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1 of 25Fidel Castro exhales cigar smoke during an interview at his presidential palace in Havana, March 1985.Charles Tasnadi—AP -
2 of 25Fidel Castro, age 3, is seated in between his sister, Angelita, 6, and brother Ramon, 4, in 1929.ARCHIVIO GBB Contrasto/Redux -
3 of 25Fidel Castro at age 14 in Santiago de Cuba, in southern Cuba, 1940.ARCHIVIO GBB Contrasto/Redux -
4 of 25A mug shot of Fidel Castro taken in 1953.German Gallego—Digital Press/Camera Press/Redux -
5 of 25Raul Castro, in white, acts as a chauffeur for his brother, Fidel, in passenger seat, 1964.Grey Villet—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
6 of 25Fidel Castro with his command staff in a secret jungle hideout, 1958. From left: Guillermo Garcia, Ernesto Che Guevara, Universo Sanchez, Raul Castro (kneeling), Castro, Crescentio Perez, George Sotus and Juan Almeide.ullstein bild/Getty Images -
7 of 25Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro (left) lights his cigar while Argentine revolutionary Che Guevara looks on in the early days of their guerrilla campaign in the Sierra Maestra Mountains of Cuba, circa 1956. Castro wears a military uniform while Guevara wears fatigues and a beret.Hulton Archive/Getty Images -
8 of 25Fidel Castro, second from right in back row, attends the wedding of a sister.Lee Lockwood—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
9 of 25Fidel Castro speaks to tobacco workers for whom he founded a new workers' town in Pinar del Rio, Cuba, on April 9, 1960.AP -
10 of 25Cuban leader Fidel Castro speaks to the people of Santa Clara in the town square, 1959.Grey Villet—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
11 of 25Rebel leader Fidel Castro waves to a cheering crowd on the victorious march to Havana after ousting dictator Fulgencio Batista.Grey VilletÑThe LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
12 of 25Fidel Castro, a master orator, delivers a speech circa 1960.Sovfoto/UIG/Getty Images -
13 of 25Cuban leader Fidel Castro winds up to throw a baseball in 1964.Jung/ullstein bild/Getty Images -
14 of 25Cuba's Fidel Castro delivers a speech in 1960.Andrew Saint-George—Magnum Photos -
15 of 25Rebel leader Fidel Castro being cheered by the crowds on his victorious march to Havana.Grey Villet—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
16 of 25Rebel leader Fidel Castro, center, is interviewed by Ed Sullivan, on his right, during a visit to New York.Grey Villet—The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images -
17 of 25Cuban President Fidel Castro entertains a group of people at a dinner table in Harlem during a trip to New York City, as the press takes photographs in the background, 1959.Hulton Archive/Getty Images -
18 of 25At the height of the Soviet-Cuban cooperation, Nikita Khrushchev welcomes Cuban President Fidel Castro at the podium of the Kremlin in front of the Red Square in Moscow, 1961.Semyour Raskin—Magnum Photos -
19 of 25Cuban President Fidel Castro delivers a long-winded speech, heaping abuse on the U.S., at the United Nations in New York on Sept. 26, 1960.Bettmann Archive/Getty Images -
20 of 25Cuban President Fidel Castro delivers a speech in Havana on Feb. 2, 2006, as Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, having just been likened to Adolf Hitler by the Bush administration, received a U.N. prize named for Cuban independence hero Jose Marti.Jose Goitia—Gamma-Rapho/Getty Images -
21 of 25Cuban President Fidel Castro looks at Elian Gonzalez, a former castaway who was returned from the United States, during a party for his seventh birthday at a school in Cardenas, Cuba, on Dec. 6, 2000. Family members and teachers are seated in the background.Adalberto RoqueÑAFP/Getty Images -
22 of 25A screen grab from state-owned Cuban television shows late Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez holding the hand of Fidel Castro, his Cuban counterpart, in his sickbed in Havana on Sept. 1, 2006. Chavez visited Castro, who is recovering from intestinal surgery, on a stopover in Havana on his way back from a 10-day trip to China, Malaysia, Syria and Angola.AFP/Getty Images -
23 of 25Cuban President Raul Castro speaks with his brother, Fidel Castro, during the opening session of the National Assembly in Havana on Feb. 24, 2012. Raul Castro was named to a new five-year-term as president.Ismael Francisco—AP -
24 of 25Pope Francis and Fidel Castro embrace hands at a 40-minute meeting inside Castro's residence during the pontiff's trip to Havana on Sept. 20, 2015.Alex Castro—AP -
25 of 25A window reflects an image of Fidel Castro in a working-class Havana neighborhood that attracts few tourists.Paolo Pellegrin—Magnum
Fidel Castro, the communist revolutionary who presided over Cuba for nearly half a century, has died at the age of 90. Castro’s younger brother Raul, who succeeded him as Cuba’s president in 2008, announced the news on Cuban state television late Friday night.
For fifty years, Castro — usually pictured bearded, with a patrol cap on his head and a cigar in his mouth — captured the American political imagination as the face of communism in Cuba: a country at once 90 miles from Florida and a world away, severed by the ideological and political gulf of the Cold War.
His leadership was marked by a ready defiance of the massive democratic superpower to Cuba’s north. He survived a series of assassination plots orchestrated by the U.S. government — hundreds of them, according to Cuba — and steered his country as it was crippled by the trade embargo imposed by the U.S. in 1960. He lived to see relations between the two states finally thaw. In March, President Barack Obama became the first U.S. president to visit Cuba in nearly nine decades — albeit with Castro’s deep misgivings.
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