Portal:Cuba

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Location of Cuba in the Caribbean
Republic of Cuba
República de Cuba (Spanish)

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba, Isla de la Juventud, archipelagos, 4,195 islands and cays surrounding the main island. Cuba is located where the northern Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, and Atlantic Ocean meet. Cuba is located east of the Yucatán Peninsula (Mexico), south of both the American state of Florida and the Bahamas, west of Hispaniola (Haiti/Dominican Republic), and north of Jamaica and the Cayman Islands. Havana is the largest city and capital. Cuba is the third-most populous country in the Caribbean after Haiti and the Dominican Republic, with about 11 million inhabitants.

Cuba is a socialist state, in which the role of the Communist Party is enshrined in the Constitution. Cuba has an authoritarian Government where political opposition is not permitted. Censorship is extensive and independent journalism is repressed; Reporters Without Borders has characterized Cuba as one of the worst countries for press freedom. Culturally, Cuba is considered part of Latin America. It is a multiethnic country whose people, culture and customs derive from diverse origins, including the Taíno Ciboney peoples, the long period of Spanish colonialism, the introduction of enslaved Africans and a close relationship with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. (Full article...)

Hotel Ambos Mundos
The Hotel Ambos Mundos (Spanish pronunciation: [oˈtel ˈambos ˈmundos], Both Worlds Hotel) is a hotel in Havana, Cuba. Built with a square form with five floors, it has an eclectic set of characteristics of 20th-century style architecture. It was built in 1924 on a site that previously had been occupied by an old family house on the corner of Calle Obispo and Mercaderes (Bishop and Merchants Streets) in Old Havana. It is a frequent tourist destination because it was home to the popular writer Ernest Hemingway for seven years in the 1930s. (Full article...)
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The following are images from various Cuba-related articles on Wikipedia.

Did you know (auto-generated)

  • ... that Brooklyn Nine-Nine actress Melissa Fumero is the daughter of Cubans who fled to the U.S. as teenagers?
  • ... that Joan Boada was named a principal dancer at the Cuban National Ballet at age 16, but later defected and ended up at the San Francisco Ballet?
  • ... that after his movement's victory in the Cuban Revolution, television broadcasts showed Camilo Cienfuegos freeing parrots from birdcages, declaring that the birds had "a right to liberty"?
  • ... that José Ramón Balaguer fought as a soldier-medic for Fidel Castro's rebel army before becoming Cuba's minister of public health?
  • ... that Rudi Kappel, co-founder of the first airline of Suriname, was arrested both on entering and leaving Santiago de Cuba?
  • ... that after his release from a hospital for the criminally insane, Richard Dixon burgled $16 from a credit union and hijacked a jet to Cuba?

Recognized content - show another

Entries here consist of Good and Featured articles, which meet a core set of high editorial standards.

In December 1971, the freighters Leyla Express and Johnny Express were seized by Cuban gunboats. The Leyla Express was stopped in international waters off the Cuban coast on December 5; the Johnny Express was intercepted by gunboats near the island of Little Inagua in the Bahamas ten days later. Some of the crew of the Johnny Express, including the captain, were injured when the gunboats fired on their vessel. The freighters both carried Panamanian flags of convenience, but belonged to the Bahama Lines corporation, based in Miami. The company was run by four brothers, Cuban exiles who had previously been involved in activities directed against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro. Cuba stated that both vessels were being used by the United States Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to transport weapons, explosives, and personnel to Cuba, and described the vessels as being engaged in piracy. Cuba had suspected the involvement of one of Bahama Lines's ships in shelling the Cuban village of Samá, on the northern coast of Oriente Province, a few months previously; several civilians had died in the attack. The US government of Richard Nixon and the Bahama Lines denied the accusations.

Cuba released the crew of both ships to Panamanian custody, but announced that José Villa, the captain of the Johnny Express, had confessed to being an agent of the CIA, and would face trial. The US asked the Panamanian government of Omar Torrijos to negotiate his release. Rómulo Escobar Bethancourt and Manuel Noriega traveled to Cuba, where they negotiated Villa's release into Panamanian custody, in return for which criminal charges were brought against Villa in Panama, though he was released without being convicted. The success of the negotiations undertaken by Noriega were later used by him to bargain with the US government. As a consequence of the incident, the US ordered all its naval and air forces in the region to go to the aid of any ships coming under attack from Cuban vessels. A Panamanian mission which investigated the incident concluded, based on the ships' logs, that the vessels had in fact brought insurgent forces to Cuban territory, and that the Cuban government's accusations on that count were accurate. (Full article...)

Selected biography - show another

Enrique González Castillo (1890 – January 1, 1957), nicknamed La Pulga (The Flea), was a Cuban singer-songwriter from Santiago de Cuba. His two most famous works are the boleros "Injusta duda" and "Lupina", which have been recorded by artists such as Arsenio Rodríguez and Compay Segundo, respectively. The latter was written for danzonete singer Pablo Quevedo in 1934. His repertoire included boleros, canciones, guarachas and guajiras written by himself. The height of his career took place in the 1930s and '40s in Havana, where he was the guitarist for Benny Moré before he joined Conjunto Matamoros to tour Mexico. In addition, he was part of several other vocal groups, collaborating with famous guarachero Ñico Saquito.

In March 2014, Cuban trova musicians paid homage to González in his hometown of Santiago. (Full article...)
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Museum of the Revolution in Havana
Museum of the Revolution in Havana
Credit: Manuel Dohmen
Interior of the Museum of the Revolution in Havana

More did you know - show different entries

  • ...that the Cauto River is the longest river in Cuba at 213 miles?
  • ...that La Coubre was a French vessel carrying munitions from the port of Antwerp in 1960, which exploded while it was being unloaded in Havana harbor leaving at least 75 dead?
  • ...that Santa María del Mar is one of a chain of beaches called the Eastern Beaches (Spanish: Playas del Este) which extend for 15 miles along the north coast of Havana province? And that it is a very popular spot for tourists?
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Quote of the day

The concluding sentences of a four hour speech made by Fidel Castro in his own defense in court against the charges brought against him after leading an attack on the Moncada Barracks in 1953.

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