It’s been 70 years since the moment that sparked the Cuban revolution. On July 26 1953, an attack on army barracks in eastern Cuba heralded the consolidation of a Cuban national resistance movement against the dictatorship of General Batista. A group of 111 young rebels attacked the army barracks, the Cuartel Moncada and Cuba’s second most important military fortress. The latter contained 1,000 soldiers from Batista’s army.
The attack was intended as a diversionary tactic. The hope was that soldiers based at the army headquarters in Havana would be redirected to the east of Cuba, leaving the capital open to occupation by the rebels. The attack was unsuccessful. Many of the young rebels were tortured, killed or imprisoned.
Despite this, the 26 of July Movement (as it came to be known) became a central part of the campaign that emerged triumphant in early January 1959.
