Cuba: History

Before European contact, Cuba was inhabited by Indigenous Taíno and Ciboney peoples, who lived in agricultural and fishing communities across the island. Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba in 1492, and Spain established the island as a colony in the early 16th century, founding Havana and other settlements that grew into key ports for Spanish trade in the Caribbean.

Cuba remained under Spanish rule for nearly four centuries, marked by a plantation economy built on enslaved African labor and sugar production. Sustained independence movements, including the Ten Years' War and the War of Independence led by figures such as José Martí, culminated in Spain's defeat in the Spanish-American War of 1898. The United States occupied Cuba until 1902, when the island became a nominally independent republic, though US influence over Cuban affairs continued for decades under the Platt Amendment.

In 1959, a revolution led by Fidel Castro overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista, establishing a socialist state aligned with the Soviet Union throughout the Cold War. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 triggered a severe economic crisis known as the Special Period. Cuba remains a one-party socialist republic today, navigating a long-standing US trade embargo alongside gradual economic reforms.