10 Facts About Fidel Castro You Didn’t Know

Fidel Castro was a Cuban politician, dictator, and revolutionary. He was born on August 13, 1926 and died yesterday, November 25, 2016. He had been in poor health since an intestinal bleeding that nearly killed him in 2006. His younger brother President Raul Castro said on state television that his older brother died at 10:29 p.m. Friday in Havana. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: “Toward victory, always!”

10 Facts About Fidel Castro You Didn’t Know

Fidel Castro governed the Republic of Cuba as Prime Minister from 1959 to 1976 and then as President from 1976 to 2008. Here are ten facts about Fidel Castro you didn’t know.

1. Fidel Castro was born out of wedlock at his father’s farm on August 13, 1926. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, Northwest Spain.

2. Castro converted Cuba into a one-party socialist state under Communist Party rule, the first in the Western Hemisphere.

3. He was awarded with various international awards, and his supporters laud him as a champion of socialism, anti-imperialism, and humanitarianism, whose revolutionary regime secured Cuba’s independence from American imperialism.

4. Fidel Castro had nine children with five different women.

5. He was known for wearing a olive-green military fatigues uniform publicly for 37 years, emphasizing his role as the perpetual revolutionary.

6. Fidel Castro was nicknamed “El Caballo” (“The Horse”), because of his womanizing nature during the 1950s and early 1960s.

7. He holds the record for the longest speech ever delivered to the United Nations. One of his longest speeches on record lasted 7 hours and 30 minutes on Feb. 24, 1998.

8. Castro claimed he survived hundreds of assassination attempts by Central Intelligence Agency.

9. In October 16, 1953, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison but only served a year in prison.

10. In 2012 Time Magazine named Fidel Castro as one of the 100 most influential personalities of all time.