Hello & welcome to this weekend’s GK Nugget. While demonetization
has clearly not left the front pages of our newspapers, a headline that caused
quite a ripple (if not a rumble) through the news media last week was the death
of Cuban leader, Fidel Castro on 25th Nov, at the age of 90. While
we’ve read about his politics, his views and quite a few jokes about him (My
favourite being a CM, on being informed of Castro’s death, asks “Outside which
bank branch was he queueing up when he died?”), here are some lesser known
facts about the man who was never far from the front page of global newspapers.
Diplomatic relations between the US & Cuba have been far
from friendly since the 1960s. Depending on which side of the Gulf of Mexico
you live in, Fidel Castro was either a visionary or a dictator. He converted
Cuba into a one-party socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in
the Western Hemisphere.
In 1959, at the age of 32, Castro and a small band of revolutionaries
overthrew the unpopular dictator, Fulgencio Batista.
While the United States quickly recognized the new
government when Castro came to power on January 1, 1959, tensions arose after
Cuba began nationalizing factories and plantations owned by American companies.
In January 1961, Washington broke off diplomatic relations.
Another key moment in history was in 1962, when America
and the Soviet Union (former Russia) were at the brink of nuclear war over Soviet
nuclear missiles installed in Cuba.
The Cuban government announced 9 days of mourning on
Castro’s death. His ashes are being taken across the Caribbean island for the
Cubans to pay their respects. The convoy is retracing the victory tour that Castro
took in 1959 to celebrate the defeat of US-backed dictator Fulgencio Batista.
After the Queen of Britain & the King of Thailand, he
was the world's third longest-serving head of state. He was its longest-serving
government leader when illness forced him to hand over power to his brother in
July 2006.
A man of many words, Castro holds the Guinness Book of
Records title for the longest speech ever delivered at the United Nations: 4
hours and 29 minutes, on Sept. 29, 1960. His longest speech on record in Cuba
was 7 hours and 10 minutes in 1986 at the Communist Party Congress in Havana.
He outlasted 9 US presidents (Eisenhower, Kennedy,
Johnson, Nixon, Carter, Reagan, George H W Bush, Clinton & George W Bush).
He officially stepped down in 2008, however illness had forced him to
relinquish power in 2006.
But Castro lived long enough to see a historic thaw in
relations between Cuba and the United States. The two nations re-established
diplomatic relations in July 2015, and President Barack Obama visited the
island this year (the 1st US President to visit Cuba since Calvin
Coolidge in 1928)
Cuba is famous for its cigars & many iconic photos of
Castro show him puffing on a cigar but he gave up the habit in 1985 saying “The
best thing you can do with this box of cigars is give them to your enemy.”
Castro claimed he survived 634 attempts or plots to
assassinate him, mainly masterminded by the Central Intelligence Agency and
US-based exile organisations. They may have included poison pills, a toxic
cigar, exploding mollusks, and a chemically tainted diving suit. Another
alleged plan involved giving him powder that would make his beard fall out and
so undermine his popularity.
Fidel Castro was close friends with Ernesto
"Che" Guevara, the Argentine revolutionary & guerrilla leader,
who was also an integral part of the Cuban revolution that overthrew Fulgencio
Batista.
Time magazine in 2012 named Castro as one of the 100 most
influential personalities of all time.
One of Castro’s pet projects was a cow called Ubre Blanca
(or White Udder) that produced prodigious quantities of milk and became a
propaganda tool for Cuba's agriculture in the 1980s. Ubre Blanca is in the
Guinness Book of Records for the highest milk yield by a cow in one day - 110
litres.
One can’t deny that Fidel Castro had made lasting impression
on Cuba and the world but only time will be able to judge whether it was for
the better or the worse.
That’s all on this fortnight’s GK nugget. Until, next
time.
