January 1st: Cuban Revolution

Happy new year, btw.

Today, in 1959, the revolutionary forces led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara entered in La Habana (Havana), forcing dictator Flugencio Batista to flee the country. Castro's success followed a decade of active opposition, mostly by armed means in which he, along with many other revolutionaires, tried to overthrow the tyrant. After several failures, Castro and his guerrilla managed to create chaos in the country and finally, today, 47 years ago, they entered the capital.


Fidel Castro with Ernesto Che Guevara

Once in power, Castro maneouvered to keep control, displacing and even imprisioning other revolutionaries and causing the first massive flee from the island towards Florida, people, who considered counter-revolutionaries, were dubbed as "gusanos" (worms).

Soon, the USA rejected the possibility of using US owned refineries in the island to proccess Soviet crude, to what Castro responded nationalizing these refineries, along with any other US owned property in Cuba, mostly United Fruit plantations and ITT assets. In May, the new government started the agrarian reform.

In 1961, in response to these socialist policies, the USA broke diplomatic relations and, in 1962, imposed an embargo on the island, which is still in effect. Meanwhile, the invasion of Bah�a de Cochinos by a group of CIA armed Cubans, was a total failure.

n 1962, another crisis followed: Castro, who was each day closer to the Soviet Union, was planning to stabilish a defensive arsenal of Soviet nuclear missiles in the lines of the one that the USA still has in Turkey. When the CIA discovered it, US President, John Kennedy declared a naval blockade on the island.

This was the moment humankind was closer to a nuclear war ever. Fortunately, high level diplomacy managed to sign an agreement that provided for the retreat of the missiles from Cuba (and Turkey) and guarantees that the USA would not invade the island.

Cuban socialist regime, though despised by many, has also been placed as example by others, specially when compared with the situation of other Latin American and Thrid World countries. Despite the blockade, recently aggravated by blackmail to third parties and the vanishing of its former Soviet ally, Cuba has managed to keep a GDP (PPP) per capita better than some of its neighbours and definitively much more equally distrbuted. Its health policies are still one of the best of the continent, exporting physicians to many other nations. Cuba is rated high in the UN Human Developement Index (2003), ranking 52nd, which places it along with a handful of other Latin American nations, in the "high developent" area.

Yet the incognites for the future are many and nobody knows what will happen when aged but still popular President Castro dies.


Some other things that happened today:

• 45 BC - The Julian Calendar first takes effect
• 404 - Last known gladiator fight takes place in Rome
• 630 - Prophet Muhammad sets out towards Mecca with an army capturing it soon after without bloodshed
  
• 1801 - Ceres becomes the first asteroid ever discovered, thanks to astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi. Initially it was classified as a planet (the 8th one, as Neptune wasn't yet known)

Asteroid Ceres as seen by Hubble telescope. The brilliant white spot is still a mistery

• 1804 - Hati becomes inependent from France
• 1818 - Frankenstein or the Modern Prometheus, by Mary Shelley is first published

Frankestein was repeatedly adapted to make films. Above is the poster of the first one, starred by Boris Karloff

• 1863 - Slavery effectively abolished in the USA
• 1899 - Spanish rule ends in Cuba, wich was an USA protectorate until 1902
  
• 1973 - The UK, Ireland and Denmark enter the European Union. In the first of several ampliations starting in January 1st: Greece in 1981, Spain and Portugal in 1986, Sweden, Austria and Finland in 1995. The last ampliation instead happened in March.
  
• 1983 - Arpanet officially changes its protocol, creating Internet.
  
• 1993 - "Velvet divorce": Cezchoslovakia friendly divides itself in two republics
• 1994 - Zapatista armed uprising in Chiapas, Mexico

The Zapatista rebellion has created some modern icons: the Zapatista flag and Subcomandante Marcos are maybe the best known

• 2002 - The Euro becomes the oficial currency in 12 of the then 15 EU members
• 2003 - Luiz Inazio Lula da Silva becomes President of Brazil
  

Full list: Wikipedia.