The facts you did not know about Fidel Castro

(CNN) -

These are some of the most outstanding facts about Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban Revolution.

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Fidel Castro smokes a cigar during an interview in March 1985. The leader of the Cuban Revolution died on November 25, 2016. Look at the gallery for a tour of his life in these historical photos.

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Unmistakable, in the center, the former president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, together with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, at the cultural gala for the 90th birthday of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, at the Karl Marx Theater, in Havana.

(Credit: ORIOL DE LA CRUZ / AFP / Getty Images).

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A portrait of Castro in New York in 1955. He was in exile after being released as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners in Cuba.

Two years earlier, he and 150 others made a failed attempt to overthrow the Fulgencio Batista regime.

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Castro lights his cigar alongside Che Guevara during the first days of the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra in Cuba.

Guevara, Castro, and their brother Raul organized a group of Cuban exiles who returned to the island in 1956 and began a guerrilla war against government troops.

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Fidel Castro and 'Che' Guevara in the Museum of the Revolution in Havana, in 1958 after the liberation of Cuba.

(Credit: Gerard SIOEN / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

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Fidel Castro (right), leader of the Cuban revolutionary group along with Dr. Raul Chibas, a professor and political leader, in the Sierra Maestra mountains in Cuba.

(Credit: Getty Images)

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Castro and the revolutionaries hold their rifles in the air in January 1959 after overthrowing Batista.

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Castro is encouraged by the crowd on his victorious march to Havana.

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Surrounded by rebels who came with him from the mountains, Castro delivered an all-night speech.

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Castro, on the left, became the prime minister of Cuba in February 1959. His brother Raul, on the right, was a commander of the armed forces.

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During a visit to New York in 1969, Castro spent time with a group of children.

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American journalist Ed Sullivan interviews Castro in 1959.

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Castro greets US Vice President Richard Nixon during a reception in Washington in 1959.

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Castro gives a speech at the General Assembly of the in September 1960.

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Castro jumps out of a tank in April 1961 upon arrival in Girón, Cuba, near the Bay of Pigs.

That month a group of 1,300 Cuban exiles, armed with US weapons, tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Castro.

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Castro responds to a United States naval blockade in October 1962.

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Castro raises the hand of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during a visit to Moscow in 1963.

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Castro plays baseball in 1964

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Castro gives a speech in front of thousands of Cubans in Havana in 1968.

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In 1977, Castro uses a map while describing the Bay of Pigs Invasion to ABC correspondent Barbara Walters.

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Iraqi Vice President Saddam Hussein (c) in the midst of the Castro brothers during a visit to Cuba in January 1979.

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Castro greets Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Havana in April 1989.

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Castro gestures during in Paris in March 1995.

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Castro walks with Pope John Paul II on an airport runway in Havana in January 1998. It was the first time a pope had visited Cuba.

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Castro embraces the President of South Africa Nelson Mandela in May 1998, close to the Prime Minister of Italy Romano Prodi (i) and the President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

They were in Switzerland for a World Trade Organization conference.

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Castro welcomes Russian President Vladimir to Cuba in December 2000. Putin was the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

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Castro is helped after he apparently passed out after a two-hour speech in Cotorro, Cuba, in June 2001. He returned to the podium 10 minutes later and assured his audience that he was fine and just needed to sleep.

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In July 2001, Castro speaks with Elian Gonzalez, the boy who was the target of a bitter international dispute two years earlier.

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Castro and former US President Jimmy Carter listen to the US anthem after Carter visited Havana in 2002.

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Upon his arrival in Hanoi, Vietnam, young people greet Fidel Castro on February 21, 2003. During his visit, the Cuban leader met with various government leaders.

(Credit: AHMED VELAZQUEZ / AFP / Getty Images)

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Castro and his brother Raul attend a session of Parliament in July 2004.

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Former Argentine soccer player Diego Armando Maradona speaks with Cuban President Fidel Castro before recording his program 'La noche del 10' in Havana, on October 27, 2005. (Credit: ISMAEL FRANCISCO GONZALEZ / AFP / Getty Images)

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This shot from the Cuban state channel shows Castro during a visit by then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in September 2006.

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Castro gives a speech in Havana in 2006.

