119 Fun Facts About Cuba

In 1763 Britain handed captured Havana back to Spain in exchange for which territory?

Florida: the British had taken Havana in 1762 after a siege, and the swap emptied Florida of its Spanish settlers, most of whom sailed for Cuba.

As of 2025, which two Caribbean neighbours have more people than Cuba, the region's largest country by area?

Haiti and the Dominican Republic: they share Hispaniola, an island smaller than Cuba, yet each now has more people.

Where had Columbus made his first landfall in the Americas, two weeks before he reached Cuba in October 1492?

The Bahamas: he named his landing island San Salvador, and when he sailed on to Cuba he took its long coast for part of the Asian mainland.

Which conquistador sailed from Cuba to Mexico in 1519 in defiance of the island's governor?

Hernán Cortés: he had twice been a town mayor in Cuba, and when Governor Velázquez cancelled the expedition at the last moment he ignored the order and sailed.

Carlos Manuel de Céspedes began Cuba's 1868 war of independence with which act?

Freeing his slaves: the planter rang his estate's bell, told them they were free and asked them to join the fight, and the revolt had 12,000 volunteers within weeks.

Which country was last in the Americas to end slavery, after Cuba?

Brazil: the emperor's daughter signed its abolition act in 1888 while he was away in Europe, and the monarchy fell the following year.

José Martí ran the Cuban Revolutionary Party from which city, his home in exile from 1881 until 1895?

New York City: Martí wrote there for newspapers across Latin America and toured émigré cigar factories, raising money from Cuban workers for the war of 1895.

The explosion of which US battleship in Havana harbour in 1898 drew the United States into Cuba's war with Spain?

USS Maine: the blast killed more than 250 of her crew, and although its cause is still disputed, 'Remember the Maine!' became the cry for war.

Spain relinquished sovereignty over Cuba in an 1898 agreement signed in which city?

Paris: Spain also gave up Guam there and sold the Philippines for $20 million, while Cuba passed to US military rule instead of straight to independence.

Which US president, a veteran of the 1898 fighting in Cuba, was in office when the island became independent?

Theodore Roosevelt: he had led his Rough Riders up the San Juan Heights in 1898, and reached the White House in 1901 only because William McKinley was assassinated.

The US lease of Guantánamo Bay was set up under a 1901 provision named after which senator?

Platt: Cuba had to write his amendment into its own constitution to end the US occupation, and it let Washington intervene in the island's affairs until 1934.

Since 1974 the US has sent Cuba a yearly rent cheque for Guantánamo Bay worth roughly how much?

$4,085: Cuba calls the base illegal and has banked only one cheque since 1959, which Fidel Castro put down to confusion in the revolution's first days.

Fulgencio Batista first seized power in Cuba in 1933 by leading an army revolt of which rank?

Sergeants: Batista was a sergeant stenographer when the mutiny began, and he promptly made himself a colonel and chief of the armed forces.

What was the name of the yacht that carried Fidel Castro and about 80 supporters to Cuba in 1956?

Granma: the secondhand cruiser was built to carry about 12 people, not 82, and it reached Cuba two days late, running aground in a mangrove swamp.

Castro's 26th of July Movement took its name from the date of a 1953 assault on which target?

The Moncada Barracks: the attack failed and Castro got 15 years, but his courtroom speech, 'History Will Absolve Me', made his name, and an amnesty freed him within two years.

From which mountain range did Castro's rebels wage their guerrilla war before breaking out in late 1958?

Sierra Maestra: fewer than two dozen of the 82 rebels who landed in 1956 reached the range, yet two years later their army was closing in on the cities.

Batista fled Cuba on 1 January 1959 after Che Guevara's column captured which central city?

Santa Clara: the rebels derailed an armoured train carrying troops and weapons, and Batista flew into exile within hours of the city's fall.

Che Guevara was born in 1928 in which Argentine city, also the birthplace of footballer Lionel Messi?

Rosario: Guevara suffered severe asthma from childhood, yet he became a keen rugby player and swimmer before qualifying as a doctor.

