Fidel Castro

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz(Born 13 August 1926 )) is a Cuban political leader and former communist revolutionary and was  the primary leader of the Cuban Revolution.Fidel Castro led an armed attack on the 'Moncada Barracks' in 1953, but this failed and he was imprisoned. Getting out of prison after a year, he travelled to Mexico, and with the aid of his brother Raul Castro and friend Che Guevara, he assembled together a group of Cuban revolutionaries, the July 26 Movement
                                                        The logo of the July 26 Movement

 Che Guevara(left) with Fidel Castro(right)

Returning with them to Cuba, he took a key role in the Cuban Revolution , leading a successful Guerilla War against the U.S.-backed Cuban President Fulgenica Batista's forces, with Batista himself fleeing into exile in 1959
                                                        Cuban President Fulgenica Batista

He served as the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba from the party's foundation in 1961 until  April 19,2011

Fidel Castro served as the Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then as the President of the Council of State of Cuba and the President of the Council of Ministers of Cuba until his resignation from the office in February 2008.

Fidel Castro transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro, on July 31, 2006,after intestinal surgery from an undisclosed digestive illness.

On February 19, 2008, 5 days before his mandate was to expire, Fidel Castro announced that he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief

On February 24, 2008, the National Assembly elected Raúl Castro to succeed him as the President of Cuba
Cuba's Communist Party elected President Raul Castro(younger brother and who previously served under Fidel Castro as Minister of Defence from 1959 to 2008) on 19.04.2011 to succeed Fidel Castro as head of the country's highest political body and only legal party.

 Pope Visits Cuba - March 27-29,2012

On Tuesday March 27,2012, Pope had a 55-minute closed-door meeting with President Raul Castro, Fidel Castro's brother, in which the pontiff proposed that Good Friday be made a holiday.

 

Fidel Castro meets Pope Benedict

 

Fidel Castro and Pope Benedict, both octogenarians, joked about their age in a brief meeting. The two men chatted for about 30 minutes at the Vatican embassy in Havana near the end of the pope's three-day visit to Cuba, where he called for greater freedom and a bigger role for the Catholic Church in the communist-led nation