13 August 2026 will mark 100 years since the birth of Fidel Castro, the Cuban revolutionary leader who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States and for five decades defied US efforts to topple him.
Hailed by his admirers as a hero, reviled by his critics as a dictator, former Cuban president Fidel Castro made headlines for almost five decades as the fiery, charismatic leader of the Caribbean's biggest island.
Castro first won international fame by leading a guerrilla campaign that with popular support ousted right-wing Cuban dictator General Fulgencio Batista on 1 January 1959.
Turning his back on his origins as the son of a wealthy sugar planter, he launched a political, social and economic revolution that transformed Cuba from a backward playground for US tourists into a Third World power. He was aided in creating the first communist administration in the western hemisphere by his close friend revolutionary icon Ernesto "Che" Guevara.
Castro's belligerently anti-United States stance made him the target of a series of attempts by Washington to remove him. These included an abortive invasion attempt at Cuba's southern Bay of Pigs in 1961 by more than 1,000 Cuban exiles trained and financed by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
In spite of five decades of US sanctions designed to oust him, Castro outlasted nine US presidents, from Eisenhower to Clinton, and faced increased hostility under President George W. Bush who tightened financial and travel restrictions.
He survived numerous assassination plots and remained in control of one of the world's last communist societies for almost half a century, becoming the world's third longest-serving head of state after Britain's Queen Elizabeth and King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand.