.68)
2005 Aug 9, A three-judge panel of
the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta ordered a new trial
after agreeing with defense attorneys who challenged the 2001
convictions five Cuban intelligence agents. All five acknowledged being
Cuban agents but said they were spying on "terrorist" exile groups
opposed to Castro, not the U.S. government.
(AP, 8/10/05)
2005 Aug 16, Nebraska Gov. Dave
Heineman secured a deal for his state to export $17 million in
agricultural goods to communist Cuba. The first US shipment of great
northern beans to the island since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.
(AP, 8/16/05)
2005 Aug 20, Cuba and Panama
restored diplomatic ties, one year after they were broken off in a
dispute sparked by the decision by Panama's previous president to
pardon four Cuban exiles accused of trying to assassinate Cuban
President Fidel Castro.
(AP, 8/20/05)
2005 Aug 20, In Cuba the Latin
American School of Medical Science, created as a regional initiative in
1998 after two hurricanes devastated Caribbean and Central American
nations, graduated its first class of 1,500 students.
(AP, 8/21/05)(Econ, 1/27/07, p.35)
2005 Aug 21, A merchant vessel
rescued 3 people north of Matanzas, Cuba, after 5 days at sea. No one
else was found. 31 people were believed killed in the Florida Straits
in their attempt to reach the US.
(AP, 8/26/05)
2005 Sep 10, Zimbabwe President
Robert Mugabe arrived in Cuba, criticizing the International Monetary
Fund, even though the organization a day earlier deferred a decision
for six months on whether to expel the African nation.
(AP, 9/10/05)
2005 Oct 13, At the Ibero-American
Summit in Spain, foreign ministers from Latin America, Spain and
Portugal backed Cuba on in two of its battles against the US, calling
for an end to the US embargo and the expulsion from the U.S. of a Cuban
militant wanted for a 1976 plane bombing.
(AP, 10/13/05)
2005 Oct 26, A group of woman who
have held a weekly march the last two years to protest the Cuban
government's jailing of their activist husbands were gratified to learn
they will share the EU's top human rights prize, something they hope
will draw attention to their cause.
(AP, 10/26/05)
2005 Oct 31, Farmers brought
California vegetables, North Carolina turkeys and Arkansas rice to
Cuba's annual trade fair, showing that Americans are still hungry for
the communist country's market despite U.S. rules that make trade
difficult.
(AP, 10/31/05)
2005 Nov 2, In Florida 2 men
pleaded guilty to organizing a Cuban smuggling trip that ended when
their speedboat capsized and a 6-year-old boy drowned on Oct 12.
(AP, 11/2/05)
2005 Nov 23, Cuba announced a
major increase in government salaries saying that it wanted to reward
workers with high productivity and advanced university degrees.
(AP, 11/23/05)
2005 Nov 30, In Cuba Panama's
President Martin Torrijos greeted dozens of his compatriots as they
arrived in Havana for free eye operations, the latest sign of warming
relations between the two countries.
(AP, 12/01/05)
2005 Dec 7, Some 25 American
anti-war activists marched from the eastern Cuban city of Santiago
toward the US naval base at Guantanamo Bay to protest treatment of
terror suspects there.
(AP, 12/07/05)
2005 Dec 15, The US government
denied permission to Cuba to participate in the inaugural World
Baseball Classic to be held in March 2006.
(SFC, 12/15/05, p.A1)
2005 Dec 16, Exploratory peace
talks between Colombia and its second-largest rebel group began in Cuba
with help from the Nobel Prize-winning author Gabriel Garcia Marquez
and facilitators from Spain, Norway and Switzerland.
(AP, 12/16/05)
2005 Dec 22, Cuba announced it had
turned a corner in its recovery from severe financial crisis, reporting
11.8 percent growth in 2005 using its own method for calculating gross
domestic product.
(AP, 12/22/05)
2005 Dec 30, In Florida 87 Cubans
reached shore in a series of landings that made police suspect
smugglers.
(WSJ, 12/31/05, p.A1)
2005 Eric Saar and Viveca Novak
authored “Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier’s Eyewitness
Account of Life at Guantanamo.”
(Econ, 6/11/05, p.80)
2005 Cuba’s population reached
11.2 million.
(AP, 11/12/05)
2006 Jan 9, The US sent 15
migrants back to Cuba after officials concluded that the section of the
partially collapsed bridge where they landed did not count as dry land
under the government's policy because it was no longer connected to any
of the Keys.
(AP, 1/10/06)
2006 Jan 18, President Fidel
Castro announced a long-awaited renovation of Cuba's energy system to
combat blackouts that have afflicted the island nation for the past two
summers.
(AP, 1/18/06)
2006 Jan 20, The US Treasury
Department issued a license allowing the Cubans to participate in the
16-team World Baseball Classic.
(AP, 1/20/06)
2006 Jan 24, Fidel Castro accused
the US of seeking to rupture the minimum remaining diplomatic ties with
his country, addressing tens of thousands of Cubans before starting a
march outside the American mission in Havana.
(AP, 1/24/06)
2006 Feb 3, Some 200,000 Cubans
crowded Revolution Plaza for a ceremony granting Hugo Chavez UNESCO's
2005 Jose Marti International Prize. President Castro himself handed
over the framed certificate to Venezuela’s Pres. Chavez. UNESCO
introduced the Marti prize in 1994 to recognize an individual or
institution contributing to the unity and integration of countries of
Latin America and the Caribbean.
(AP, 2/3/06)
2006 Feb 4, A three-day energy
meeting in Mexico City wrapped up after moving to a Mexican-owned
hotel. It was the first private-sector oil summit between Cuba and the
US. The meeting between Cuban officials and US energy executives was
moved to another hotel after the Hotel Maria Isabel Sheraton asked the
Cubans to leave. On Feb 6 Mexico launched an investigation into whether
the US government pressured the American-owned hotel into expelling
Cuban guests.
