Cuba

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is the great island of the Caribbean with forty-one hundred islets and cays, set where Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic meet, east of Yucatán, south of Florida, west of Hispaniola. The largest Caribbean country by area, its people blend Taíno and Ciboney roots with Andalusian, Canarian, Galician and Asturian settlers and sub-Saharan Africans brought in chains. Spain held Cuba while the mainland broke away, until the Spanish-American War of 1898 closed four hundred years of empire; American occupation followed and the republic stepped out in 1902. Sugar paid for everything and for nothing: the 1933 coup unseated Céspedes, Batista's shadow lengthened over two decades, the fine constitution of 1940 died unapplied, and his 1952 coup closed the constitutional road. The 26th of July Movement marched down from the Sierra Maestra and entered Havana in January 1959, raising a communist government under Fidel Castro that steered the island into the Cold War's front line.