As you may have heard by now, the big news this week is Fidel Castro’s resignation as leader of Cuba. Castro has been in power since 1959 (we’ve had ten presidents since then!), and many thought he would continue to rule until he passed away, rather than ever resigning.

America has cut off all contact with Cuba since Castro’s rise to power, which means his announcement is a huge turning point for a country that once almost brought us to the brink of nuclear war with the Soviet Union.

Beginning in 1953, Castro led a guerrilla movement against the Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, who at the time was using violence to suppress a rapidly-growing resistance made up primarily of students and other middle and upper class Cubans. Batista had begun to suspend certain constitutional rights and censor the media, even closing the strongly anti-Batista University of Havana in 1956. Read More »