(AP, 2/6/06)
2006 Feb 27, US District Judge
Federico Moreno in Miami ordered US federal officials to "use their
best efforts" to help the Cubans return to the United States. Moreno
wrote that "those Cuban refugees who reached American soil in early
January 2006 were removed to Cuba illegally."
(AP, 3/1/06)
2006 Mar 2, It was reported that
Cuban academics hoping to attend a gathering of Latin America experts
in Puerto Rico had been denied visas by the American government,
marking the latest in the current US administration's trend of shutting
out Cubans.
(AP, 3/2/06)
2006 Mar 10, Cuba said it will
open embassies in four more Caribbean countries, a move that will give
it a diplomatic presence in all 15 Caribbean Community nations.
(AP, 3/10/06)
2006 Mar 18, In Cuba the wives and
mothers of about two dozen political prisoners marched along several of
the city's main avenues, singing hymns and carrying signs reading
"amnesty" to commemorate the third anniversary of the crackdown that
put their husbands behind bars.
(AP, 3/18/06)
2006 Mar 24, A group of Cuban
migrants who reached an abandoned bridge in the Florida Keys only to be
sent back to Cuba received official confirmation from American
officials that they can return to the US for good on humanitarian visas.
(AP, 3/24/06)
2006 Apr 5, Cuban coast guard
officials fatally shot a suspected migrant smuggler and arrested two
others after confronting them in an apparent operation to ferry 39
migrants out of the country on a US-registered speedboat. State
television later said that the migrant smuggler who was fatally shot
had left the island as a migrant himself three weeks earlier, but
returned as a crew member on the same boat to repay a debt.
(AP, 4/7/06)(AP, 4/8/06)
2006 Apr 10, Cuba and Venezuela
signed agreements for a joint venture to revamp an unfinished
Soviet-era refinery in Cuba and supply it with oil from Venezuela.
(WSJ, 4/12/06, p.A7)
2006 Apr 14, Cuba ordered the
expulsion of a Czech diplomat, accusing him of spying for the United
States. Stanislav Kazecky, who was in charge of political, cultural and
media affairs for the Czech embassy, was given 72 hours to leave.
(AP, 4/14/06)
2006 Apr 19, Cuba agreed to buy
another $30 million in food from Nebraska, strengthening trade
relations with the US farm state already selling corn, wheat, soybeans
and other products to the communist island.
(AP, 4/19/06)
2006 Apr 28, Representatives of
the Colombian government and that nation's second largest rebel group
wrapped up four days of talks in Cuba without resolution, but agreed to
meet again after their country's May 28 elections.
(AP, 4/28/06)
2006 Apr 29, Bolivia's new
left-leaning president, Evo Morales, signed a pact with Cuba and
Venezuela on rejecting US-backed free trade and promising a socialist
version of regional commerce and cooperation. Bolivia became the 3rd
member of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas (ALBA).
(AP, 4/29/06)(Econ, 5/6/06, p.38)
2006 May 5, Forbes Magazine in an
article titled, "Fortunes Of Kings, Queens And Dictators," put Fidel
Castro in 7th place in a group of 10 world leaders with "lofty
positions and vast fortunes." The magazine estimated Castro's personal
wealth to be $900 million, nearly double that of the $500 million of
Britain's Queen Elizabeth II and just under Prince Albert II of
Monaco's estimated $1 billion. Forbes said it assumed Castro has
economic control over a web of state-owned companies including a
convention center, a retail conglomerate and an enterprise that sells
Cuban-produced pharmaceuticals. On May 15 Castro and Cuba’s Central
Bank President Francisco Soberon denied the claims. Soberon said that
all the money made from those companies is pumped back into the
island's economy, into sectors including health, education, science,
security, defense and solidarity projects with other countries.
(AP, 5/16/06)
2006 May 9, Cuba, Saudi Arabia,
China and Russia won seats on the new UN Human Rights Council despite
their poor human rights records. Two rights abusers, Iran and
Venezuela, were defeated.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 10, A Cuban pro-democracy
activist presented a proposal for a new constitution with expanded
freedoms for Cubans, calling for the right to criticize the government
and operate private businesses.
(AP, 5/10/06)
2006 May 19, The UN panel that
monitors compliance with the world's anti-torture treaty said the
United States should close its prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
avoid using secret detention facilities in the war on terror.
(AP, 5/19/06)
2006 Jun 1, Bolivian doctors
staged a 1-day strike to protest the presence of 600 Cuban physicians
providing free care as Pres. Morales cultivates links to Castro.
(WSJ, 6/2/06, p.A1)
2006 Jun 12, US officials said
that the Cuban government had cut off electricity to the US diplomatic
mission in Havana on June 5 and that requests for power to be restored
have gone unanswered. Power was restored the next day.
(AP, 6/13/06)(AP, 6/14/06)
2006 Jun 21, Juan Carlos Robinson
Agramonte (49), a Communist official long held up as an example of
Cuba’s future leadership, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for
influence-peddling.
(AP, 6/22/06)
2006 Jun 30, Cuban librarians
criticized attempts by the Miami-Dade County school board to ban a
children's book that presents a positive depiction of life on the
communist-run island.
(AP, 7/1/06)
2006 Jul 10, A US presidential
commission urged Washington to spend $80 million to help
nongovernmental groups hasten change in Cuba, but some dissidents here
said the move would do them more harm than good.
(AP, 7/10/06)
2006 Jul 31, Cuban President Fidel
Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother, Raul, after
gastrointestinal surgery.
(AP, 7/31/07)
2006 Aug 1, Fidel Castro remained
out of sight after undergoing intestinal surgery and temporarily
turning over power to his brother Raul. He released a statement in
which he sought to reassure Cubans that his health was stable after
intestinal surgery.
(AP, 8/1/06)(AP, 8/1/07)
2006 Aug 8, Gustavo Arcos Bergnes
(79), who fought alongside Fidel Castro in the Cuban revolution but was
later imprisoned as a dissident, died in Havana.
