Che Guevara Facts
Che Guevara Facts
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Interesting Che Guevara Facts: |
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Guevara was well-read in all subjects but excelled in the sciences. He was also quite athletic as a young man, despite suffering from asthma. |
Guevara first demonstrated his knowledge of military tactics as Castro's 26th of July Movement battled government forces. Once 26th of July Movement came to power, Guevara played a leading role in the first few months of the new Cuban government. |
Despite playing a crucial rule in Castro's ascent to power, the Cuban leader sent Guevara on a world tour in the middle of 1959. Guevara, though, would later play a major role in helping solidify Castro's power in Cuba through a number of domestic land reforms and by bringing Cuba closer to the Soviet Union after the failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961. |
"Che" was actually a nickname. Many of his revolutionary comrades began calling him that because Argentines often inject the meaningless word "Che" in casual conversations. |
In the early to mid-1960s, Che visited scores of countries on every continent except Australia and Antarctica in an official capacity as a diplomat of Cuba. He even visited the United Nations in the United States, where he railed against what he said was American imperialism. |
In 1965, Che decided to more actively support leftist revolutionary groups around the world. He began by traveling to Belgium rule Congo in Africa on April 24, 1965. He brought a contingent of Cubans of African descent with the plan to organized a Congolese Marxist movement and to teach them guerilla tactics. |
After seven months, Che gave up on the Congo revolution, deeming it a failure, and returned to the familiar confines of South America. |
Guevara arrived secretly in Bolivia under a false passport on November 3, 1966. |
Guevara's band of about fifty Bolivian revolutionaries scored some early victories against the Bolivian Army, but Che was eventually betrayed by one of his men to the American CIA. |
Che was captured by Bolivian special forces on October 7, 1967 and was executed two days later by gunshot. |
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