Fidel Castro

            Fidel Castro led his country through rebellion and chaos, he is the grandfather of a dictatorship that he created and controlled. Fidel Alefjandro Castro was born in Galicia, Cuba on August 13, 1926. He claims he was a "destined to become a guerrilla fighter since the day he was born." Fidel is very superstitious about these things and "attaches great importance to the number twenty-six, which is not only the name of his birth, but is also his age when he launched his first antigovernment conspiracy, known as the "26th of July Movement," and still uses this day to make important speeches. (Selsdon, 7).
             Fidel grew up in a more fortunate and a better environment than the average Cubans of that time. He was four when he entered the public grammar school that some of his brothers and sisters already attended. Fidel was very strong-willed and not able to tolerate any type of "criticism or imposition of authority." Fidel was disruptive and his schoolteachers were not able to deal with him, and he attended many schools before he completed his elementary education. .
             By his teens he had begun to use his school vacations usefully, he attempted to organizer the sugar workers on his father's own estate to strike against his dad for higher pay and better working condition. He also "reprimanded his dad constantly for being an exploitative capitalist," while at the same time his parents were paying for his college education at Belen Collage, one of the most expensive colleges in Cuba in 1941. He played basketball and often fought violently with other team members if the basketball referee's decision went against him. At the age of eighteen he was proclaimed Cuba's "outstanding collegiate athlete." (Selsdon, 9). His favorite subject was theological history, and his favorite book was the Bible. .
             During the time Fidel was in college, Fulgencio Batista was in his first presidency of Cuba. He became a democratic leader during a military overthrow after a period of violent political unrest.