(AP, 8/8/06)
2006 Aug 13, On his 80th birthday,
Fidel Castro cautioned Cubans that he faced a long recovery from
surgery and advised them to prepare for "adverse news," but he urged
them to stay optimistic.
(AP, 8/13/06)
2006 Aug 14, Cuban state
television aired the first video of Fidel Castro since he stepped down
as president to recover from surgery, showing the bedridden Cuban
leader talking with his brother Raul as well as Venezuelan President
Hugo Chavez.
(AP, 8/14/07)
2006 Aug 28, Tropical Storm
Ernesto hit Cuba west of the US naval air base at Guantanamo after
killing 2 people in Haiti.
(AP, 8/28/06)(AP, 8/29/06)
2006 Sep 8, The Miami Herald
reported that 10 South Florida journalists, including three with the
Herald's Spanish-language sister paper, received thousands of dollars
from the federal government for their work on radio and TV programming
aimed at undermining Fidel Castro's communist regime. The Herald fired
3 of the journalists.
(AP, 9/9/06)
2006 Sep 10, In Cuba leaders of
the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) of 116 developing nations began
gathering for a 6-day summit (Sep 11-16). NAM was founded in 1961.
(Reuters, 9/10/06)
2006 Sep 11, In Cuba a weeklong
summit of the Nonaligned Movement began with poverty, health care and
the Middle East at the top of the agenda. It will culminate with the
meeting of 50 heads of state, including anti-American leaders from Iran
and Venezuela.
(AP, 9/11/06)
2006 Sep 15, Cuba took over the
leadership of the Nonaligned Movement from Malaysia, with Defense
Minister Raul Castro standing in for his ailing brother Fidel.
(AP, 9/15/06)
2006 Sep 16, In Cuba
representatives of 118 Nonaligned Movement nations condemned Israel's
attacks on Lebanon and supported a peaceful resolution to the US-Iran
nuclear dispute in the final declaration.
(AP, 9/17/06)
2006 Sep 16, Pakistani President
Pervez Musharraf and Indian PM Manmohan Singh held "historic" talks on
the disputed Kashmir region, on the sidelines of a developing-world
summit in Havana. They also agreed to restart peace talks suspended
since train bombings killed more than 200 people in Mumbai in July.
(AFP, 9/16/06)(AP, 9/16/06)
2006 Sep 28, Russia agreed to
grant Cuba credit worth $350 million and restructure some of its recent
debt during a visit by PM Putin. The two countries also signed a
military cooperation agreement.
(AP, 9/28/06)
2006 Nov 4, William Lee Brent
(75), a Black Panther who hijacked a passenger jet to communist Cuba in
1969 and spent 37 years in exile, died in Cuba. A decade ago, Times
Books published his memoirs, "Long Time Gone," which told of his coming
of age on Oakland's streets and of joining the Black Panthers when he
was 37, rising to become a bodyguard for leader Eldridge Cleaver.
(AP, 11/17/06)
2006 Nov 8, The UN General
Assembly voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to urge the United States to
end its 45-year-old trade embargo against Cuba after defeating an
amendment calling on Fidel Castro's government to free political
prisoners and respect human rights.
(AP, 11/8/06)
2006 Dec 6, Hector Palacios, a
well-known dissident jailed in a Cuban government crackdown on the
opposition three years ago, was unexpectedly released from prison.
(AP, 12/6/06)
2006 Dec 15, Ten US legislators,
the largest congressional delegation in years, arrived in Cuba to push
for an end to over 4 decades of hostility.
(SFC, 12/16/06, p.A6)
2006 Dec 22, Cuban finance
officials acknowledged in an unusually critical year-end report that
the country's economy is still suffering the affects of the severe
crisis of the 1990s but nevertheless grew 12.5 percent in 2006.
(AP, 12/22/06)
2007 Jan 6, Cindy Sheehan,
American "peace mom," called for the closure of the US military prison
in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. She and other activists arrived to draw
attention to the nearly 400 terror suspects held at the remote site.
(AP, 1/7/07)
2007 Jan 10, Cuban dissident
Manuel Valdes Tamayo (50) died. He was one of 75 activists jailed in a
massive crackdown in 2003 and released a year later for health reasons.
(AP, 1/11/07)
2007 Feb 6, Church officials said
The Episcopal Church has named a woman as bishop in Cuba, the first
such appointment by the church in the developing world.
(AP, 2/7/07)
2007 Feb 8, Cuba deported reputed
drug kingpin Luis Hernando Gomez Bustamante to Colombia, which plans to
extradite him to the United States to face trafficking and money
laundering charges.
(AP, 2/9/07)
2007 Feb 23, It was reported that
Cuban press authorities have told certain Havana correspondents for the
Chicago Tribune, the BBC and a major Mexican newspaper that they can no
longer report from the island.
(AP, 2/23/07)
2007 Feb 24, Mario Chanes de Armas
(80), both companion and prisoner of Fidel Castro, died in Miami. He
had accompanied Castro in the 1956 revolutionary invasion of Cuba.
Chanes de Armas was later arrested under “counter-revolution” charges
and spent almost 30 years in prison at the Isle of Pines before
receiving permission to leave for Miami.
(Econ, 3/3/07, p.90)
2007 Feb 25, State news media
reported that Cuba has opened an experimental wind farm, hoping
alternative energy sources can one day ease occasional power shortages
while reducing the island's dependence on oil.
(AP, 2/25/07)
2007 Feb 28, Honduras named its
first ambassador to Cuba in 45 years, completing the restoration of
diplomatic ties with communist-run island that were severed during the
Cold War.
(AP, 2/28/07)
2007 Mar 27, In Cuba Faustino
Oramas (95), a popular traditional singer and among the last original
members of the Buena Vista Social Club, died of cancer.