Which Cuban photographer took the 1960 picture of Che Guevara known as 'Guerrillero Heroico'?

Alberto Korda: he shot it at a memorial for the victims of a ship explosion and never earned royalties, but sued in 2000 when the image was used to sell vodka.

In which country was Che Guevara executed in October 1967?

Bolivia: troops advised by the CIA captured him, and after he was shot his body was flown to a nearby town, shown to the press and then buried in secret.

The failed 1961 invasion of Cuba by CIA-trained exiles is known by the name of which landing site?

The Bay of Pigs: the exiles of Brigade 2506 were beaten within three days, and Cuba later freed more than 1,100 prisoners in return for $53 million of food and medicine.

How long did the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962 last?

13 days: at the crisis's most dangerous moment a Soviet submarine officer, Vasily Arkhipov, refused to approve the launch of a nuclear torpedo at US warships.

What word did Kennedy use instead of 'blockade' for the naval cordon around Cuba in 1962?

Quarantine: a blockade counts as an act of war in international law, so Kennedy chose a milder word, and Soviet ships bound for Cuba changed course away from the line.

In return for the Soviet withdrawal from Cuba in 1962, the US secretly agreed to remove Jupiter missiles from which country?

Turkey: the missile swap was not admitted until 1989, so at the time the world saw only the Soviet side backing down.

The 1980 exodus of around 125,000 Cubans to the US is named after which port?

Mariel: Castro opened the port after thousands of asylum seekers crowded into Peru's embassy, and he sent some prisoners and psychiatric patients out with the emigrants.

In 1961, Cuba's 'Year of Education', about 100,000 young volunteers went into the countryside to do what?

Teach reading: the young volunteers lived with farm families and gave lessons by lantern after the day's work, and within a year illiteracy had fallen to about 4 per cent.

Fidel Castro's father, Ángel, first came to Cuba in the 1890s in what role?

A Spanish soldier: he served in the army fighting to keep Cuba Spanish, went home after the defeat of 1898, then returned to seek his fortune and became a rich landowner.

Who took over from the ailing Fidel Castro in 2006?

His brother: Raúl Castro had run the armed forces since 1959, and as president he restored diplomatic ties with the United States in 2015 after more than 50 years.

Who was the last sitting US president to visit Havana before Barack Obama went in March 2016?

Calvin Coolidge: his 1928 trip to address a conference in Havana was the only time he left the US as president, and the break in relations in 1961 kept his successors away.

Which engineer became Cuba's president in 2018, the first holder of the post born after the 1959 revolution?

Miguel Díaz-Canel: he was the first Cuban leader not named Castro since the revolution, yet he waited until 2021 for the more powerful job of party leader.

Which Cuban beach resort lies on the narrow Hicacos Peninsula, about two hours' drive east of Havana?

Varadero: the American millionaire Irénée du Pont built his mansion, Xanadu, on the peninsula, and after the revolution seized such estates it became a hotel and restaurant.

Cuban Teófilo Stevenson won gold at three straight Olympic Games in which sport?

Boxing: American promoters tried to lure the heavyweight into a professional title fight with Muhammad Ali, but he refused and stayed an amateur until he retired.

Roughly how far is Cuba from Key West, the closest city in the United States?

150 km: that is about 90 miles, a gap so narrow that thousands of Cubans have tried to cross it on home-made rafts.

Why are 1950s American cars still such a common sight on Cuba's roads?

A US embargo cut off new ones: with American cars and spare parts no longer arriving, Cubans have kept some 60,000 on the road by fitting newer engines and improvised parts.

Which bird, endemic to Cuba, is the smallest in the world?

Bee hummingbird: males weigh under two grams, and as they feed they carry pollen from flower to flower on their bills and heads, doing a bee's work too.

The trogon known as the tocororo is Cuba's emblematic bird because its plumage matches what?

The national flag: the tocororo wears its red, white and blue, and Cubans also chose it as a symbol of freedom because it is said not to survive in a cage.

The Cuban crocodile, a small and agile species, is known for which hunting feat?

