It began with the assault on the Moncada Barracks on 26 July 1953 and ended on 1 January 1959, when Batista was driven from the country and the cities Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba were seized by revolutionaries, led by Che Guevara and Fidel Castro's surrogates Raúl Castro and Huber Matos, respectively.
However, the roots of the Cuban Revolution grows deep into the Cuban history and goes far back to the Cuban Independence Wars, in the last half of the nineteenth century and its consequences are still in motion in present day. Therefore, this is a timeline of the whole historical process that began on October 10, 1868, and it has not ended yet. Interventions by the United States, Russia, and other foreign powers are largely attributed to the state of Cuba today.
Timeline
Before the Revolution
1868-1878
1868 October 11Carlos Manuel de Céspedes and his followers begin the Ten Years War, first war of Cuban independence. According to the Cuban revolutionary ideologists, 1868 is the true beginning of the Cuban Revolution.
1869 AprilGuáimaro Assembly. Proclamation of the first independent Constitution of Cuba.
1924 General Gerardo Machado wins the 1925 elections and becomes constitutional president of Cuba.
1925 The Communist Party of Cuba (now known as the Popular Socialist Party) was established.
1928 Machado is reelected and forms a much stronger government, with the pretension of stay in power at least until 1935, in violation of the Constitution. Machado is supported by the US government.
1929 Following the stock market crash, the price of sugar, a main export, falls. Economic strife fuels revolutionary fervor.
1930-1932 Beginning of a more decided way of resistance against General Machado's increasing repression against the people.
1933
August 12 Machado was overthrown by a General Strike, led by the Communist Party, under Villena's control.
US consul in Cuba names a new provisional president, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes y Quesada, son of the Founding Father, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes.
September 4 A revolutionary junta led by Sergeant Fulgencio Batista seizes control of Cuba.
September 10 Formation of the One Hundred Days Government, under the presidency of Dr. Ramón Grau San Martín.
1934
January Colonel Batista overthrows President Grau and names a new government under his supervision, becoming the de facto ruler of Cuba. Villena dies of Tuberculosis.
1935
March A new General Strike led by the Communist Party is defeated and massacred by Colonel Batista's troops.
MayAntonio Guiteras, one of the main leaders of the strike, is murdered in a fight against Batista's army.
May First Presidential elections since 1928. The winner is Miguel Mariano Gómez, who Batista worries will be too independent and resist his behind-the-scenes rule.
December Under pressure from Batista and the army, Congress impeaches Gómez and removes him from office. Vice-president Federico Laredo Brú becomes the new president.
1937-1938
Legalization of most of the political parties and an eventual end of the repression.
1939-1940
Constitutional Assembly. Proclamation of the new Cuban Constitution.
16 October – Fidel Castro makes "History Will Absolve Me" speech in his own defense against the charges brought on him after the attack on the Moncada Barracks.
1954
1954 September Che Guevara arrives in Mexico City.
1954 November Batista dissolves parliament and is elected constitutional president without opposition.
1955
1955 May Fidel and surviving members of his movement are released from prison under an amnesty from Batista.
1955 June Brothers Fidel and Raúl Castro are introduced to Che Guevara in Mexico City.
1956
1956 Nov 25 Fidel Castro, with some 80 insurgents including Raúl Castro, Che Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos set sail from Mexico for Cuba on the yacht Granma.
1957 January 17, Castro's guerrillas score their first success by sacking an army outpost on the south coast, and started gaining followers in both Cuba and abroad.
1957 March 13, University students mount an unsuccessful attack on the Presidential Palace in Havana. Cuban revolutionary leader José Antonio Echeverría is killed in the streets of Havana by police.
1957 May 28, Castro's 26 July movement overwhelms an army post in El Uvero.
1957 July 30 Cuban revolutionary leader Frank País is killed in the streets of Santiago de Cuba by police while campaigning for the overthrow of Batista's government
1958
1958 February Raúl Castro opens a front in the Sierra de Cristal on Oriente's north coast.
1958 March 13 U.S. suspends shipments of arms to Batista's forces.
1958 May Batista sends an army of 10,000 into the Sierra Maestra to destroy Castro's 300 armed guerrillas. By August, the rebels had defeated the army's advance and captured a huge amount of arms.