(AP, 3/28/07)
2007 Apr 6, In Florida US District
Judge Kathleen Cardone ruled that Luis Posada Carriles could be
released on $250,000 bond. He is being held at the Otero County jail in
New Mexico on charges he lied to immigration authorities in a bid to
become a naturalized citizen. Posada, a former CIA operative, is wanted
in Cuba in the 1976 bombing of a Cuban jetliner that killed 73 people,
a charge Posada denies. Castro has repeatedly accused the US government
of protecting Posada.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 Apr 12, Tens of thousands of
people marched through the streets of Cali to protest the bombing of
the city's police barracks, blamed on Colombia's largest leftist rebel
group.
(AP, 4/13/07)
2007 Apr 13, An Austrian bank
recently bought by a US-led consortium acknowledged it told a
Cuban-born client to take her business elsewhere and suggested that
Washington's ban on commerce with Cuba was behind the decision.
(AP, 4/14/07)
2007 Apr 16, Most of Cuba's
leading opposition groups issued a joint statement declaring they were
united in their struggle for peaceful change toward democracy on the
island.
(AP, 4/16/07)
2007 Apr 19, In Cuba the Committee
to Protect Journalists denounced the Apr 13 arrest and sentencing of
Oscar Sanchez Madan (44), an independent Cuban journalist, who wrote
critical articles about dissident groups and the hardships of island
life.
(AP, 4/19/07)
2007 Apr 19, Luis Posada Carriles
(79), an anti-Castro exile wanted in Cuba for the 1976 bombing of a
Cuban airliner, was freed from a New Mexico jail after he posted
$250,000 bond and his family put up another $100,000. He must wear an
electronic monitoring device while under house arrest at his wife's
home in Miami pending his May 11 trial on immigration fraud charges.
Posada's immigration case was later thrown out by a federal judge, but
the government appealed.
(AP, 4/20/07)(AP, 4/19/08)
2007 Apr 22, Jorge Luis Garcia
Perez, a veteran dissident leader who wrote a book about Cuban prison
conditions while behind bars, was freed after serving his entire
17-year sentence.
(AP, 4/23/07)
2007 Apr 28, President Hugo Chavez
said that Venezuela is ready to become the sole energy supplier to
Cuba, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Haiti, presenting the countries with his
most generous offer yet of oil-funded diplomacy in the region.
(AP, 4/29/07)
2007 Apr, Yoani Sanchez (32) began
posting her Generacion Y blog from Havana.
(WSJ, 12/22/07, p.A1)(www.desdecuba.com/generaciony)
2007 May 3, A pair of heavily
armed Cuban soldiers seized a city bus, killed an army officer and
triggered a gun battle in a foiled bid to hijack a charter flight bound
for the United States.
(AP, 5/4/07)
2007 May 8, Cuba released Roberto
de Jesus Guerra Perez, a journalist who served 22-months in prison for
participating in an anti-government rally. Guerra has been a
contributor to Miami's Payolibre and Nueva Prensa Cubana, as well as
the US government-funded Radio Marti.
(AP, 5/10/07)
2007 May 8, The US hired a Florida
firm to build a Guantanamo camp by next May to house fleeing Cubans
should there be an exodus when Castro dies.
(WSJ, 5/9/07, p.A1)
2007 May 30, Cuba agreed to buy
$118 million in US food products ranging from pork and corn to soybeans
and Spam, and said it was negotiating deals that could bring the total
to nearly $150 million.
(AP, 5/30/07)
2007 Jun 1, Vietnam became Cuba's
latest partner in oil exploration and drilling in the Gulf of Mexico
under one of several agreements signed during a visit by Vietnamese
Communist Party chief Nong Duc Manh.
(AP, 6/1/07)
2007 Jun 6, President Hugo Chavez
called for the creation of a common defense pact between Venezuela,
Cuba, Nicaragua and Bolivia. The leftist Latin American bloc announced
the creation of a development bank to finance joint projects.
(AP, 6/7/07)
2007 Jun 10, New Episcopal Bishop
Nerva Cot Aguilera, the church's first female bishop in Cuba and the
developing world, was consecrated at the Holy Trinity Episcopal
Cathedral in Havana.
(AP, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 11, Cuba's largest
foreign investor, Canada’s Sherritt International Corp., saw business
running smoothly under acting President Raul Castro and will push ahead
with a $1.2 billion expansion in nickel mining, and oil and electricity
production.
(Reuters, 6/11/07)
2007 Jun 18, Vilma Espin Guillois
(77), a guerrilla warrior and women's rights pioneer, died. She was the
first lady of the Cuban revolution and wife of acting Pres. Raul Castro.
(AP, 6/20/07)
2007 Jul 23, Fidel Castro
suggested that a two-time Cuban Olympic boxing champion and his
teammate had defected, blaming their disappearance at the Pan American
Games in Brazil on American money.
(AP, 7/24/07)
2007 Aug 5, Two boxers (Guillermo
Rigondeaux (25), Cuba's top boxer and a two-time Olympic bantamweight
champion, and Erislandy Lara (24), an amateur welterweight world
champion) deported by Brazil were back in Cuba after they disappeared
during the Pan American Games last month and were arrested at a resort
where officials said they partied and ran up an exorbitant bill.
(AP, 8/5/07)
2007 Oct 6, In eastern Cuba a bus
collided with a train, killing at least 28 people and injuring another
73.
(AP, 10/7/07)
2007 Oct 21,
Cubans opened an election cycle that will lead to a decision next
year on whether ailing leader Fidel Castro will remain atop the
communist-run island's supreme governing body.
(AP, 10/21/07)
2007 Oct 24,
Pres. Bush denounced Castro’s regime and called on the Cuban
people to shed his rule.
(WSJ, 10/25/07, p.A1)
2007 Oct 26,
The head of the Cuban national ballet implored American artists,
writers and intellectuals to denounce Washington's 45-year-old embargo
against the communist-run island, saying that cultural exchanges
between both countries should not be considered crimes.
