A New Year, A New Cuba

April 25, 1859. About 150 people have gathered on the shores of Lake Manzala in Egypt. And one of them, a mustachioed, retired French diplomat, steps forward. He raises his pickaxe and strikes a ceremonial blow. The audacious goal is to cut through the desert to connect the Medit ...  Show more

April 20th, 2004. A quiet suburban development outside Seattle. Brand-new homes. Fresh lawns not yet grown in. Then, in the middle of the night—sirens. Flames ripping through two houses. Investigators quickly find the cause: homemade incendiary devices. And a message, left behind ...  Show more

It’s 1959 and the swaggering Cuban revolutionary, Fidel Castro, has just overthrown the unpopular American backed dictator, Fulgencio Batista. Che Guevara, the Marxist physician whose face would become an internationally recognised symbol of resistance, is at his side. But how di ...  Show more

In this episode of 80 Days: an exploration podcast,  we’ll be talking about Cuba, an island in the Caribbean Ocean, just 90 miles south of the US state of Florida (Full shownotes at: https://80dayspodcast.com/2017/06/10/cuba-1/). Cuba is home to over 11 million inhabitants, and i ...  Show more

In 1959, when Fidel Castro’s revolutionaries toppled Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista, they wasted no time booting out American business owners, casinos and drug kingpins — much to the delight of US law enforcers. But as time passed, and Castro’s socialist regime sought ever-tric ...  Show more

When Fidel Castro overthrew Cuba’s dictator in 1959, the Communist leader and provocateur quickly became a threat to the U.S. government. The CIA has been proven responsible for at least eight plots against Castro’s life. Despite the creativity of their attempts—including everyth ...  Show more