Pre-revolution Cuba was prosperous—and deeply unequal

The Cuban Revolution explained

Between 1953 and 1959, Fidel Castro and Che Guevara led a small guerrilla movement that toppled Cuba’s Batista dictatorship and created the Western Hemisphere’s first socialist state—reshaping Cuban society and permanently transforming US–Cuba relations.

Meet Fidel Castro, the defining figure of the Cuban Revolution

Born into wealth, Fidel Castro launched his first revolt against Batista at the age of 27. His failed 1953 uprising—and the trial where he declared, “History will absolve me”—marked the beginning of a decades-long political life, as traced in this photo-rich timeline.

See a timeline of the Cuban Revolution

A small rebel force toppled Batista through a series of unlikely breaks, including a decisive 1958 ambush in which Castro’s fighters seized an arms train bound for Santa Clara. This timeline charts the revolution’s causes, key turning points, and enduring legacy.

Hear about the US role in the Cuban Revolution—and the blowback it caused

Against long odds, Fidel Castro launched a socialist revolution just 90 miles from the US and kept it alive for decades. This 10-part podcast traces Washington’s pivot from early support to an obsessive campaign of sabotage and hundreds of alleged assassination plots.

US–Cuba contentious relations began long before the Cold War

Long before the revolution and missile crisis, US involvement in Cuba stretched back over 150 years—rooted in slavery, sugar, and shifting imperial ambitions. This short video traces how cycles of intervention and neglect shaped the island’s modern history.

Since the revolution, approximately 1.4 million Cubans have fled to the US

Although Castro initially enjoyed broad support after toppling Batista in 1959, nearly 2 million Cubans chose exile in the years that followed. Most settled in the US, while others dispersed across Latin America and Europe, shaping migration patterns that persist to this day

The United States has had a tumultuous relationship with Cuba since its 1959 revolution, highlighted by a nuclear crisis and a decades-long trade embargo.

Embargoes and economic mismanagement have pushed Cuba into its worst crisis in decades

For more than 60 years, Cuba has been pressured by two forces—the US economic embargo and its own government's repression and mismanagement. NPR's Throughline podcast explains how both contributed to today's blackouts, food shortages, and mass exodus.

The US tried to overthrow the communist government in Cuba—and failed

In 1961, the US backed an invasion of Cuba by anti-Castro exiles, aiming to spark an uprising against the communist government. The operation collapsed within days, embarrassing the US and pushing Cuba closer to the Soviet Union.

The US embargo on Cuba was designed to cause hardship and eventual regime change

A secret 1960 memo by State Department official Lester Mallory argued that trade restrictions were “the only foreseeable means” to unseat Castro by provoking hunger and desperation. This page compiles declassified US documents detailing that strategy and its aftermath.

Explore the material culture of socialist Cuba

Even the objects of everyday life were politicized under socialism. This catalog of Cuban artifacts, collected between 1959 and the fall of the Soviet Union, reveals how revolutionary values infiltrated the most ordinary of items—from cocktail coasters to cologne.

US intelligence allegedly pursued more than 600 schemes to assassinate Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.

The American Revolution became a template for a colonized world

The robust and radical transformation during the American Revolution created a template for dozens of future independence movements. Its key ideas of republicanism, individualism, and equality inspired revolutions in France, Haiti, Ireland, and more, paving the way for the broadly democratic world we know today.

How failures at Versailles Conference led to more racial inequality

Suffering a pandemic and the aftermath of a war that killed 50 million, the world in 1920 faced a turning point as it negotiated a new political order. As today, the key issue was racial inequality.

Enslaved and in debt: the French roots of Haiti's struggles

This investigative infographic details how Haiti was forced to pay for its freedom twice: once in blood and once in cash. In August 1791, Haiti's enslaved population launched a revolt against French colonists, successfully establishing Haiti as a...

The rise and fall of a petrostate

Venezuela’s descent into economic and political chaos in recent years is a cautionary tale of the dangerous influence that resource wealth can have on developing countries.

Communism grew in appeal during the Great Depression

With at least a quarter of the country out of work, some Americans disenchanted with capitalism began looking at alternatives. Watch this five-minute video to learn about communism's growing allure during the Great Depression.

The world reached historic levels of democracy under the rules-based order, though that trend has reversed

The share of democracies worldwide grew dramatically from the mid-20th century, reaching an all-time high in the early 2010s. Since then, the trend has reversed, with an increasing number of countries experiencing democratic backsliding.

Lenin’s “dictatorship of the proletariat” meant power held by workers, not elites

Lenin argued that capitalism concentrated power in a small ruling class, and only transferring authority to industrial workers could eliminate exploitation and class hierarchy. This five-minute explainer outlines how he envisioned that revolutionary shift.

Ray Dalio argues that American capitalism is broken, citing economic factors like a growing wealth divide

Dalio also points to stalling income growth, weak healthcare systems, and poor educational outcomes when arguing that American capitalism needs serious reform. However, critics point out that Dalio has amassed a large fortune by running the world's largest hedge fund and question whether Dalio really wants economic reform.

