Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz .

Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (born August 13, 1926) is a cuban revolutionary leader who was prime minister of Cuba from December 1959 to December 1976 and then president until his resignation from the office in February 2008.


A letter written by the 12-year-old Castro to U.S. President Franklin. D. Rooslvelt, expressing admiration and asking for a $10 bill. Castro writes, "If you like, give me a ten dollar bill green American, because never, I have not seen a ten dollar bill," signing the letter, "Thank you very much. Good by. Your friend, Fidel Castro."


Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born on a sugar plantation in Birán, near Mayarí, in the modern-day province of Holguín – then a part of the now-defunct Oriente province. He was the third child born to Ángel Castro y Argiz, a Galician immigrant from the impoverished northwest of Spain who became relatively prosperous through work in the sugar industry and successful investing.

University student Fidel Castro (center, standing, in black suit) addressing fellow students during a protest on November 11, 1947.

Since the fall of president Gerardo Machado in the 1930s, student politics had degenerated into a form of gangsterismo dominated by fractious action groups, and Castro, believing that the gangs posed a physical threat to his university aspirations, experienced what he later described as "a great moment of decision."

Castro's role in the circumstances surrounding the assassination of Jorge Eliécer Gaitán in Bogota, Colombia on April 9, 1948--and the massive riots that followed--has been the object of speculation by James M. Roberts of The Heritage Foundation.

As discontent over the Batista coup grew, Castro abandoned his law practice and formed an underground organization of supporters, including his brother, Raúl, and Mario Chanes de Armas. Together they actively plotted to overthrow Batista. They collected guns and ammunition and finalized their plans for an armed attack on Moncada Barracks, Batista's largest garrison outside Santiago de Cuba. On the 26th of July, 1953, they attacked Moncada Barracks. The Céspedes garrison in Bayamo was also attacked as a diversion. The attack proved disastrous and more than sixty of the one-hundred and thirty-five militants involved were killed.


In Mexico Castro met Ernesto "Che" Guevara, a proponent of guerrilla warfare. Guevara joined the group of rebels and became an important force in shaping Castro's evolving political beliefs. Guevara's observations of the misery of the poor in Latin America had already convinced him that the only solution lay in violent revolution.

Castro arrives in Washington, D.C. on April 15, 1959.

Fidel Castro addresses delegates of the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York in 1960.

The revolution has no time for elections. There is no more democratic government in Latin America than the revolutionary government. ... If Mr. Kennedy does not like Socialism, we do not like imperialism. We do not like capitalism.
- Fidel Castro

In February 1960, Cuba signed an agreement to buy oil from the USSR. When the U.S.-owned refineries in Cuba refused to process the oil, they were expropriated, and the United States broke off diplomatic relations with the Castro government soon afterward. To the concern of the Eisenhower administration, Cuba began to establish closer ties with the Soviet Union.

Following the establishment of diplomatic ties to the Soviet Union, and after the Cuban Missile Crisis, Cuba became increasingly dependent on Soviet markets and military and economic aid. Castro was able to build a formidable military force with the help of Soviet equipment and military advisors.

Fidel Castro embracing former Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.

Castro and Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau.

Fidel Castro making a speech in Havana in 1978, image by Marcelo Montecino.

Schafik Handal, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro and Evo Morales, in Havana in 2004.

On July 31, 2006, Castro delegated his duties as President of the Council of state, President of the Council of Ministers, First Secretary of the Cuban Communist Party and the post of commander in chief of the armed forces to his brother Raúl Castro. This transfer of duties was described at the time as temporary while Fidel recovered from surgery he underwent due to an "acute intestinal crisis with sustained bleeding".

Castro's retirement letter appeared in the front page of Granma newspaper.

In a letter dated February 18, 2008, Castro announced that he would not accept the positions of president and commander in chief at the February 24, 2008 National Assembly meetings, saying "I will not aspire nor accept—I repeat I will not aspire or accept—the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," effectively announcing his retirement from official public life.

By wearing military-style uniforms and leading mass demonstrations, Castro projects an image of a perpetual revolutionary. He is mostly seen in military attire, but his personal tailor, Merel Van 't Wout, convinced him to occasionally change to a business suit. Castro is often referred to as "Comandante", but is also nicknamed "El Caballo", meaning "The Horse", a label that was first attributed to Cuban entertainer Benny Moré, who on hearing Castro passing in the Havana night with his entourage, shouted out "Here comes the horse!" During the revolutionary campaign, fellow rebels knew Castro as "The Giant".

