Cuban culture is strongly linked to Cuban history, so it is necessary to know the history

in order to understand the culture.

The history of Cuba began with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on October 27
1492. As he was trying to find a new route to India, he stumbled on the territories of
America, a continent then unknown to the Europeans. Back then Cuba was inhabited by
aboriginal people known as Indocubans. Their society lived peacefully from hunting,
fishing and agriculture.

But when the conquistador Diego de Velázquez came with his small army in 1510,
the Indocubans had to confront him. But they lost and after this the Indocubans were
nearly exterminated by the harsh working conditions and diseases that the Spaniards
brought to the Island. Because of a little labour force (malo radne snage) , the Spaniards
began importing slaves from Africa. As the time was passing by, Havana became the
main trading port. Havana was occupied by Great Britain during the Colonial Wars and
fell to the British on August 12, 1762. A year later after Spain realised the importance of
Cuba she brought Havana back into her possession in exchange for other colonial
territories. But as the time was passing by people and especially slaves became
discontented (unhappy) with Spanish domination.

The battle for independence of Cuba began on October 10, 1868, in the plantation of
sugar "La Demajagua" when the owner of plantation Carlos Manuel de Cespedes set
free his slaves and became the leader of the revolution against Spain. But the batlles
ended in 1878.

In 1892, one man called Martí and a group of Cuban exiles (izgnanici) in Miami grounded
the Cuban Revolutionary Party and in 1895 a new revolution against Spain began.
Although Martí was killed at the begining of the fight, Máximo Gómez, Antonio Maceo
and other revolutionary leaders continued the fight against Spain. Then the United
States intervented and that's how the Cuban Revolutionary War became the year-long
Spanish-Cuban-North American War. Thanks to the United States, Cuba was freed
from Spain. After this the US forces grounded a military occupation government that
lasted until May 1902. On May 20, 1902, after the end of US military occupation, Cuba
became a semi-independent Republic. But because of the little experience in self-
government and a big economic dependence of the United States, the young country
got into bad relationship with the USA over the years. This has left major (huge)
consequences on the people of Cuba.

But then in 1959, Fidel Castro led a new revolution against Fulgencio Batista. Castro
forced Batista to give up power on January 1,1959. Castro took power in Cuba with Che
Guevara from Argentina, his brother Raul, and he made many changes to Cuba. He

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ended American ownership of Cuban businesses, what made Castro unpopular in
America and the United States banned all contact with Cuba.

As the US increased pressure on Cuba, the government found, new allies (saveznike) in
the Soviet Union. By 1960 the USSR had became the main purchaser of Cuban sugar
and its most important supplier (dobavljač) of petroleum products. In the early 1970s
Cuba became isolated by most western countries, except Canada and México and as
the time was passing by Cuba became really dependent of the Soviet Union . In 1982,
the Cuban government started to invest in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, computers,
computerized medical equipment and software.

But after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Cuba experienced a serious
economic blow and declared a "special recovery period".

To make everything worse the Americans have declared a trade embargo against
Cuba, which refers to the export of all goods (except medicines and food) to Cuba.
Cuba is a place that most Americans have heard of, but few have been to, thanks to
travel bans placed on the island during the Cold War. However, the American
government is finally easing up on these restrictions.

Politics

Cuba is a republic with a centralized socialist system of government . Administratively,

Cuba is divided into 14 provinces and 169 municipalities.