Camus was once a communist, but eventually disavowed the ideology

The writer belonged to the French Communist Party and the Algerian Communist Party in the mid-1930s, but he was eventually expelled for refusing to downplay objections to French colonialism. By the time he published "The Rebel," he was vocally anti-communist, believing it was a utopian ideology that often relied on violence.

Did agriculture give rise to inequality?

This article explores how economic and social inequality relates to the rise of agriculture. About 10,000 years ago, some hunter-gatherers started farming, launching what came to be known as the Neolithic revolution. Hunting and gathering allowed...

Cocainenomics

How did Pablo Escobar rise up out of the Medellin barrios to become the CEO of a $4 billion business? This immersive look at the global drug trade spawned by the notorious drug lord, who at his peak controlled 80% of the cocaine supply in the US. This deep dive includes visualizations showing how logistics of drug smuggling evolved over the years and traces the economic impact of the industry.

Soviet control spread across Eastern Europe after WWII

In the late 1940s, the USSR solidified control over Eastern Europe by installing pro-communist regimes in countries like Poland, Hungary and Romania—often through rigged elections and political repression.

Later bossa nova music sometimes featured subtle anti-government protests

In 1968, Brazil's military dictatorship imposed tight restrictions on airplay and banned songs (and, subsequently, their artists) that failed to depict an idyllic life. That meant that, on the surface, popular bossa nova painted a rosy picture of life in Brazil. Musicologists note that artists like Antônio Carlos Jobim often juxtaposed those sunny lyrics with sad-sounding musical accompaniment, making for subtle protests that slipped by censors.

How life ranks in South Korea

As South Korea developed over the last half of the 20th century, quality of life soared. The country now outperforms the world average when it comes to education, health, and civic engagement, according to the OECD’s Better Life Index. In this dashboard, you can see where South Korea ranks in terms of housing, jobs, income, and more, and compare it against other developed countries.

Southern Black Codes sought to preserve prewar racial labor structures

With little federal oversight, Southern states enacted laws effectively reestablishing slavery's economic and social order. These laws, known as the "Black Codes," restricted freed people's movement, labor, and property rights.

Watch a 1934 short film starring jazz legend Cab Calloway, a major figure in the Harlem Renaissance's music scene

Famed poet TS Eliot rejected the manuscript for George Orwell's political fable 'Animal Farm,' writing that its criticism of authoritarianism was not 'the right point of view.'

The US Constitution is widely regarded as the longest-standing written national constitution still in force—see how it has influenced rights worldwide.

After the Boston Tea Party, colonists switched to coffee, which became the main morning drink for revolutionaries.

The US first hosted the World Cup in 1994, a tournament that lives in soccer infamy for its poor planning and the murder of Colombian player Andres Escobar, who'd accidentally scored on his own net.

The American Society of Civil Engineers' infrastructure report card gave the US a C in 2025, its highest grade since the project launched in 1998.

Discover the catastrophic consequences of a failure of the US electrical grid—something that is more likely than many Americans think.

70 years ago today, city officials in Santa Cruz, California, banned rock 'n' roll to protect its youth from corruption after witnessing a 'provocative' concert the night before.

Louisiana's 'Cancer Alley' is infamous for having some of the highest industrial pollution, toxic air emissions, and cancer risks in the US.

The American cockroach is actually from Africa, an apparent hitchhiker aboard ships carrying enslaved people, with evidence suggesting the bug may have arrived in the New World as early as the 1600s.

Iran's Revolutionary Guard Corps is independent of Iran's regular army and is one of the most powerful and influential military-political organizations in the Middle East.

See a ranking of the best (and worst) Federal Reserve Chairs since 1914 out of the 16 men and women who have held the office since.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

In 2026, Finland was named the world's happiest country for the ninth consecutive year based on its wealth, social safety network, and high life expectancy, among other factors.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

Dozens of S&P 500 stocks, including Coca-Cola and Walmart—known as the dividend aristocrats—have increased dividends every year for 25 years

A Yale student wrote a profound essay about the consulting industry's influence on elite college students that was published in a book of her writing after she died in a post-graduation car accident.

Before humans, the Soviet Union and the United States sent animals—including apes, dogs, and cats—to space during the Space Race.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

Ebola infects and disables immune cells, triggering a cascade of events that leads to small blood clots throughout the body, weakening blood vessels and interrupting blood flow to key organs.

See a 3D reconstruction of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital that was home to an estimated population of 200,000 to 400,000.

US housing costs have risen by roughly 175% between 1991 and 2026—but a growing number of Gen Zers are becoming homeowners anyway. In 2025, 4% of homebuyers were Gen Z, up from 3% the year before.

Corals are themselves not coral reefs—the term refers to the tiny marine invertebrates that build the rigid reef.