Leaping to snatch prey from branches: thrusting with its powerful tail, the Cuban crocodile launches itself out of the water at tree-dwelling animals, and it is just as agile on land.

Whose flag is Cuba's with the red and blue swapped?

Puerto Rico: exiles in the Puerto Rican section of the Cuban Revolutionary Party chose the design in 1895, and the banner long treated as a provocation became the island's official flag in 1952.

What shape on the Cuban flag is said to reflect Masonic influence?

The red triangle: Narciso López first carried the flag into Cuba in 1850, when his force of some 600 volunteers from the United States briefly seized the town of Cárdenas.

Which Cuban-born singer topped charts around the world in 2017 with a song named after Havana, her birthplace?

Camila Cabello: she left Cuba as a small girl, crossing from Mexico with her mother and riding a bus to Miami, and 'Havana' became her first US number one.

The Cuban peso circulated at parity with which currency from 1915 until 1959-60?

The US dollar: the link was cut after the revolution, yet in 1993 a Cuba short of hard currency made the dollar itself legal tender, and it stayed so until 2004.

What was the name of Ernest Hemingway's home outside Havana, now a museum?

Finca Vigía: Martha Gellhorn found the hilltop 'Lookout Farm' because she refused to live in his Havana hotel room, and he bought it in 1940, the year they married.

Which Hemingway novel, written in Cuba, follows a Cuban fisherman's long struggle with a giant marlin?

The Old Man and the Sea: it was the only work named when Hemingway won the Nobel Prize in 1954, and he gave the medal to a Cuban shrine of the Virgin Mary.

Which rum company, founded in Cuba in 1862 and driven into exile in 1960, uses a bat as its logo?

Bacardi: fruit bats roosted in the rafters of its first distillery, and after Castro's government seized its Cuban assets the family firm carried on from abroad.

Which cocktail was born in Havana and combines white rum, lime, soda water and mint?

Mojito: one story traces it to 'El Draque', a rough 16th-century mix of raw spirit, lime and mint that is said to have been named after Sir Francis Drake.

The daiquiri is named after a beach and iron mine near which eastern city?

Santiago: an American mining engineer, Jennings Cox, is generally credited with mixing the first one at the mines around 1898, and a US Navy doctor later took it to a Washington club.

Which cigar brand began in 1966 as a private supply for Fidel Castro and went on public sale only in 1982?

Cohiba: for years the cigars could not be bought at all, only received as gifts from the Cuban state to visiting leaders and diplomats, which gave the brand its cult status.

Which American guitarist produced the Buena Vista Social Club album recorded in Havana in 1996?

Ry Cooder: he had come to record Cuban and Malian musicians together, but the Africans' visas never arrived, so he made an album with veteran local players instead.

Which Cuban-born singer became known around the world as the 'Queen of Salsa'?

Celia Cruz: she left on a tour of Mexico in 1960 and Cuba's government never let her return, so the closest she came was a 1990 concert at the US base at Guantánamo Bay.

Which sport did students returning from the US bring to Cuba in the 1860s?

Baseball: Cubans took it up in place of the bullfights of their Spanish rulers, so it became a badge of national feeling, and Cuba later won three Olympic golds.

Alicia Alonso, founder of Cuba's national ballet, danced for decades despite what?

Being partially blind: her partners had to stand exactly where she expected them, and lights placed around the stage guided her, yet she danced solos into her seventies.

Trinidad, a UNESCO-listed colonial town in central Cuba, grew rich in the 18th and 19th centuries on which crop?

Sugar: more than 30,000 enslaved people worked the mills of the nearby Valle de los Ingenios, and many of those mills were abandoned during the wars of independence.

Coppelia, a state-run Havana landmark that fills a city block, has been devoted to which treat since 1966?

Ice cream: Coppelia opened with 26 flavours in a project led by Fidel Castro, but by the 2010s shortages meant customers were lucky to be offered two or three.

In which US city is salami a traditional part of the Cuban sandwich?

Tampa: Italian immigrants lived side by side with Cubans and Spaniards in its Ybor City district, which is probably how Genoa salami got in; Miami's version leaves it out.