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Former Cuban President Fidel Castro takes a nap during the final session of the Communist Party Congress in April 2011 in Havana.

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Castro with Pope Benedict XIX in 2012.

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Castro speaks with 19 master cheesemakers on July 3, 2015 on an unusual trip away from his home.

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Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived on an official visit to Havana, Cuba, on September 19, 2016. There he met with Fidel Castro.

(Credit: Granma)

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Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, in the center, attends the closing ceremony of the meeting of the Communist Party of Cuba, in Havana.

Castro formally retired from power in 2008 and his brother Raúl (right) is today the president of Cuba.

Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016, at the age of 90.

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November 30: the ashes of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro are carried through the streets of Havana, Cuba.

Cubans from all over the country gathered to see his remains that were brought to Santiago de Cuba.

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A giant Castro poster hangs from a building at the University of Havana to commemorate the leader's death.

(ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP / Getty Images)

Personal information:

Date of birth:

August 13, 1926.

Place of birth:

Birán, Cuba

Date of death:

November 25, 2016

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Place of death:

Havana, Cuba

Full name:

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz

Father:

Ángel Castro, a wealthy Spanish landowner.

Mother:

Lina Ruz, a cook and servant of Ángel Castro's first wife.

Marriage:

Mirta Díaz-Balart (October 12, 1948-1955, divorced)

Children:

with Natalia Revuelta: Alina Fernández Revuelta, 1956;

with an unknown lover: Jorge Ángel Castro, 1950s;

with his lover Dalia Soto del Valle: Antonio, Alejandro, Ángel, Alexis, Alex;

with Mirta Castro: Fidelito, 1949.

Education:

Colegio Dolores in Santiago de Cuba, 1942;

Belén School in Havana, 1945;

University of Havana, doctorate in 1950.

SPECIAL: The life and work of Fidel Castro

Other data:

He led the overthrow of the Batista dictatorship in Cuba in 1959.

He made Cuba the first communist country in the Western Hemisphere.

He brought social reforms to Cuba but has been criticized for violations of human rights and freedom of expression.

During his time in office, thousands of Cubans sought exile in the United States.

Chronology:

1947 -

Castro participates in a failed rebellion in the Dominican Republic against Generalissimo Rafael Trujillo.

1952 -

Castro runs for parliament.

The government is overthrown on March 10, 1952 by Fulgencio Batista and the elections are suspended.

July 26, 1953

- Castro and 150 others attack the Moncada military barracks in Santiago de Cuba in a failed attempt to overthrow the Batista regime.

October 16, 1953 -

Castro is sentenced to 15 years in prison.

May 15, 1955 -

Fidel and Raúl Castro are released as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners.

They are exiles and between 1955 and 1956 they live in the United States and Mexico.

While in Mexico they meet the Argentine doctor Che Guevara.

The three organize a group of Cuban exiles to form a new guerrilla group.

December 2, 1956 -

Eighty-two exiles make landfall in Cuba on a yacht called 'Granma'.

Most are killed immediately.

The survivors, including Guevara and the Castros, flee to the Sierra Maestra mountains.

Between 1957 and 1958 they maintained a guerrilla campaign from this base, which included skirmishes with government troops and the burning of sugar cane crops.

January 1, 1959 -

Fulgencio Batista is overthrown by Castro's forces.

January 2, 1959 -

Manuel Urrutia is declared the new president.

José Miró Cardona is appointed Prime Minister.

February 16, 1959 -

Castro assumes the position of Prime Minister.

April 15-26, 1959 -

Castro visits the United States.

May 8, 1960 -

Cuba and the Soviet Union establish formal diplomatic relations.

September 1960 -

Castro addresses the United Nations General Assembly.

April 17, 1961 -

A group of some 1,300 Cuban exiles make landfall in Playa Girón (Bay of Pigs).

Armed with American weapons, they made a failed attempt to overthrow Castro.

Finally, the survivors were released in December 1962 in exchange for $ 53 million in food and medicine.

December 3, 1976 -

Castro is elected president of the Council of State.

This new title replaces the offices of President and Prime Minister.

March 18, 1977 -

President Jimmy Carter ends the ban on travel to Cuba.

