Portal:Cuba

Havana (/həˈvænə/; Spanish: La Habana [la aˈβana] (listen); Lucumi: Ilú Pupu Ilé) is the capital and largest city of Cuba. The heart of the La Habana Province, Havana is the country's main port and commercial center. The city has a population of 2.3 million inhabitants, and it spans a total of 728.26 km² (281.18 sq mi) – making it the largest city by area, the most populous city, and the fourth largest metropolitan area in the Caribbean region.

The city of Havana was founded by the Spanish in the 16th century. It served as a springboard for the Spanish conquest of the Americas, becoming a stopping point for Spanish galleons returning to Spain. Philip II of Spain granted Havana the title of capital in 1607. Walls as well as forts were built to protect the city. (Full article...)

• ... that political consultant Andy Spahn said that Cuba is "nothing like" how it has been portrayed by U.S. politicians?
• ... that before his Major League Baseball career, Leo Posada represented Cuba internationally in cycling?
• ... that after his release from a hospital for the criminally insane, Richard Dixon burgled $16 from a credit union and hijacked a jet to Cuba?
• ... that FBI informant Ricardo Morales, who testified against Cuban militant Orlando Bosch in 1968, shared a hotel with Bosch in 1976?
• ... that Joan Boada was named a principal dancer at the Cuban National Ballet at age 16, but later defected and ended up at the San Francisco Ballet?
• ... that Cuban ballerinas and sisters Lorena and Lorna Feijóo both moved to the U.S., and once split the roles of Black and White Swans in Swan Lake, which are usually danced by the same person?

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Yoani María Sánchez Cordero (born September 4, 1975) is a Cuban blogger who has achieved international fame and multiple international awards for her critical portrayal of life in Cuba under its current government.

Sánchez attended primary school during the affluent time when the Soviet Union was providing considerable aid to Cuba. However, her high school and university education coincided with the loss of financial aid to Cuba following the Soviet Union's collapse, creating a highly public educational system and style of living that subsequently left Sánchez with a strong need for personal privacy. Sánchez's university education left her with two understandings; first, that she had acquired a disgust for "high culture", and second that she no longer had an interest in philology, her chosen field of university study. (Full article...)

Rita Montaner

Rita Aurelia Fulcida Montaner y Facenda (20 August 1900 – 17 April 1958), known as Rita Montaner, was a Cuban singer, pianist and actress. In Cuban parlance, she was a vedette (a star), and was well known in Mexico City, Paris, Miami and New York, where she performed, filmed and recorded on numerous occasions. She was one of Cuba's most popular artists between the late 1920s and 1950s, renowned as Rita de Cuba. Though classically trained as a soprano for zarzuelas, her mark was made as a singer of Afro-Cuban salon songs including "The Peanut Vendor" and "Siboney".

Throughout her career, Montaner kept a close personal and professional relationship with two famous musicians from her hometown of Guanabacoa: pianist-singer Bola de Nieve and composer Ernesto Lecuona. (Full article...)

Satellite image of Cuba

• ... that Baracoa in eastern Cuba (pictured) is located on the spot where Christopher Columbus landed in Cuba on his first voyage, and is not only the oldest Spanish settlement in Cuba but also its first capital?

• ...that Mirta Diaz-Balart, Fidel Castro's first wife, is the aunt of current U.S. Republican congressmen Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, both of whom are prominent members of the anti-Castro Cuban-American lobby?

• ...that the National Assembly of People's Power of Cuba contains 609 members elected from single-member electoral districts for a term of five years?

• ...that the first Cuban National Series of baseball took place in 1961-2 and was played between just four teams?

• ...that a year after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Cuban economy entered what became known as the Special Period, and was restricted to importing and utilizing only around 10% of the crude oil of the previous year?

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