Cuba offered the United States about 1,500 doctors after which disaster?

Hurricane Katrina: Washington declined, and the volunteers became the Henry Reeve Brigade, which soon went to Pakistan's earthquake zone and later to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Which people's tobacco-smoking habit did the Spanish carry from Cuba to Europe?

The Taíno: men Columbus sent inland in November 1492 came back describing villagers who 'drank' the smoke of rolled leaves, and one of them took up the habit himself.

Which Havana cabaret, opened in 1939 among the trees of a villa garden, is known as 'a paradise under the stars'?

Tropicana: its casino drew American gangsters in the 1950s, and after the revolution Castro's government confiscated the club from its owner.

What was Cuba's Isla de la Juventud called until 1978?

Isle of Pines: it held the prison where Fidel Castro was locked up after 1953, and it was renamed in 1978 for the thousands of young people studying there.

In November 1975 Cuba began sending tens of thousands of troops to which newly independent African country?

Angola: Cuban troops fought South African forces there and stayed until 1991, and their withdrawal was traded for the independence of neighbouring Namibia.

José Raúl Capablanca, born in Havana in 1888, became world champion in 1921 at what?

Chess: Capablanca learned the moves at four by watching his father play, beat Cuba's best player when he was 12, and took the world title from Emanuel Lasker.

As of 2025, what was Cuba mining at Moa in a joint venture with Canada's Sherritt International?

Nickel: the laterite ore at Moa also yields cobalt, and it is shipped half-processed to a refinery in Alberta, with none of the metal sold in the United States.

Which second currency did Cuba begin withdrawing on 1 January 2021?

The convertible peso: launched in 1994 for tourism and imported goods, it was swapped for ordinary pesos at 24 to one when Cuba merged its two currencies.

What has Cuba's libreta given every household since 1962?

Monthly food rations: the booklet was decreed in 1962 to share out scarce food evenly, letting each household buy staples such as rice at a fraction of their real cost.

Which West African language survives in Cuba as the liturgical tongue of Santería?

Yoruba (as Lucumí): no longer anyone's everyday speech, it survives as a ritual vocabulary for worshipping the orishas, deities who were matched with Catholic saints.

Which holiday, scrapped by Fidel Castro in 1969, did Cuba restore for Pope John Paul II's visit in 1998?

Christmas: Castro had abolished the holiday so that workers could keep cutting cane through the harvest, and it stayed an ordinary working day for nearly 30 years.

Fidel Castro entered politics while studying which subject at the University of Havana?

Law: Castro took his doctorate in 1950 and opened a small practice that failed, and three years later he was conducting his own defence in court.

In 2015 Cuba became the first country to end mother-to-child transmission of which diseases?

HIV and syphilis: Cuba got there by testing pregnant women and their partners early and treating every mother who tested positive, and the WHO validated the result in 2015.

Which Cuban stringed instrument, thought to descend from the Spanish guitar, gives son music its defining sound?

The tres: it grew up in Cuba's far east to accompany changüí, the rustic style that led to son, and son in turn gave rise to salsa.

What are black beans and rice, a Cuban staple, popularly called?

Moros y cristianos: the name means 'Moors and Christians', the black beans standing for the Moors and the white rice for the Christians of medieval Spain.

Which holiday did Cuba abolish in 1969 to keep workers in the sugar harvest, restoring it only for a papal visit?

Christmas lost its paid holiday in 1969, when the government said nothing should interrupt the sugar harvest. It came back as a day of rest in the late 1990s at the request of Pope John Paul II.

Which animal is the logo of Bacardi rum, after the colony that lived in the rafters of its first Cuban distillery?

Fruit bats roosting in the distillery roof gave the founder's wife, Doña Amalia, the idea for the label. She saw the animals as symbols of good health, family unity and good fortune.

Havana's flying-saucer-shaped Coppelia, opened in 1966, is among the world's largest outlets for which treat?

Ice cream at Coppelia came in 26 flavours when it opened, in a parlour named after a ballet. The place later featured in the Cuban film Strawberry and Chocolate.

