1936-1960 

In 1936 Colonel Batista becomes General Batista and continues to function as the strongman behind the appointment or "election" of the next three Cuban presidents. 


In 1940 General Batista is elected as Cuba's fourteenth president. 


In 1943 President Batista legalizes the communist party which was formed in Cuba in 1925. 


In 1944 President Batista's choice for succeeding him as president is defeated and Batista goes into self-imposed exile. 


During the next four years U.S. organized crime bosses gain a foothold in Cuba through gambling, drug trafficking, and prostitution. These businesses operate with impunity for over twelve years until their properties are nationalized by the Castro government in 1959. 


In 1948 A new president is elected and Batista is elected to the Cuban Senate in a campaign that he runs from Florida. 


March 1952 - Fidel Castro, a law school graduate in 1950, runs for Congress as a candidate of the Orthodox Party. 


March 10, 1952 - Batista again runs for president however realizing that he will not win he stages a successful coup. Upon ascending to power he cancels the election, suspends the constitution and becomes Cuba's first dictator. Within days the Truman Administration officially recognizes his government and begins sending military and economic aid.
Batista rules the government using force to suppress his opposition and is repeatedly accused of torturing and killing suspected rebels and their sympathizers. As Batista increases the use of force to maintain order and control, organized insurrections are becoming more frequent and revolutionary groups are popping up all over the country. In response Batista reportedly initiates bombing campaigns on suspected rebel strongholds killing men, women, and children. 


July 26, 1953 - Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and a group of revolutionaries attack the Moncada Army Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. Seventy revolutionaries are killed and Fidel and Raul Castro are captured and imprisoned. 


October 16, 1953 - Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, and the other revolutionaries are brought to a secret trial where Castro states his defense as "History Will Absolve Me." During the trial the revolutionaries describe the type of society they would like to create, keep and capitalize. Known as the Moncada Program, acheiving this model society becomes the basic program and goal of the July 26 Movement and the Cuban Revolution. 


May 15, 1955 - As public sentiment builds for the revolutionary movement, General Batista releases Fidel Castro and the revolutionaries who are exiled to Mexico where they begin to organize a return to Cuba to launch their revolution. 


December 2, 1956 - Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, Ernesto Che Guevara and seventy-nine revolutionaries arrive in Oriente Province in eastern Cuba aboard the cabin cruiser "Granma." All but twelve of the guerrillas are killed in early fighting. Castro and the survivors join with other revolutionaries and establish a base in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. 


March 13, 1957 - Cuban students attack the Presidential Palace in an attempt to assassinate General Batista. 


July 15, 1957 - Earl T. Smith arrives in Cuba as the new U.S. Ambassador. 


July 30, 1957 - U.S. Ambassador Smith, who has been supportive of the Batista regime, now calls the violence excessive after he observes Batista's police beat up women at the funeral of a slain revolutionary. 


March 14, 1958 - General Batista continues his reign of torture and killing of suspected rebels and their sympathizers and his bombing raids on villages. The Eisenhower Administration under increasing pressure to withdraw their support from Batista, declares a Cuban arms embargo against the protest of Ambassador Smith. 


November 1958 - In an effort to maintain government stability, Ambassador Smith suggests that a free election be held in Cuba in the hope that it would produce an alternative to both Castro and Batista. However Batista's candidate wins in an election that even Ambassador Smith concedes was rigged. 


December 9, 1958 - William D. Pawley, an emissary from the Eisenhower Administration, meets secretly with General Batista to try and persuade him to leave office and accept exile in Florida. The emissary proposes that the government be left in charge of a U.S. approved junta. Batista refuses the offer and three weeks later flees Cuba as revolutionary forces led by Fidel Castro take over the government. 


January 1, 1959 - Rebel forces enter Havana; General Batista and his comrades, after depleting the Cuban treasury and bankrupting the country, board a plane and flee to the Dominican Republic. 


January 2, 1959 - The rebels install Manuel Urrutia as President and Jose Mira Cardona as Prime Minister. The United States recognizes the new government, but soon begins planning its overthrow. 


January 8, 1959 - Fidel Castro marches from the eastern provinces across Cuba and into Havana. 


February 7, 1959 - The new Cuban government passes the new Fundamental Law of the Republic which modifies and reinstates the 1940 Constitution, suspended by General Batista after his coup in 1952. 


February 13, 1959 - Prime Minister Cardona resigns and Fidel Castro ascends to the office. 


March 3, 1959 - The Cuban government nationalizes the Cuban Telephone Company, an affiliate of ITT, and immediately reduces telephone rates. 


April 15, 1959 - Fidel Castro unofficially visits the United States and meets with Vice President Richard Nixon and UN officials. Upon his return Cuba adopts the first Agrarian Reform Law, putting a limit on private land holdings with the state expropriating the remainder. The government offers compensation to the former owners based on the property's current tax assessment rate which has not been adjusted in over 30 years. 


July 16, 1959 - President Urrutia resigns and Osvaldo Dorticos Torrado becomes the country's 19th president since Cuba received its independence in 1898. 


January 1960 - Cuba expropriates 70,000 acres of property owned by U.S. sugar companies which includes 35,000 acres of pasture and forest land owned by United Fruit, (now United Brands and Chiquita Brands). United Brands owns an additional 235,000 acres of land in Cuba and several hundred thousand acres in Guatemala. In 1954 the government of Guatemala threatened to expropriate all of United Fruit's land holdings in that country and in an effort to protect U.S. property interests, the United States orchestrated a successful effort to overthrow the Arbenz government. 


January 29, 1960 - President Eisenhower seeks Congressional authority to cut off Cuba's sugar quota. 


June 6, 1960 - Cuba requests the two US oil refineries, Texaco and Esso, and one British refinery, Shell, to process a shipment of Russian crude oil. The companies refuse and on June 28 Cuba orders the refineries nationalized. 


July 5, 1960 - Cuba orders the nationalization of all US businesses and commercial properties in Cuba. 


July 6, 1960 - President Eisenhower, with the authorization of Congress, cancels Cuba's sugar quota. 


August 6, 1960 - Cuba nationalizes all U.S. owned industrial and agrarian enterprises. 


September 17, 1960 - Cuba nationalizes all US banks including First National City Bank of New York, First National Bank of Boston, and Chase Manhattan Bank. 


September 18, 1960 - Fidel Castro flies to New York to address the United Nations General Assembly. 


October 14, 1960 - Cuba's Urban Reform Law goes into effect nationalizing all commercially owned real estate and ending landlord ownership of housing for profit. 


October 19, 1960 - The Eisenhower Administration begins employing unilateral sanctions against Cuba by first imposing a partial embargo, which becomes a total embargo 16 months later under President John F. Kennedy. 


October 24, 1960 - In response to the U.S. declaration on October 19 that it will impose an embargo, Cuba announces that it will nationalizes all remaining U.S. property on the island.