CHRONOLOGY, by Prof. Jorge I. Dominguez

1895

War of independence begins

1898

US beats Spain in war

1901

Cuban Constitution, with Platt amendment, adopted

1902

Cuba "independent"

1903

US‑Cuban Reciprocity Treaty signed

1933

August: President Gerardo Machado overthrown
September 4: Army Sgt. Fulgencio Batista's coup

1934

Platt amendment repealed
New US‑Cuban Reciprocity Treaty signed
US Jones‑Costigan Sugar Act enacted

1937

Cuba's Sugar Coordination Act enacted

1940

New Cuban Constitution approved
Batista elected President

1944

Opposition wins free elections; Batista steps down; Auténtico party's Ramón Grau becomes President

1947

Fidel Castro trains to invade Dominican Republic

1948

Auténtico party's Carlos Prío elected President
Fidel Castro involved in Bogotá, Colombia, riots

1952

March 10: Batista's new coup

1953

July 26: attack on Moncada barracks, city of Santiago

1955

Batista grants amnesty to Fidel Castro
Revolutionary Directorate founded
November‑December: demonstrations + brief general strike

1956

April: Col. Ramón Barquín's coup attempt fails
April 29: attack on Goicuría barracks fails
Fall: Revolutionary Directorate assassinates several key government officers
November 30: uprising in city of Santiago
December 2: "Granma" yacht shipwreck; Castro, associates seek refuge in Sierra Maestra mountains

1957

February 17: Herbert Matthews interviews Castro in Sierra Maestra
March 13: Revolutionary Directorate attacks presidential palace; Batista survives; José Antonio Echeverría killed
May: "Corinthia" yacht expedition fails
June: Earl Smith sworn in as US ambassador to Cuba
July 12: Sierra Maestra Manifesto signed
July 30: Frank País killed
September: Uprising at Navy's base in Cienfuegos fails
September: US Freeport Sulphur announces massive investments to develop Cuban nickel
October: Revolutionary Directorate opens Escambray mountains front
November: Miami Pact signed
December: Fidel Castro denounces Miami Pact

1958

March 14: US cuts off weapons sales to Cuban government
March: Raúl Castro opens Sierra Cristal mountains front
April 9: general strike fails
May 25: Army opens Sierra Maestra general offensive
May: Cuban Air Force planes refueled at US base at Guantánamo; rebels protest
June 27: Raúl Castro takes US citizens as hostages
July: Some US troops from Guantánamo guard installations inside Cuba; rebels protest; US troops return to base
July: In Escambray mountains, Eloy Gutiérrez Menoyo splits off from Revolutionary Directorate
July 20: Caracas Pact signed
August 18: Army ends general offensive at Sierra Maestra
August: Ernesto Guevara and Camilo Cienfuegos leave Oriente province to begin invasion of Camagüey and Las Villas provinces
September: Castro negotiations with Gen. Eulogio Cantillo
November: National elections; Batista claims win for his candidate, Andrés Rivero Agüero
December 9: William Pawley mission to get Batista to resign
December 28: Castro‑Cantillo agreement
December 30: Armored train surrenders to rebels in Las Villas
December 31: Guevara forces seize city of Santa Clara New Year's eve: Batista flees

1959

January 2: Remainder of old regime disintegrates
January 8: Fidel Castro enters Havana
January: Trials and executions of Batista regime officers begin
April: Castro announces no elections to be held soon
April: Castro visits US; meets Richard Nixon; announces Cuba seeks no US funds
April 25: Castro speaks at Harvard
May: Cuba enacts land reform law
June 11: US note over Cuba's land reform
June: First Cuban Cabinet crisis
June: Chief of Cuba's Air Force, Díaz Lanz, defects to US
July 17: President Manuel Urrutia forced to resign
Fall: Militia created
October 16: Soviet envoy Alexeev meets Fidel Castro
October 18: University students' elections
October 19: Commander of Camagüey province Huber Matos resigns
October 21: Huber Matos arrested
October 21: Díaz Lanz overflies Havana
October 26: F. Castro says Díaz Lanz bombed Havana; blames US
November: Labor union congress
November: Second major Cabinet crisis