One CIA plot against Fidel Castro involved thallium salts, meant to wreck his public image by making what fall out?

His beard was the target, in one of several plots aimed at humiliating Castro instead of killing him. Another meant to lace his radio studio with an LSD-like substance before a broadcast.

Which Shakespeare tragedy gave its name, in Spanish translation, to a Cuban cigar brand established in 1875?

Romeo and Juliet became Romeo y Julieta, whose most famous devotee was probably Winston Churchill. The brand's flagship cigar, seven inches long, is called the Churchill in his honour.

Cuban doctor Carlos Finlay proposed in 1881, long before a US commission agreed, that mosquitoes carry which disease?

Yellow fever was the disease, and Finlay went on to name the Aedes mosquito as its carrier. Walter Reed, whose commission confirmed the theory in 1900, credited the Cuban with the discovery.

Which Cuban-born bandleader, whose family fled the island's 1933 revolution, played Ricky Ricardo on I Love Lucy?

Desi Arnaz and his family lost everything in the 1933 upheaval and fled to Miami. He later co-starred on the sitcom with his real-life wife, Lucille Ball, and the two founded the studio Desilu.

Cuban pilot Arnaldo Tamayo Méndez became in 1980 the first Latin American and first Black person to do what?

Orbit the Earth is what he did, flying to the Soviet space station Salyut 6 aboard Soyuz 38. On landing he became the first person awarded the Hero of the Republic of Cuba medal.

Which American chocolate maker built Cuba's only surviving electric railway to carry its sugar to the port of Havana?

Hershey bought Cuban plantations and mills after founder Milton Hershey visited in 1916, and built a whole town for the workers beside them. The company sold its Cuban holdings in 1946.

Which Havana-born singer, whose family fled to Miami after the revolution, found fame fronting Miami Sound Machine?

Gloria Estefan was a toddler when her family settled in Miami in 1959 and ran one of the first Cuban restaurants there. The band's 1985 single Conga became her signature song.

Which Havana-born actress played nurse Marta Cabrera in Knives Out and Marilyn Monroe in the film Blonde?

Ana de Armas became the first Cuban nominated for the Best Actress Oscar, for Blonde. She also turned up as the agent Paloma in the James Bond film No Time to Die.

Which former Fifth Harmony singer, born in the Cojímar area of Havana, had a chart-topping single named after the city?

Camila Cabello left Fifth Harmony in late 2016 and released Havana, featuring Young Thug, on her first solo album. Her bandmate Lauren Jauregui is also of Cuban descent but was born in Miami.

Which Havana-born singer left Cuba in 1960, as its music industry was nationalised, and became the Queen of Salsa?

Celia Cruz left on 15 July 1960 and did not set foot in her home country again for 30 years. She built her fame abroad alongside bandleaders such as Tito Puente.

Which sport has brought Cuba over 40 Olympic golds, including three in a row for heavyweight Teófilo Stevenson?

Boxing has earned Cuba the second-highest Olympic medal haul of any nation in the sport. Félix Savón later matched Stevenson with three golds of his own.

Cuban athlete Javier Sotomayor set a world record in Salamanca in 1993 that stood for more than 30 years in which event?

High jump was his event: in 1989 he became the first person to clear eight feet, then added a centimetre in 1993 to reach 2.45 m. He needed only four jumps on the day of the record.

In which sport did Cuba's women, nicknamed the Morenas del Caribe, win three straight Olympic titles from 1992 to 2000?

Volleyball was the sport. Between 1991 and 2000 the Cubans also won every World Cup and World Championship held, making eight major titles in a row with the Olympics.

Which Caribbean island's flag, adopted by independence campaigners in 1895, is the Cuban flag with its colours swapped?

Puerto Rico's revolutionaries adopted the design to affirm that their struggle against Spanish rule and Cuba's were a single, common cause. The committee's vote for it was unanimous.

Which rum-and-cola highball, first mixed in the Caribbean around 1900, is named after an independence slogan?

Cuba libre means Free Cuba, the slogan of the island's independence movement. The drink took off shortly after 1900, when bottled Coca-Cola was first imported from the United States.

