Fidel Castro Through the Years in Photos
From Marxist revolutionary to the foil of American foreign policy for five decades, a look at the life of Fidel Castro.
Underwood Archives/Getty
12/7/1956-Mexico City, Mexico: The leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro Ruiz, rests on his cot after he was detained by Mexican immigration authorities for training troops for the uprising, which he launched shortly after this picture was taken. Castro was released on bond. On December 7, a report form Havana, Cuba, announced that government warplnes had bombed and strafed a rebel hideout in the Sierra Maestra foothills in the Oriente province. Complete Caption in Envelope
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Fidel Castro with fellow revolutionary rebels in Cuba 1959.
Universal History Archive/UIG via Getty
Fidel Castro (left) lit his cigar while Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara (1928-1967) looked on in the early days of their guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Cuba, circa 1956. Castro wore a military uniform while Guevara was in fatigues and a beret.
Hulton Archive/Getty
Seeming quite amused, Cuban Prime Minister Fidel Castro holds up a newspaper headlining the discovery of a plot to kill Castro here, April 23rd. Castro was at the Overseas Press Club at the time. Police said five brothers had been sent here from Philadelphia, Pa., to assassinate the bearded leader. Police said that three other men, including a sixth brother, were believed to be in New York in connection with the plot to kill Castro. Earlier in the day, when asked about a reported assassination attempt, Castro had replied, 'In Cuba, they had tanks, planes and they run away. So what are they going to do here? I sleep well and don't worry at all.'
Bettmann/Getty
Fidel Castro, circa 1960.
Sovfoto/UIG via Getty
Fidel Castro opening the Jose A. Echevarria's student hall of residence. About 1960.
Gilberto Ante/Roger Viollet/Getty
This is a shot of Fidel Castro with hat, which was made just before Fidel took off after his speech at the Sports Palace.
Bettmann
Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.
Grey Villet/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty
Propaganda poster celebrating Fidel Castro, created during the early Cuban revolutionary period.
Michael Nicholson/Corbis via Getty
September 20, 1960
A jovial greeting between then-Cuban Prime Minister Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev as they met at the United Nations in New York.
Underwood Archives/Getty
Fidel Castro shares a laugh with Malcolm X at the Hotel Theresa in New York, October 19, 1960.
Prensa Latina / Reuters
Fidel Castro bats during the inauguration game of the Amateur Baseball Championship in Havana in 1963.
Prensa Latina / Reuters
November 15, 1974
Castro and Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat at Havana’s airport during Arafat’s first visit to Cuba.
Prensa Latina/Reuters
Fidel Castro addresses the audience as president of the Non-Aligned Movement at the United Nations in New York, October 12, 1979.
Prensa Latina / Reuters
Portrait of Castro in New York in 1955, during an interview.
AFP/Getty
May 14, 2002
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter and Castro listen to the Cuban national anthem at the Latinoamericano baseball stadium in Havana.
Rafael Perez/Reuters
January 25, 2006
Castro looks at a news ticker flashing on the front windows of the U.S. diplomatic mission while visiting the construction site outside the mission in Havana. Bulldozers dug up a street in front of the mission just hours after Castro and hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched past to protest against a five-foot-high billboard that was streaming human-rights messages across the façade of the mission.
Claudia Daut/Reuters
Cuba's President Fidel Castro attends a Mercosur trade bloc summit in Cordoba, Argentina, July 21, 2006.
David Mercado / Reuters
April 19, 2011
Fidel Castro (left) holds up the arm of his brother, Raul, as the Cuban Communist Party selected the old guard to oversee a new economic course for the island nation, choosing Raul to lead the country’s highest political body.
Desmond Boylan/Reuters
Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro shows a copy of the October 19, 2012 Granma newspaper in Havana October 19, 2012. Castro dismissed reports that he was dead or near death in an article published on Monday in Cuba's state-run press. He accused news agencies and enemies of Cuba of spreading "stupidities" about him, particularly a report from a Spanish newspaper that said he had suffered a massive stroke and was in a vegetative state.
Handout / Reuters
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