(AP, 10/26/07)
2007 Oct 30, The UN General
Assembly voted for the 16th straight year to urge the United States to
end its trade embargo against Cuba, whose foreign minister accused the
US of stepping up its "brutal economic war" to new heights.
(AP, 10/30/07)
2007 Nov 15, Gen. Sergio del Valle
Jimenez, a doctor in Fidel Castro's rebel army in the late 1950s and
army chief of staff during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, died.
(AP, 11/16/07)
2007 Nov 23, In Cuba Robert Vesco
(b.1935), a fugitive financier, died of lung cancer. He had been wanted
in the US for crimes ranging from securities fraud and drug trafficking
to political bribery. News of this death was not publicly reported for
another 5 months.
(SFC, 5/3/08, p.A6)(Econ, 5/31/08, p.91)
2007 Dec 3, In Cuba a human rights
leader said that police have detained 29 anti-government activists in
less than two weeks and seven remain jailed, including a man who called
for the communist-run island to tolerate independent universities.
(AP, 12/3/07)
2007 Dec 10, Cuba said it would
sign an international agreement on civil and political rights while a
few blocks away government supporters shoved and shouted down activists
calling for improved human rights on the communist-run island.
(AP, 12/11/07)
2007 Dec 21, Caribbean leaders
gathered in Cuba for a regional oil summit. Venezuelan President Hugo
Chavez presided at a regional petroleum summit, pressing his efforts to
counter US influence in Latin America and the Caribbean by suggesting
more of his neighbors could pay for cheap oil with goods or services in
lieu of cash.
(AP, 12/21/07)
2008 Jan 7, Philip Agee (72), a
former CIA agent who became an outspoken critic of Washington's Cuba
policy, died in a Havana hospital following ulcer surgery. Agee quit
the CIA in 1969 after 12 years working mostly in Latin America at a
time when leftist movements were gaining prominence and sympathizers.
His 1975 book "Inside the Company: CIA Diary," cited alleged CIA
misdeeds against leftists in the region that included a 22-page list of
purported agency operatives.
(AP, 1/9/08)
2008 Jan 15, Brazil signed accords
with Cuba offering economic aid and sealed a deal to drill for oil off
the island’s coast. Brazil’s Pres. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva Trade with
businessmen in tow signed trade and investment deals totaling some $1
billion.
(WSJ, 1/16/08, p.A1)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.45)
2008 Jan 20, Some 8.4 million
Cubans ratified a slate of parliamentary candidates that included the
ailing Fidel Castro (81).
(SFC, 1/21/08, p.A3)
2008 Feb 4, Tata Guines (b.1930),
Cuban conga drummer, died. His six decade career helped popularize
Afro-Cuban rhythms worldwide.
(AP, 2/5/08)
2008 Feb 19, An ailing,
81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president after nearly a
half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when
parliament meets Feb 24.
(AP, 2/19/08)
2008 Feb 24, In Cuba Raul Castro
became the new president. The island's parliament tapped revolutionary
leader Jose Ramon Machado (77) for the government's No. 2 spot.
(AP, 2/25/08)
2008 Feb 28, Cuba's government
signed two key international human rights treaties that Fidel Castro
long opposed, but said it had reservations about some provisions and
accused the United States of impeding the Cuban people's enjoyment of
their rights.
(AP, 2/28/08)
2008 Mar 13, Cuba and Mexico
declared their once-chilly relations fully restored, and Cuba's foreign
minister said he will soon deliver a formal invitation for Mexico's
president to visit the island.
(AP, 3/14/08)
2008 Mar 20, Cuba issued what
appears to be the first public report on prices and inflation in the
private sector, in an unusually realistic acknowledgment of the key
role the informal economy plays in island life.
(AP, 3/21/08)
2008 Mar 28, President Raul
Castro's government said it is allowing cell phones for ordinary
Cubans, a luxury previously reserved for those who worked for foreign
firms or held key posts with the communist-run state.
(AP, 3/28/08)
2008 Mar 31, New President Raul
Castro's government has lifted a ban on Cubans staying at hotels
previously reserved for foreigners, ending another restriction that had
been especially irksome to citizens.
(AP, 3/31/08)
2008 Apr 2, Cubans snapped up DVD
players, motorbikes and pressure cookers for the first time as Raul
Castro's new government loosened controls on consumer goods and invited
private farmers to plant tobacco, coffee and other crops on unused
state land.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 2, Norberto Collado
Abreu, the helmsman of the Granma yacht that carried Fidel Castro from
Mexico to Cuba to launch his revolution in 1956, died in Havana.
(AP, 4/2/08)
2008 Apr 11, In Cuba new
regulations allowed thousands of Cubans to get title to state-owned
homes, a step that might lay the groundwork for broader housing reform.
(AP, 4/12/08)
2008 Apr 14, In Cuba lines
stretched for blocks outside phone centers as the government allowed
ordinary Cubans to sign up for cellular phone service for the first
time.
(AP, 4/14/08)
2008 Apr 17, A
government spokesman said South Africa has waived Cuban debt totaling
more than 100 million dollars.
(AFP, 4/17/08)
2008 Apr, According to the US
Coast Guard 36 Cubans died at sea this month while attempting to reach
the US. Some 3,846 Cubans had made the trip over the last 8 months with
about 40% intercepted at sea.
(Econ, 6/14/08, p.50)
2008 May 1, Cuba announced a major
shake-up of its troubled farm sector on May Day, shifting control of
the island's farms from officials at the Agriculture Ministry to more
than 150 local councils.
(AP, 5/1/08)
2008 May 2, In Cuba computers went
on sale to the general public and potential consumers were lining up
outside store windows to gawk and consider buying.
(AP, 5/2/08)
2008 May 18, Cuban officials said
they have documented proof that US officials on the island are
delivering private funds to political dissidents in order to undermine
the communist government.
(AP, 5/18/08)
2008 Jun 6, An official said Cuba
has authorized sex-change operations and will offer them free for
qualifying citizens.