Which shredded-beef stew, thought to have reached Cuba with Canary Islanders, counts as a Cuban national dish?

Ropa vieja literally means old clothes. The dish originated in Spain and was first reported in Cuban kitchens in 1857.

Which pair of small hand drums of different sizes originated in eastern Cuba at the end of the 19th century?

Bongos come as a joined pair: the larger drum is called the hembra, or female, and the smaller the macho. They had spread across Cuba by the 1910s and reached US concert halls in the 1930s.

Which tall tree, Cuba's national tree, rises from a valley in one panel of the Cuban coat of arms?

Royal palm, the species Roystonea regia, also has a religious role on the island, both in Santería and in Christian Palm Sunday observances. Its leaves are used for thatch and its wood for building.

Which Havana cabaret opened in 1939 in the lush gardens of the Villa Mina estate, with shows staged outdoors?

Tropicana began as a combined casino and cabaret on land rented from Guillermina Pérez Chaumont, known as Mina. An indoor room added in 1952 brought its total seating to 1,700.

Which Havana bar, the self-styled cradle of the daiquiri, keeps a life-size bronze of Ernest Hemingway at the bar?

El Floridita's bartender Constante is credited with inventing the frozen daiquiri there in the early 1930s. The statue, added in 2003, stands in the writer's favourite spot at the end of the counter.

Which pleated, patch-pocketed summer shirt did Cuba declare its official formal dress garment in 2010?

Guayabera pockets, in the Cuban telling, were first sewn by a countryside seamstress so her husband could carry guavas, or guayabas, home from the field. The shirt's true origin is unknown.

What official name did Cuba give the years of severe shortages that began in 1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union?

The Special Period, in full the Special Period in the Time of Peace, saw the economy shrink by 35 percent as Soviet trade vanished. With fuel scarce, Cuba bought more than a million bicycles from China.

Which shrew-like mammal of Cuba's mountain forests, once considered extinct, is one of the few venomous mammals?

Solenodon, known in Cuba as the almiquí, was declared extinct in 1970 and rediscovered four years later. One caught in 2003, nicknamed Alejandrito, was studied for two days and released.

Which strait, about 80 km wide, separates the eastern tip of Cuba from the island of Hispaniola?

Windward Passage is narrow enough that people on either shore can see the lights on the other side. A 1977 agreement fixed the maritime boundary that runs through it.

Which Nancy Osa novel follows Violet Paz, a Chicago teenager reluctantly planning her coming-of-age party?

Cuba 15 takes its title from the quince, the celebration of a girl's fifteenth birthday in Hispanic families. The novel was first published in 2003.

Which province, Cuba's westernmost, grows most of the tobacco used for the island's famous cigars?

Pinar del Río includes the Vuelta Abajo district, whose leaf many smokers rate the best cigar tobacco in the world. Its Viñales Valley is a World Heritage Site for its traditional tobacco farming.

Which province, the largest in Cuba, has a capital whose symbol is the tinajón, a clay pot for storing rainwater?

Camagüey's old town became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2008 for its irregular, maze-like street plan. Local legend says anyone who drinks from a tinajón will never leave.

Which Cuban province contains the beach resort of Varadero and a capital known as the City of Bridges?

Matanzas the city has seventeen bridges crossing its three rivers, and its poets earned it a second nickname, the Athens of Cuba.

Which Cuban province and port city, nicknamed the Pearl of the South, was settled in 1819 by French immigrants?

Cienfuegos was settled by families from Bordeaux and Louisiana led by Don Louis de Clouet. Many streets in its old town carry French names as a result.

In which present-day Cuban province is Christopher Columbus believed to have made his first landing on the island?

Holguín is where Columbus is believed to have come ashore, pronouncing it the most beautiful land human eyes had ever seen. It is Cuba's third most populous province.

Which Cuban province west of the capital came into existence in 2011, when the old La Habana Province was split in two?

Artemisa combined the eight western municipalities of the old province with three taken from its western neighbour. It is one of the smallest provinces by area, yet has more people than four others.