1960

January: US recalls Ambassador Bonsal; later re‑opens talks
February : Anastas Mikoyan in Havana; Soviet‑Cuban Treaty signed
March 1: Eisenhower asks Congress for discretion to cut sugar quota
March 4: Belgian weapons ship "La Coubre" explodes in Havana harbor; Castro blames US
March 17: Eisenhower authorizes CIA to begin to train Cuban exiles for military actions
June: Foreign oil refineries refuse to refine Soviet oil; Cuban government seizes them
July 6: US cuts Cuba's sugar quota
July: USSR will purchase all Cuban sugar the US will not buy; offers military support
July: Cuba expropriates all US property
August: Cuban Women's Federation founded
August: US government begins plots to assassinate Fidel Castro
September: Committees for the Defense of the Revolution founded
December 4: Cuban Church publishes first letter against Castro

1961

January: US‑Cuban relations broken
April: Bay of Pigs invasion defeated; revolution proclaimed "socialist"
May: Private schools expropriated
July: ORI (embryonic new communist party founded)
September: 131 Catholic priests deported
September: Cuba pulls out of International Sugar Agreement
Second half: Nationwide literacy campaign
December: Fidel Castro calls himself "Marxist‑Leninist"

1962

January: Organization of American States expels Cuban government
January: tenure abolished at universities
March: National Directorate of ORI announced; Aníbal Escalante dismissed as ORI Organization Secretary; prices frozen and rationing imposed
July: Gen. Raúl Castro travels to Moscow to negotiate more military support
October: missile crisis; migration to US stopped

1963

First half: sharp decline in Cuban sugar output and exports
June: Castro announces renewed emphasis on sugar production
June: Alberto Mora opens "great debate" over economy, attacks Guevara=s views
October: Second agrarian reform law; expropriates rural middle peasant land
October: Cuban troops cross Atlantic ocean to join Algerian troops to fight Morocco
November: compulsory military service required
Fall: Venezuelan government discovers weapons sent from Cuba to Venezuelan guerrillas

1964

January: USSR raises sugar price, and fixes it until 1970
March: Marcos Rodríguez trial (death penalty); PSP embarrassed
July: Organization of American States imposes collective sanctions on Cuba for "aggression" against Venezuela; mandates break in relations and hemispheric trade embargo
Mid‑year: abortion law liberalized
Mid‑year: trade relations improve with Canada, Britain, France, Japan, Spain
December: suicide attempts branded counterrevolutionary

1965

First quarter: "great debate" over economy ends; economic growth resumes; Guevara criticizes nature of Soviet economic aid, resigns all government and party posts, goes to Congo (at one point also called Zaire) to fight alongside guerrillas
Spring: 20,000 US troops land in Dominican Republic to prevent a "second Cuba"
Mid‑year: Castro acknowledges holding 20,000 political prisoners
Mid‑year: last counterrevolutionary insurgencies defeated
October: Political Bureau, Secretariat, and Central Committee of new Communist party appointed
November: founded UMAP military camps for homosexuals and others
Fall: migration to US resumes under agreement
Late: Cubans begin to train Angolan MPLA guerrillas

1966

January: Tricontinental conference to assist revolutions held in Havana; Castro denounces Chinese government over trade and political disputes
November: Guevara arrives in Bolivia to launch guerrilla war
End: Castro endorses primacy of moral incentives and economic centralization

1967

March: Castro denounces Venezuelan Communist party for treason
March: property compensation agreements with Swiss and French
May: Cuban fighters captured in Venezuela, alongside guerrillas
First half: economic growth good
Mid‑year: UMAP abolished
October: Guevara, other Cubans, killed in Bolivia
End: national budget and financial auditing discontinued

1968

January: Oil rationing tightened; "microfaction," led by Aníbal Escalante and linked to USSR, discovered in Cuban communist party, punished by imprisonment
March: "Revolutionary Offensive" launched; grocery stores, street vending, etc., become state firms; bars closed; private sales of peasant produce banned; role of money and profits denounced; emphasis on "voluntary work," mass campaigns
Mid‑year: economic collapse under way
Mid‑year: Labor Ministry announces job segregation by gender
August: Castro endorses Soviet intervention in Czechoslovakia
October: Cuba rejoins International Sugar Agreement

1969

Mid‑year: campaign on "idle woman" question
Second half: 1970 harvest begins early; economic situation grave
End: relations improve with Chile, Peru

1970

Giant harvest

1971

March: poet Heberto Padilla arrested, later "confesses"
April: First National Congress on Education and Culture
End: redirection of economic strategy, return to material incentives, financial auditing