(AP, 6/7/08)
2008 Jun 13, Leonard B. Auerbach
(61), an American fugitive, was deported from Cuba to face federal
charges in California of sexually abusing a Costa Rican girl and
possessing child pornography. He was arrested on May 7, about a month
after his arrival.
(AP, 6/14/08)
2008 Jun 16, Smugglers fleeing
from Cuba's Coast Guard overturned a boat loaded with US-bound migrants
to distract pursuers, killing a woman and an 11-year-old boy. The
smugglers, who were charging US$10,000 a head to take 20 people to the
United States, escaped in their speedboat after being surprised by the
Coast Guard.
(AP, 6/18/08)
2008 Jun 19, The EU agreed to lift
its 2003 diplomatic sanctions against Cuba, but imposed tough
conditions on the communist island to maintain sanction-free relations.
(AP, 6/20/08)(Econ, 6/28/08, p.44)
2008 Jun 24, Cuba's Roman Catholic
Church protested the communist government's growing support of gay
rights, including a daylong event raising awareness against homophobia
and a law allowing sex-change operations.
(AP, 6/25/08)
2008 Jul 11, President Raul Castro
warned Cubans to prepare for a "realistic" brand of communism that is
economically viable and does away with excessive state subsidies
designed to promote equality on the island.
(AP, 7/11/08)
2008 Jul 18, Cuba’s Communist
officials decreed that private farmers and cooperatives can use up to
100 acres (40 hectares) of idle government land, as President Raul
Castro works to revive the floundering agricultural sector.
(AP, 7/19/08)
2008 Aug 23, In Beijing Angel
Matos, a Cuban taekwondo athlete, and his coach Leudis Gonzalez were
banned for life after Matos kicked the referee in the face following
his bronze-medal match disqualification.
(AP, 8/23/08)
2008 Aug 24, The Beijing Olympics,
played out against a background of political intrigue and featuring 16
days of compelling and controversial action, drew to a spectacular
close. China's haul of 51 gold medals was the largest since the Soviet
Union won 55 in Seoul in 1988. The US won 36 gold medals and Russia
came in 3rd with 23. Jamaica ended up with 11 medals including 6 gold.
Cuba took home 24 medals, but only 2 gold.
(AP, 8/24/08)(Econ, 8/30/08, p.38)
2008 Aug 28, It was reported that
Cuba had notified at least 2 foreign governments that it could not meet
debt payments.
(WSJ, 8/28/08, p.A8)
2008 Aug 30, Gustav swelled to a
fearsome Category 3 hurricane with winds of 120 mph (195 kph) as it
shrieked toward the heartland of Cuba's cigar industry on a track to
hit the US Gulf Coast, three years after Hurricane Katrina. 78 people
were already left dead in the Caribbean.
(AP, 8/30/08)
2008 Aug 31, Cubans returned from
shelters to find flooded homes and washed-out roads, but no deaths were
reported after a monstrous Hurricane Gustav roared across the island
and into the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico.
(AP, 8/31/08)
2008 Sep 6, Cuba politely declined
a US offer to send a disaster assessment team to the island after
Hurricane Gustav, saying it would rather Washington suspend
restrictions on travel and the sale of food and other materials it
needs to recover.
(AP, 9/6/08)
2008 Sep 8, Deadly Hurricane Ike
roared across Cuba, blowing buildings to rubble and sending waves
surging over homes. Some 900,000 Cubans evacuated from its path, which
forecasters said could take it to Louisiana or Texas later this week.
(AP, 9/8/08)
2008 Sep 9, Hurricane Ike roared
south of Havana, Cuba, after tearing across the island nation, ravaging
homes, killing at least four people and forcing 1.2 million to evacuate.
(AP, 9/9/08)
2008 Sep 10, Hurricane Ike
barreled across the warm, energizing waters of the Gulf of Mexico on
its way toward the Texas coast after crashing through Cuba's tobacco
country and toppling aging Havana buildings. Ike had already killed at
least 80 people in the Caribbean.
(AP, 9/10/08)
2008 Sep 15, Cuba said hurricanes
Gustav and Ike together delivered the worst hurricane-related blow in
Cuba's storm-battered history, causing "around US$5 billion" in
collective damage.
(AP, 9/16/08)
2008 Oct 20, Our Lady of Kazan,
Cuba's first Russian Orthodox cathedral, was consecrated amid church
bells and the presence of President Raul Castro, in a sign of goodwill
toward the island's former chief benefactor. Cuba's Russian community
has dwindled to several hundred as most returned home following the
collapse of communism in Eastern Europe.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 20, Mexico agreed to
deport Cubans who sneak illegally through Mexican territory to reach
the US, a step toward cutting off an increasingly violent and heavily
used human trafficking route. 21 prisoners died in a fight between
inmates at a prison across the border from McAllen, Texas. Police said
two soldiers and a security guard were found stabbed to death at a
housing construction site in the village of Las Margaritas, northern
Mexico. The body of a federal policeman was found riddled with gunshot
wounds in Tijuana.
(AP, 10/20/08)
2008 Oct 23, Cuba and the European
Union ended a five-year standoff by signing an agreement that calls for
EU members to send the island euro2 million (US$2.6 million) in
immediate hurricane recovery aid and up to euro30 million (US$38.8
million) more in financing next year.
(AP, 10/23/08)
2008 Oct 29, The UN General
Assembly overwhelmingly approved a resolution urging the US to repeal
its trade embargo against Cuba, and the island nation's foreign
minister said he expects the next American president to respond
positively.
(AP, 10/29/08)
2008 Oct 31, Brazil's state-run
oil company signed an agreement to explore for oil in deep Caribbean
waters north of Cuba that officials in Havana say could contain 20
billion barrels of crude.
(AP, 10/31/08)
2008 Nov 9, Hurricane Paloma
leveled hundreds of homes along Cuba's southern coast before rapidly
losing steam over land, weakening from a dangerous Category 4 storm
into a tropical depression in less than a day.