The colonial town of Trinidad, a World Heritage Site founded in 1514, lies in which central Cuban province?

Sancti Spíritus earns much of its tourist income from Trinidad, whose dozens of colonial buildings stand almost untouched by 20th-century architecture. The town grew rich on sugar in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Cayo Coco and Cayo Guillermo, resort islands of the Jardines del Rey chain, belong to which Cuban province?

Ciego de Ávila is also pineapple country: pineapples are the province's staple crop. The cays lie off its north coast and have been developed as tourist resorts.

Which eastern Cuban province has a capital of the same name known as the City of Sculpture for its public artworks?

Las Tunas, the city, carried the grander name Victoria de Las Tunas for more than a century, starting in 1869. The province's marshy southern coast is lined with mangroves and planted with sugarcane.

Which Cuban province, the smallest and least populated outside the capital, is governed from San José de las Lajas?

Mayabeque is made up of the 11 eastern municipalities of the old La Habana province. It takes its name from the Mayabeque River, near whose mouth Havana is believed to have first been founded.

Which conquistador, once a magistrate in Cuba, defied the island's governor in 1519 by sailing off to invade Mexico?

Hernán Cortés ignored the last-minute recall of his expedition, then fought and beat the men sent from Cuba to arrest him. He kept their troops as reinforcements for his own army.

Which conquistador led the Spanish conquest of Cuba from 1511 and, as first governor, founded its earliest towns?

Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar was one of the wealthiest men on Hispaniola when he sailed for Cuba in 1511. By 1515 he had established seven towns there, Havana among them.

Which indigenous chief, burned at the stake by the Spanish in 1512, is celebrated as Cuba's first national hero?

Hatuey had fled Hispaniola with four hundred followers in canoes to warn the people of eastern Cuba what to expect from the Spaniards. A beer brand has carried his name since 1927.

Which European power captured Havana in 1762 and handed it back to Spain the following year in exchange for Florida?

Britain's fleet came in sight of Havana on 6 June 1762, and the city stayed occupied into 1763. Losing Florida made Cuba more valuable to Spain as its first line of defence against attack.

Which US Navy ship exploded and sank in Havana harbour in February 1898, helping to bring America into war with Spain?

USS Maine had been sent to protect American interests during Cuba's war of independence. The blast killed about three-quarters of her crew, and its cause is still debated.

Which Cuban independence general, nicknamed the Bronze Titan, refused to accept the 1878 peace deal with Spain?

Antonio Maceo earned the nickname after being wounded several times in battle. His stand against the Pact of Zanjón is remembered as the Protest of Baraguá.

Which future US president led a charge up Kettle Hill in Cuba in 1898 with a volunteer cavalry unit, the Rough Riders?

Theodore Roosevelt declared himself the ranking officer on the spot and ordered the charge, which took the hill within 20 minutes. Its name came from old sugar-refining cauldrons found along it.

Which Spanish general, branded the Butcher by the US press, forced rural Cubans into guarded camps in the 1890s?

Valeriano Weyler gave country people eight days to move into fortified towns. His reconcentration policy is thought to have given rise to the term concentration camp.

From which country did Cuba's sugar planters import well over 100,000 contract labourers between 1847 and 1874?

China supplied the workers, mainly Cantonese and Hakka men, as planters sought an alternative to African slavery. Some settled for good after their eight-year contracts, though most longed to go home.

Which fortress, built in 1589 against pirate raids, guards the entrance to Havana harbour opposite the old city?

El Morro, in full the Castle of the Three Kings of Morro, once sealed the harbour with a chain strung across the water to the fort at La Punta.

Which dance craze did Cuban bandleader Pérez Prado popularise worldwide in the 1950s, earning the nickname of its king?

Mambo hits such as Mambo No. 5 made Pérez Prado a worldwide success. He spent his later years in Mexico, where he became a naturalized citizen in 1980.

In which sport did Cuba's Mijaín López become the first athlete to win one individual event at five straight Olympics?

Wrestling, in the Greco-Roman style, brought López gold at every Games from 2008 to 2024. He won the Tokyo title without losing a single point in the tournament.