From April to September 1980 -

Some 125,000 Cubans emigrate to the United States, in what is known as the "Exodus of the Mariel".

April 19, 1982 -

President Ronald Reagan reinstates a travel ban to Cuba.

August 19, 1994 -

President Bill Clinton announces the end of the United States' "open door" policy for Cuban refugees, established by President Lyndon Johnson in 1966. From then on, Cubans intercepted at sea will be returnees, but those who make landfall will be allowed to stay, a policy known as "dry foot, wet foot."

January 21-25, 1998 -

Castro welcomes Pope John Paul II on a five-day historic visit.

It is the first visit of a Pope to Cuba in history.

December 13, 2000 -

Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Castro in Cuba.

They talk about trade issues and Cuba's debt with Moscow, estimated at $ 20 million.

June 23, 2001 -

Castro appears ill during a speech and is helped from the podium.

Spring 2003 -

Castro cracks down on dissidents and imposes long sentences on 75 arrested activists.

October 20, 2004 -

After delivering a speech, Castro falls off the podium.

July 31, 2006 -

A statement read on Cuban television announces that Fidel Castro is going to undergo intestinal surgery, and provisionally hands over power to his younger brother, Raúl.

This arrangement is expected to last for several weeks while Fidel Castro recovers.

June 3, 2007

- Castro appears on Cuban television standing up, receiving a visit.

October 29, 2007 -

Castro publishes his autobiography "One Hundred Hours with Fidel" in Great Britain.

The book is a series of interviews with the journalist Ignacio Ramonet.

It is published in the United States in early 2008.

February 19, 2008 -

Due to his health problems, Castro announces his resignation as president in a letter published overnight in an online version of the Cuban state newspaper Granma.

December 4, 2008 -

In an essay, he writes that Cuba would be willing to speak to the administration of President Barack Obama.

March 22, 2011 -

In an essay published in Cuban state media, Fidel Castro writes that he resigned as the head of the communist party when he fell ill on July 31, 2006 and never tried to resume his post.

February 3, 2012 -

Fidel Castro publishes the second volume of the memoirs of his life: "Fidel Castro Ruz: Guerrilla of time", based on conversations with the journalist Katiuska Blanco.

October 22, 2012 -

The Cuban government increases efforts to demonstrate that Castro is in good health.

Former Venezuelan Vice President Elías Jaua claims he was received by Castro and shows reporters a photo of the two of them together.

The state media also published an article signed by Castro in which he denounced the rumors.

January 26, 2015 -

 A letter allegedly written by Castro supports the incipient talks to restore diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States, although Castro says he still "does not trust" US policies.

March 2, 2015 -

 The Cuban state press publishes photos of Castro speaking with five Cuban intelligence agents recently freed by the United States in a prisoner exchange.

April 19, 2016 -

Castro talks about his mortality at the end of the Communist Party Congress: "I will soon be 90 years old, I would never have imagined that this would happen to me and it is not the product of effort; it is fate, soon I will be like everyone else The time has come for all of us. "

November 25, 2016 -

Dies at age 90.

|

Fidel Castro smokes a cigar during an interview in March 1985. The leader of the Cuban Revolution died on November 25, 2016. Look at the gallery for a tour of his life in these historical photos.

|

Unmistakable, in the center, the former president of Cuba, Fidel Castro, together with the president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro, at the cultural gala for the 90th birthday of the historical leader of the Cuban Revolution, at the Karl Marx Theater, in Havana.

(Credit: ORIOL DE LA CRUZ / AFP / Getty Images).

|

A portrait of Castro in New York in 1955. He was in exile after being released as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners in Cuba.

Two years earlier, he and 150 others made a failed attempt to overthrow the Fulgencio Batista regime.

|

Castro lights his cigar alongside Che Guevara during the first days of the guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra in Cuba.

Guevara, Castro, and their brother Raul organized a group of Cuban exiles who returned to the island in 1956 and began a guerrilla war against government troops.

|

Fidel Castro and 'Che' Guevara in the Museum of the Revolution in Havana, in 1958 after the liberation of Cuba.

(Credit: Gerard SIOEN / Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images)

|

Fidel Castro (right), leader of the Cuban revolutionary group along with Dr. Raul Chibas, a professor and political leader, in the Sierra Maestra mountains in Cuba.