(AP, 11/10/08)
2008 Nov 19, Chinese President Hu
Jintao promised Cuba at least $78 million in donations, credit and
hurricane relief. Hu also met with a thin-looking Fidel Castro before
leaving for the Asia-Pacific economic summit in Peru. China agreed to
donate $8 million to Cuba and extend the second, $70 million phase of
$350 million in previously agreed-upon credit to renovate Cuban
hospitals.
(AP, 11/19/08)
2008 Nov 28, In Cuba Russia's
president Medvedev met with Fidel Castro, discussing Guantanamo Bay and
hopes for a multipolar world with Cuba's former leader during a tour of
Latin America aimed at raising Moscow's presence in the region.
(AP, 11/28/08)
2008 Dec 13, Cuban President Raul
Castro arrived in Venezuela on his first international visit as Cuba's
leader.
(AP, 12/13/08)
2008 Tom Gjelton, NPR
correspondent, authored “Bacardi and the Long Fight for Cuba,” a
history of Bacardi rum.
(SFC, 9/9/08, p.E3)
2009 Jan 12, Cuba published new
regulations encouraging classic car owners to apply for taxi licenses
and set their own prices for the first time in nearly a decade as the
communist government turns to the free market to improve its woeful
transportation system.
(AP, 1/12/09)
2009 Jan 28, Cuba’s President Raul
Castro began the first visit to Russia by a Cuban leader since the end
of the Cold War, the latest sign of reviving ties between the two
countries.
(Reuters, 1/28/09)
2009 Jan 30, Russia moved to
rebuild ties with Cold War ally Cuba, granting it loans and signing
deals on energy and industrial cooperation.
(AP, 1/30/09)
2009 Feb 9, In Cuba Orlando
"Cachaito" Lopez (b.1933), considered the "heartbeat" of Cuba's
legendary Buena Vista Social Club for his internationally acclaimed
bass playing, died of complications from prostate surgery.
(AP, 2/9/09)
2009 Feb 11, Officials in Uruguay
said a Cuban long-distance runner and track coach have disappeared and
apparently intend to defect. Aguelmis Rojas and Rafael Diaz had arrived
in January on a sports exchange program in Maldonado.
(AP, 2/12/09)
2009 Mar 2, Cuban President Raul
Castro's ousted powerful officials close to his brother Fidel in the
biggest government shakeup since he took power a year ago.
(AP, 3/3/09)
2009 Mar 11, Pres. Obama signed a
bill rolling back the Bush administration restrictions on Cuban
Americans visiting relatives in Cuba.
(SFC, 3/12/09, p.A8)
2009 Mar 18, Costa Rica said it
will re-establish diplomatic ties with Cuba, and El Salvador's new
president-elect, Mauricio Funes, promised to do the same after he takes
office.
(AP, 3/19/09)
2009 Mar 31, The US Government
Accountability Office released a report saying 4 countries designated a
terrorism sponsors received $55 million from a US supported program
promoting the peaceful use of nuclear energy under the IAEA’s Technical
Cooperation program. Between 1997 and 2007 Iran received over $15
million, $14 million went to Syria, while Sudan and Cuba received over
$11 million each.
(WSJ, 3/31/09, p.A3)
2009 Apr 7, Cuba’s President Raul
Castro met with six visiting members of the Congressional Black Caucus
for more than four hours, his first face-to-face discussions with US
leaders since he became president last year. A "very healthy, very
energetic" Fidel Castro asked visiting Congressional Black Caucus
members what Cuba could do to help President Barack Obama improve
bilateral relations during his first meeting with US officials since
falling ill in 2006.
(AP, 4/7/09)(AP, 4/8/09)
2009 Apr 8, The US Justice Dept.
filed terrorism-related charges against Luis Posada Carriles (81), a
prominent Cuban exile wanted by the Castro government for involvement
in several 1997 hotel bombings in Cuba.
(WSJ, 4/10/09, p.A4)(http://tinyurl.com/c5j5b5)
2009 Apr 13, Pres. Obama eased
curbs on Cuba travel and money transfers. A broader economic embargo
introduced by Pres. Kennedy in 1962 remained in place.
(WSJ, 4/13/09, p.A1)
2009 Apr 15, In Washington, DC,
the FBI arrested Walter Kendall Myers (72) and his wife, Gwendolyn
(71), for spying. For three decades, Myers and his wife had shuffled
secrets to their Cuban contacts. Kendall Myers first worked for the
State Department as a lecturer at the Foreign Service Institute and
later as a European analyst in the department's intelligence arm, the
Bureau of Intelligence and Research, from 2000 until his retirement in
October 2007. On Nov 20 Myers and his wife pleaded guilty to serving as
covert agents since 1979. Myers agreed to serve life in prison and his
wife agreed to serve 6-7½ years.
(AP, 6/6/09)(SFC, 11/21/09, p.A4)
2009 Apr 29, In Cuba a statement
published in state newspapers said that effective midnight, flights
from Cuba to Mexico would be grounded due to swine flu. After that,
airlines can fly presumably empty planes to the island and pickup
Mexico travels. This amended a blanket 48-hour ban on flights between
Mexico and Cuba announced a day earlier.
(AP, 4/29/09)
2009 May 6, Spanish authorities
said they have arrested 29 people suspected of forging credit cards to
finance an elaborate scheme to smuggle Cubans into the US from Mexico.
(AP, 5/6/09)
2009 May 12, The US won a seat on
the UN Human Rights Council for the first time along with Cuba, Saudi
Arabia, China and Russia, four countries accused of serious human
rights violations.
(SFC, 5/13/09, p.A2)
2009 May 16, In Cuba President
Raul Castro's daughter led hundreds of Cuban gays in a street dance to
draw attention to gay rights on the island.
