
Fidel Castro
Known for ActingBorn 1926-08-13Died 2016-11-25Birán, Cuba
Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban revolutionary and politician who served as Prime Minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President from 1976 to 2008. Ideologically a Marxist–Leninist and Cuban nationalist, he also served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from 1961 until 2011. Under his administration, Cuba became a one-party communist state; industry and business were nationalized, and state socialist reforms were implemented throughout society. Born in Birán, Oriente, the son of a wealthy Spanish farmer, Castro adopted leftist and anti-imperialist ideas while studying law at the University of Havana. After participating in rebellions against right-wing governments in the Dominican Republic and Colombia, he planned the overthrow of Cuban President Fulgencio Batista, launching a failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953. After a year's imprisonment, Castro traveled to Mexico where he formed a revolutionary group, the 26th of July Movement, with his brother Raúl Castro and Ernesto "Che" Guevara. Returning to Cuba, Castro took a key role in the Cuban Revolution by leading the Movement in a guerrilla war against Batista's forces from the Sierra Maestra. After Batista's overthrow in 1959, Castro assumed military and political power as Cuba's Prime Minister. The United States came to oppose Castro's government and unsuccessfully attempted to remove him by assassination, economic blockade, and counter-revolution, including the Bay of Pigs Invasion of 1961. Countering these threats, Castro aligned with the Soviet Union and allowed the Soviets to place nuclear weapons in Cuba, resulting in the Cuban Missile Crisis – a defining incident of the Cold War – in 1962. Adopting a Marxist–Leninist model of development, Castro converted Cuba into a one-party, socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere. Policies introducing central economic planning and expanding healthcare and education were accompanied by state control of the press and the suppression of internal dissent. Abroad, Castro supported anti-imperialist revolutionary groups, backing the establishment of Marxist governments in Chile, Nicaragua, and Grenada, as well as sending troops to aid allies in the Yom Kippur, Ogaden, and Angolan Civil War. These actions, coupled with Castro's leadership of the Non-Aligned Movement from 1979 to 1983 and Cuba's medical internationalism, increased Cuba's profile on the world stage. Following the Soviet Union's dissolution in 1991, Castro led Cuba through the economic downturn of the "Special Period", embracing environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s, Castro forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide" – namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela – and formed the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006, Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008. Description above from the Wikipedia article Fidel Castro, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.Read more
Movies & web series
★ 10.0View details →
JFK Assassination: A New Perspective
2025 · Movie
★ 10.0View details →
Mário
2024 · Movie
★ 10.0View details →
Algiers, the Mecca of Revolutionaries (1962-1974)
2016 · Movie
★ 10.0View details →
Laissez-faire
2015 · Movie
★ 10.0View details →
Che, Today and Always
1983 · Movie
★ 10.0View details →
El Diálogo de América
1972 · Movie
★ 9.0View details →
Rat Pack
2022 · Movie
★ 9.0View details →
Tasmanian Devil: The Fast and Furious Life of Errol Flynn
2007 · Movie
The Cuban Game
★ 9.0View details →
The Cuban Game
2001 · Movie
★ 8.4View details →
Andança: Os Encontros e as Memórias de Beth Carvalho
2022 · Movie
★ 8.5View details →
Faith of the Century: A History of Communism
1999 · Series
★ 8.0View details →
Laboratory Greece
2019 · Movie
★ 8.0View details →
The Man Who Saved the World
2012 · Movie
★ 8.0View details →
Kordavision: The man who shot Che Guevara
2005 · Movie
★ 8.0View details →
Jack Paar: Smart Television
2003 · Movie
Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film
★ 8.0View details →
Reel Radicals: The Sixties Revolution in Film
2002 · Movie
★ 7.8View details →
Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat
2024 · Movie
★ 7.8View details →
Bobby Kennedy for President
2018 · Series
★ 8.0View details →
Cuba: In the Shadow of Doubt
1986 · Movie
★ 7.7View details →
The Day That Lasted 21 Years
2012 · Movie
★ 7.6View details →
Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised)
2021 · Movie
★ 7.7View details →
The Fog of War
2003 · Movie
★ 7.6View details →
Palme
2012 · Movie
★ 7.7View details →
The Adventures of Errol Flynn
2005 · Movie
★ 7.9View details →
A Grin Without a Cat
1977 · Movie
★ 7.5View details →
Castro's Revolution vs. The World
2019 · Series
★ 7.5View details →
Explained
2018 · Series
★ 7.5View details →
Cuba and the Cameraman
2017 · Movie
★ 7.4View details →
ReMastered: Massacre at the Stadium
2019 · Movie
★ 7.4View details →
Another Day of Life
2018 · Movie
★ 7.5View details →
The War on Democracy
2007 · Movie
★ 7.4View details →
How to Become a Tyrant
2021 · Series
★ 7.6View details →
JFK
1991 · Movie
★ 7.3View details →
La Case du siècle
2010 · Series
★ 7.3View details →
I Am Cuba, the Siberian Mammoth
2005 · Movie
Nobody
★ 7.2View details →
Nobody
2017 · Movie
★ 7.1View details →
537 Votes
2020 · Movie
★ 7.3View details →
The JFK Conspiracy
1992 · Movie
★ 7.0View details →
The Padilla Affair
2023 · Movie
★ 7.5View details →
The First Year
1972 · Movie
★ 7.0View details →
The Century of Icons
2022 · Series
★ 7.0View details →
Becoming Cousteau
2021 · Movie
★ 7.1View details →
The Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien
2009 · Series
★ 7.0View details →
Karl Marx und seine Erben
2018 · Movie
★ 7.5View details →
¡Cuba Sí!
1961 · Movie
★ 6.9View details →
Spycraft
2021 · Series
★ 7.0View details →
RFK Must Die: The Assassination of Bobby Kennedy
2007 · Movie
★ 7.3View details →
Cuba: Battle of the 10,000,000
1971 · Movie