1958 November 1 A Cuban aircraft en route from Miami to Havana is hijacked by militants but crashes. The hijackers were trying to land at Sierra Cristal in Eastern Cuba to deliver weapons to Raúl Castro's rebels. It is the first of what was to become many Cuba-U.S. hijackings
1958 December Guevara directs a rebel attack on Santa Clara
1958 December 28 Guevara's guerrilla troops seize Santa Clara.
1959 January 1 Batista steps down and a civilian government takes control.
1959 January 1 The Cuban revolutionaries call a General Strike to ensure governmental control[1]
1959 January 2 Che Guevara's and Camilo Cienfuegos' troops arrive on Havana.
1959 January 5Manuel Urrutia is named President of Cuba.
1959 January 9 Fidel arrives in Havana.
After the Revolution
1959
January–February Many members of the Batista regime are judged, sentenced and executed by the new government. Many of these trials were held in stadiums with executions shortly after trial, with the accused denied legal counsel.
February 16 Fidel Castro is named Prime Minister of Cuba, in substitution of José Miró Cardona.
May 17 Fidel Castro signed the First Law of Agrarian Reform, giving new lands for the Cuban peasants who didn't have any.
July Failed attempt of invasion by the Dominican Republic's dictator Rafael Leonidas Trujillo. Manuel Urrutia is replaced as president by the communist lawyer Osvaldo Dorticós.
September–October Major Huber Matos unsuccessfully attempts to rise up his troops in Camagüey province, but he is arrested by Major Camilo Cienfuegos, who mysteriously disappears on October 28. DecemberRaúl Roa becomes the new Chancellor of Cuba.
1960
March 6 La Coubre cargo ship carrying ammunition and explosives explodes in Havana Bay, killing over 100 people. Fidel Castro accuses the CIA of orchestrating this without providing any proof. A few days later, Photographer Alberto Korda makes the famous Che Guevara picture during the memorial service for the victims of the explosion.
Many private companies are nationalized by the Revolutionary Government. Those who opposed the Revolutionary Government, began to flee the island, mostly to Florida. Some others, formed guerrilla groups in the forests and mountains. In the meanwhile, Cuba formed an alliance with the Soviet Union, at the peak of the Cold War.
March Former Majors William Morgan and Jesús Carreras are executed for high treason.
April Fidel Castro officially proclaims that "Cuba is a socialist country". The Bay of Pigs' invasion is defeated, being captured 1.197 of the 1.500 Cubans who invaded the island supported by the US Government. Former Mayor Humberto Sorí Marín is executed for attempt on sabotage.
December 22 Fidel Castro officially proclaims that Cuba is a "Country without alphabets".
1962
Becomes more and more obvious that the US Government will invade Cuba with its army, so the Cuban Revolutionary Government ask for Soviet help.
Second Law of Agrarian Reform is signed by the Revolutionary Government. Hurricane Flora destroyed the East of the country.
1964
The attempts of Cuban Minister of Industries, Major Che Guevara, of industrializing the country failed.
1965
January Former Major Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo is captured while attempting to form a new group to sabotage the economy of Cuba.
March Che Guevara leaves Cuba and goes to Congo, planning to start a new revolution there.
The last remains of anti-communist guerrilla groups are definitely defeated.
1966-1967
Che Guevara secretly returns to Cuba with the intention of marching to Bolivia, planning to start a new revolution there. He and most of his men were killed in Bolivia.
1966-1980
"Sovietization" of the Cuban Revolution. Repression against writers, actors, musicians, rockers, homosexuals, and anyone who follows the American Pop Culture. Standardization of the way of dressing and the hair style, etc.
1973 August 6 Fulgencio Batista dies of a "heart attack" in Spain, where he had lived the remainder of his life in exile.
1975-1976 Constitutional Assembly.
1976 February 24 Proclamation of the new Cuban Socialist Constitution.
1976 December Fidel Castro is elected the new President of Cuba.
1977-1978 Cuban military intervention in Ethiopia.
1980 April–October Mariel Exodus.
1981-1989
Economic "Golden Age" of the Cuban Revolution. Partial "liberalization" of the country. Cuban military interventions in Angola and Nicaragua.
March President of VenezuelaHugo Chávez dies and is succeeded by his Vice-president Nicolás Maduro, with the full support of the Cuban Government.
December Presidents Raúl Castro and Barack Obama shake their hands in Nelson Mandela's funeral, commencing the negotiations between both nations to normalize relationships.
2014-2017
Cuban Thaw: Two and a half years of relatively normal relationships between Cuba and the US.
^Cooke, Alistair (January 2, 1959). "Castro in control of Cuba". www.theguardian.com. The Guardian. | 1950-1959 | Guardian Century Archives. Retrieved 2023-04-04.