(AP, 5/16/09)
2009 May 29, Cuba criticized
Microsoft for blocking its Messenger instant messaging service on the
island and in other countries under US sanctions, calling it yet
another example of Washington's "harsh" treatment of Havana.
(AP, 5/29/09)
2009 May 30, Cuba agreed to resume
negotiations with the US over immigration and mail service between the
two countries. Cuba also expressed a willingness to cooperate with the
US on fighting terrorism and drug trafficking, and on hurricane
disaster preparedness.
(AP, 5/31/09)
2009 Jun 1, In El Salvador
Mauricio Funes, a journalist from a party of former Marxist guerrillas,
became the country's first leftist president, immediately restoring
ties with Cuba while promising to remain friendly with the United
States.
(AP, 6/1/09)
2009 Jun 3, The Organization of
American States (OAS), meeting in Honduras, cleared the way for Cuba's
possible return to the group by lifting a 1962 ban on the communist-run
country, a move backed by Washington despite initial objections.
(AP, 6/4/09)
2009 Jun 8, Cuba formally rejected
an offer to rejoin the Organization of American States (OAS), echoing
the sentiments of Fidel Castro who has long maintained his island has
no use for the group.
(AP, 6/8/09)
2009 Jul 13, In Cuba the body of
Rev. Mariano Arroyo Merino (74) was discovered in his room at the
parish he served in the coastal neighborhood of Regla, situated on
Havana Bay across from the capital. Authorities were still
investigating the death of another Spanish priest, the Rev. Eduardo de
la Fuente Serrano, whose body was found in a remote, sparsely populated
area just outside the capital in mid-February.
(AP, 7/13/09)
2009 Jul 15, In Egypt the two-day
Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) opened in Sharm-El-Sheik. 50 leaders from
the 118-nation grouping of mostly of African, Asian and Latin American
nations gathered for their 15th meeting to address the world's biggest
problems, such as terrorism and financial instability. Cuba's Pres.
Raul Castro called for an international financial system that better
takes into account developing countries interests.
(AP, 7/15/09)
2009 Jul 29, Cuban state media
said Russia and Cuba have signed agreements to search for oil in the
Gulf of Mexico. Moscow extended the island $150 million in credit for
construction materials and farm machinery.
(AP, 7/29/09)
2009 Jul 31, Cuba suspended plans
for a Communist Party congress and lowered its 2009 economic growth
projection from 2.5% to 1.7%, as the island's economy struggled through
a "very serious" crisis.
(AP, 7/31/09)
2009 Aug 1, Raul Castro announced
that Cuba will cut spending on education and health care, potentially
weakening the building blocks of its communist system in a bid to
revive a foundering economy.
(AP, 8/1/09)
2009 Aug 10, In Cuba 14 people
were killed and at least 33 hospitalized after two trucks loaded with
passengers collided in the central Cuban province of Ciego de Avila.
(AP, 8/10/09)
2009 Aug 25, New Mexico Gov. Bill
Richardson met with Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's parliament, as
well as members of the island's chamber of commerce as he headed a
trade mission there this week.
(AP, 8/25/09)
2009 Sep 11, In Cuba Juan Almeida
Bosque (b.1927), a comrade-in-arms of Fidel Castro since the start of
his guerrilla struggle more than a half-century ago, died of a heart
attack. Almeida was the only black commander among the rebel leaders.
(AP, 9/12/09)
2009 Sep 20, Cubans in their
multitudes flocked to sprawling Revolution Plaza for a massive open-air
"peace concert" headlined by Colombian rocker Juanes, an event
criticized by some Cuban-Americans who say the performers are lending
support to the island's communist government simply by showing up.
(AP, 9/20/09)
2009 Sep 21, Bisa Williams, senior
US diplomat in Cuba for the highest level talks in decades, met with
opposition activists in Havana. Williams led a delegation with the USPS
that held talks September 17 in a first round of talks aimed at
restarting bilateral mail service which was cut off in 1963.
(http://newsfeedresearcher.com/data/articles_w40/cuba-cubans-talks.html)(SFC,
10/1/09, p.A2)
2009 Oct 12, Yoani Sanchez, a
Cuban blogger, was denied government permission to travel to New York
to receive a top journalism prize. She has become an international
sensation for offering frank criticism of her country's communist
system. In May Cuban authorities had denied Sanchez permission to fly
to Madrid to accept the Ortega y Gasset Prize in digital journalism for
creating her Generation Y blog (2007), which gets more than 1 million
hits a month. Around the same time, Time magazine deemed Sanchez one of
the world's 100 most influential people.
(AP, 10/12/09)
2009 Nov 6, In Cuba Yoani Sanchez,
acclaimed dissident blogger, was forced into an unmarked car, beaten,
threatened and dumped onto a street..
(Econ, 11/21/09, p.40)
2009 Nov 20, In Cuba Reinaldo
Escobar, the husband of acclaimed dissident Cuban blogger, Yoani
Sanchez, was punched and shouted down by a pro-government mob after he
challenged the presumed state agents who earlier roughed up his wife,
to a street corner debate.
(AP, 11/21/09)
2009 Dec 3, In Cuba activists from
32 little-known organizations opposed to the communist government
issued a call for an end to social repression on the island at a
gathering in the home of a prominent human rights activist.
(AP, 12/3/09)
2009 Dec 11, Mexico's foreign
minister met with Cuban President Raul Castro for three hours, the
latest sign her country and the island have repaired recently chilly
relations.
(AP, 12/11/09)
2009 Dec 12, It was reported that
Cuba has detained an American government contractor and accused him of
distributing cell phones, laptops and other communications equipment to
political opposition groups on the island.
(SFC, 12/12/09, p.A2)
2009 Juanita Castro 76 authored
"Fidel and Raul, My Brothers, the Secret History." It was co-written
with Mexican journalist Maria Antonieta Collins. From 1961-1964 she
collaborated with the US CIA against her brothers' rule before going
into exile in Miami.
(Reuters, 10/26/09)
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