On July 26th 1953, Cuban rebels led by Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada Army barracks, one of the first and most important engagements in the Cuban Revolution, which would be victorious in 1959.
The Moncada Barracks were the second largest and most powerful garrison of dictator Fulgencio Batista. On July 26, 1953, Castro led a group of about 160 revolutionaries in an attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. But 61 of the rebels were killed and others were captured and some were executed. Castro, however, escaped death when Batista, at the urging of Catholic officials, stopped the executions. Thus Fidel and several others were captured and held without trial for over two months.
Though the attack itself was a tragic failure, Castro used it as inspiration for the Revolution later. During his trial in September 1953, Fidel, a lawyer, defended himself and offered a devastating critique of the poverty, class repression, and injustice caused by the American-backed Batista dictatorship. His two-hour defense statement — later called "History Will Absolve Me" — was written down by a court reporter and later modified several times by Castro. It became a hallowed document after the successful 1959 revolution.
In his defense statement, Castro condemned the corrupt Batista government and the charges against him as illegitimate. He said that if his rebellion had succeeded, he would have created a democratic constitution, given tenants and squatters full ownership of small farms, given a large percentage of business profits to workers, and confiscated the wealth of Batista's cronies and collaborators with the Americans. Citing many thinkers, including Thomas Paine, Castro added that the people of Cuba had the right to fight against the tyrants running their country.
Castro was sentenced to 15 years in prison, but in 1955 a group of prisoners' mothers launched a campaign to free the rebels. A group of political leaders, editors, and intellectuals signed a public appeal demanding "liberty for the political prisoners." The Cuban Congress passed an amnesty bill that year; Batista signed it.
Castro continued his fight against Batista and by 1959, he had routed the dictator, who fled the country, and became Cuba's new leader.
Since then, the attack on Moncada Barracks has been one of the most important Cuban national holidays, as banks, government offices, and most businesses close between July 25-27, and large nationwide rallies and parades are held, always featuring an address by Fidel
The Cuban Revolution, which ended the brutal dictatorship of Batista and brought to a close the long history of American hegemony over Cuba, took some of its first and most important steps on July 26th 1953, the day that Castro and his comrades attacked Moncada barracks
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Also on July 26th, in 1797, John Quincy Adams married Louisa Catherine
Johnson. This event isn't terribly significant, but it allows me to segue
into Adams' famous oratory of July 4th, 1821, where he spokes words that
are more appropriate today than ever:
"[America] goes not abroad, in search of monsters to destroy. She
is the well-wisher to the
freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator
only of her own. She will
recommend the general cause by the countenance of her voice and
the benignant sympathy of
her example. She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners
than her own, she
would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the
wars and interest and intrigue,
of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assumed the colors
and usurped the standards
of freedom.... She might become the dictatress of the world. She
would no longer be the ruler
of her own spirit."
That's why JQA is my all-time favorite imperialist!