(Credit: Getty Images)

|

Castro and the revolutionaries hold their rifles in the air in January 1959 after overthrowing Batista.

|

Castro is encouraged by the crowd on his victorious march to Havana.

|

Surrounded by rebels who came with him from the mountains, Castro delivered an all-night speech.

|

Castro, on the left, became the prime minister of Cuba in February 1959. His brother Raul, on the right, was a commander of the armed forces.

|

During a visit to New York in 1969, Castro spent time with a group of children.

|

American journalist Ed Sullivan interviews Castro in 1959.

|

Castro greets US Vice President Richard Nixon during a reception in Washington in 1959.

|

Castro gives a speech at the General Assembly of the in September 1960.

|

Castro jumps out of a tank in April 1961 upon arrival in Girón, Cuba, near the Bay of Pigs.

That month a group of 1,300 Cuban exiles, armed with US weapons, tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Castro.

|

Castro responds to a United States naval blockade in October 1962.

|

Castro raises the hand of Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev during a visit to Moscow in 1963.

|

Castro plays baseball in 1964

|

Castro gives a speech in front of thousands of Cubans in Havana in 1968.

|

In 1977, Castro uses a map while describing the Bay of Pigs Invasion to ABC correspondent Barbara Walters.

|

Iraqi Vice President Saddam Hussein (c) in the midst of the Castro brothers during a visit to Cuba in January 1979.

|

Castro greets Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in Havana in April 1989.

|

Castro gestures during in Paris in March 1995.

|

Castro walks with Pope John Paul II on an airport runway in Havana in January 1998. It was the first time a pope had visited Cuba.

|

Castro embraces the President of South Africa Nelson Mandela in May 1998, close to the Prime Minister of Italy Romano Prodi (i) and the President of Brazil Fernando Henrique Cardoso.

They were in Switzerland for a World Trade Organization conference.

|

Castro welcomes Russian President Vladimir to Cuba in December 2000. Putin was the first Russian president to visit Cuba since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

|

Castro is helped after he apparently passed out after a two-hour speech in Cotorro, Cuba, in June 2001. He returned to the podium 10 minutes later and assured his audience that he was fine and just needed to sleep.

|

In July 2001, Castro speaks with Elian Gonzalez, the boy who was the target of a bitter international dispute two years earlier.

|

Castro and former US President Jimmy Carter listen to the US anthem after Carter visited Havana in 2002.

|

Upon his arrival in Hanoi, Vietnam, young people greet Fidel Castro on February 21, 2003. During his visit, the Cuban leader met with various government leaders.

(Credit: AHMED VELAZQUEZ / AFP / Getty Images)

|

Castro and his brother Raul attend a session of Parliament in July 2004.

|

Former Argentine soccer player Diego Armando Maradona speaks with Cuban President Fidel Castro before recording his program 'La noche del 10' in Havana, on October 27, 2005. (Credit: ISMAEL FRANCISCO GONZALEZ / AFP / Getty Images)

|

This shot from the Cuban state channel shows Castro during a visit by then Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez in September 2006.

|

Castro gives a speech in Havana in 2006.

|

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro takes a nap during the final session of the Communist Party Congress in April 2011 in Havana.

|

Castro with Pope Benedict XIX in 2012.

|

Castro speaks with 19 master cheesemakers on July 3, 2015 on an unusual trip away from his home.

|

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani arrived on an official visit to Havana, Cuba, on September 19, 2016. There he met with Fidel Castro.

(Credit: Granma)

|

Former Cuban President Fidel Castro, in the center, attends the closing ceremony of the meeting of the Communist Party of Cuba, in Havana.

Castro formally retired from power in 2008 and his brother Raúl (right) is today the president of Cuba.

Fidel Castro died on November 25, 2016, at the age of 90.

|

November 30: the ashes of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro are carried through the streets of Havana, Cuba.

Cubans from all over the country gathered to see his remains that were brought to Santiago de Cuba.

|

A giant Castro poster hangs from a building at the University of Havana to commemorate the leader's death.

(ADALBERTO ROQUE / AFP / Getty Images)

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