History Lesson Wednesday

Word of the day : non sequitir : a statement that does not follow logically from what preceded it; an inference or conclusion that does not follow from the premises or evidence; an unwarranted conclusion

Off to Savannah today with David!  Some stops along the way include the Oatland Wildlife Center, maybe Fort Pulaski, Tybee Island, the historic district, and shopping.

The Oscar Hijuelos book I've been reading has been full of information - not just on mambo music, but mid-20th century Cuban history as well.  Which is a nice segue into today's history lesson...
Do we all remember what the Bay of Pigs was?   Here's a nice link:

http://www.jfklibrary.org/JFK/JFK-in-History/The-Bay-of-Pigs.aspx

As a result of the Cuban Missile Crisis, Russia agreed to remove its nuclear missiles from Cuba.  The U.S. followed suit by removing theirs from Turkey and agreeing to never attempt an overthrow of Castro's government again.  

Other interesting facts about Castro?  He was educated in Roman Catholic schools.  His presidency spanned the terms of nine U.S. presidents, from Eisenhower to George W. Bush.  He claimed to survive 634 assassination attempts.  There are no streets in Cuba named after him, no statues of him, no currency featuring him.  (Incidentally, in a UNESCO Institute for Statistics 2011 finding, Cuba has the world's second highest literacy rate, 99.9%, trailing only Georgia; the U.S., with its 99.0% rate, ranks #45). 

A close friend of Castro's was the Havana-born photographer Alberto Korda, son of a railway worker, and Cuba's first fashion photographer.  Korda and a group of other photographers followed Castro on his trip to the U.S. in 1959 and took many shots of the future dictator around the nation's capital.  Korda began accompanying Castro everywhere over the next ten years, becoming his personal photographer, along with his golf and fishing partner.  Korda was introduced by Castro to spear fishing, and this led to a burgeoning, lifelong interest in underwater photography.  Korda is well-known for his photographs of Che Guevara, a close friend and ally of Castro, including the one below (Guerrillero Heroico) a famous one, of Guevara at a funeral (also attended by Castro) for 136 Cubans who were killed during a counterrevolutionary attack.  This is an iconic image of the public's idea of the Guevara personality - impassioned, handsome, angry, avenging, even mysterious.  It's one of the most acclaimed, recognizable photos of an individual in the last 100 years.