April 11th in 2024 Shows More Dark Days for Cuba

 

    In 1492 the lands that became the United States and Cuba were close neighbors, and 1492 was the year that esplorer/discoverer Columbus famously first landed on the southeastern tip of Cuba at what is now the city of Baracoa. Columbus then famously wrote in his diary that the Baracoa area was "the most beautiful land these eyes have yet seen." From 1492 until 2024 CUBA's beauty and its location have remained its prime curse, not its treasure. That's because, almost since 1492, the world's imperative powers -- most notably Spain and the United States -- have not only coveted CUBA but also attacked it and gone to war to  control it. In that vein, from 1492 until 2024 the island and the nation of  CUBA, uniquely in history and in longevity, have had to try to defend itself, creating untold hardship for its people. Today, for example, is April 11th, 2024, and the news from CUBA today is mostly sad, as shown below:

     Just before the helicopter crash in Santiago de Cuba today -- April 11th, 2024 -- that killed three Cuban soldiers, the island was celebrating the anniversary of an event that involved independence icon Jose Marti, as shown below:

     Every Cuban knows that Jose Marti, after landing at Cajobabo "to join the Necessary War", that he was soon killed in the Battle of Rio Cauto on May 19th in 1895 fighting Spanish soldiers that had controlled Cuba for decades. Marti's death was in vain because he and many other great independence fighters, including brothers Antonio & Jose Maceo Grajales, had died in the two "neccesary wars" that tried, in vain, to defeat Spanish soldiers on CUBA'S soil. But Marti and the others are remembered lovingly today for what they tried to do; the major airport in Santiago de Cuba where the three Cuban soldiers died in the heliocopter crash today -- April 11, 2024 -- is named "Antonio Maceo Grajales Airport," for example.

     And today Jose Marti is revered in Cuba as a Independence Fighter almost on a par with Fidel Castro...and uniquely Marti to this day is lovingly revered not only in Cuba but also in the United States and around the world. Marti was born on January 28th, 1853, and went on to become an internationally famous and rich poet/author in New York, Paris, London, etc. But he gave up all that fame and fortune to return to Cuba to try to gain independence for his beloved Cuba, only to die fighting Spanish soldiers on May 19th, 1895, in the Battle of Rio Cauto.

     But, of coursse, during all those many, many decades that imperative powers like Spain were dominating Cuba, the United States violently wanted to do the same. Please note the historic quotations shown above, starting with Thomas Jefferson in 1817 declaring, "If we ceize Cuba we will be masters of the Caribbean." 

     Well, in 1898 -- a mere three years after Jose Marti died fighting the Spanish soldiers -- the United States knew it was powerful enough to easily defeat Spain and become the "masters of the Caribbean. So in 1898 the United States easily won the quick & bloody SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR on Cuban soil, putting the U. S. on its path to becoming the world superpower...but also spawning Fidel Castro's Cuban Revoltution that, on January 1st of 1959, shocked the world by overthrowing the U.S.-backed & Mafia-backed Fulgencio Batista dictatorship.

    Incredibly, Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution has ruled Cuba from January 1st of 1959 till today, which is April 11th, 2024!!!!!!!!!!

    Today -- April 11th, 2024 -- the two most famed Cuban Independence Fighters historically and topically remain Fidel Castro and Jose Marti. At age 42, Jose Marti died in Cuba in 1895 fighting Spanish soldiers. At age 90 in 2016 Fidel Castro died peacefully from old age in Havana, leaving him just a notch more notable than Jose Marti as Cuba's most successful Independence Fighter.

     Of course, today on April 11th-2024 Fidel Castro's Revolutionary Cuba is still just a few miles due south of the United States. After the U. S. Bay of Pigs military attack in April of 1961 failed to overthrow Revolutionary Cuba, the U. S. EMBARGO of CUBA has existed since 1962.

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