Castro's human rights record remains controversial. It is alleged that some political opponents to his regime were killed, primarily during the first decade of his leadership.
Castro transferred his responsibilities to the First Vice-President, his younger brother Raúl Castro, on July 31, 2006. On February 19, 2008, five days before his mandate was to expire, he announced he would neither seek nor accept a new term as either president or commander-in-chief.

Walter Elias Disney.

Disney as an ambulance driver during World War I.
Walt Disney was born to Elias Disney an Irish-Canadian, and his mother, Flora Call Disney, who was of German-American descent. Walt Disney's ancestors had emigrated from Gowran, County Kilkenny in Ireland. Arundel Elias Disney, great-grandfather of Walt Disney was born in Kilkenny, Ireland in 1801 and was a descendant of Hughes and his son Robert d'Isigny (France) who settled in England with William the Conquereor in 1066.

Disney became the cartoonist for the school newspaper. His cartoons were very patriotic, focusing on World War I. Disney dropped out of high school at the age of sixteen to join the Army, but the army rejected him because he was underage.

Walt Disney and Mickey Mouse, which starred in the first sound and animated feature in 1928.

After losing the rights to Oswald, Disney felt the need to develop a new character to replace him. He based the character on a mouse he had adopted as a pet while working in a Kansas City studio. Ub Iwerks reworked on the sketches made by Disney so that it was easier to animate it. However, Mickey's voice and personality was provided by Disney. As many of the old animators have commented, "Ub designed Mickey's physical appearance, but Walt gave him his soul."


WaltDisneyMedal


Walt Disney appears relaxed as he films one of his Disneyland openings.
On a business trip to Chicago in the late-1940s, Disney drew sketches of his ideas for an amusement park where he envisioned his employees spending time with their children. He got his idea for a children's theme park after visiting Children's Fairyland in Oakland, California.

As the studio expanded and diversified into other media, Disney devoted less of his attention to the animation department, entrusting most of its operations to his key animators, whom he dubbed the Nine Old Men. During Disney's lifetime, the animation department created the successful Lady and the Tramp (in CinemaScope, 1955), One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961), Sleeping Beauty (in Super Technirama 70mm, 1959) and The Sword in the Stone (1963).

Walt Disney Autopia

Walt Disney meets with Wernher von Braun.

Walt Disney's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

By the early 1960s, the Disney empire was a major success, and Walt Disney Productions had established itself as the world's leading producer of family entertainment. Walt Disney was the Head of Pageantry for the 1960 Winter Olympics. After decades of pursuing, Disney finally procured the rights to P.L. Travers' books about a magical nanny. Mary Poppins, released in 1964, was the most successful Disney film of the 1960s and featured a memorable song score written by Disney favorites, the Sherman Brothers.

Plaque at the entrance that embodies the intended spirit of Disneyland by Walt Disney to leave reality and enter fantasy

A theatrical poster for the Alice Comedies short Alice in the Jungle (1925).

Production on the short cartoons had kept pace until 1956, when Disney shut down the shorts division. Special shorts projects would continue to be made for the rest of the studio's duration on an irregular basis. These productions were all distributed by Disney's new subsidiary, Buena Vista Distribution, which had assumed all distribution duties for Disney films from RKO by 1955. Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful.

An aerial view of Disneyland in 1956. The entire route of the Disneyland Railroad is clearly visible as it encircles the park.

Disney introduces his popular creations Mickey, Minnie Mouse and Pluto to Hansel and Gretel (Dorothy Rodin and Virginia Murray).

Disney seems to be enjoying himself as he introduces viewers to his new TV series, Zorro.


(Left to right) Robert B. Sherman, Richard M. Sherman and Walt Disney sing there's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (1964)

Disney World was to include a larger, more elaborate version of Disneyland which was to be called the Magic Kingdom. It would also feature a number of golf courses and resort hotels. The heart of Disney World, however, was to be the Experimental Prototype City (or Community) of Tomorrow, or EPCOT short.

Disneyland, one of the world's first theme parks, finally opened on July 17, 1955, and was immediately successful. Visitors from around the world came to visit Disneyland, which contained attractions based upon a number of successful Disney properties and films. After 1955, the show, Disneyland came to be known as Walt Disney Presents.

1968 US postage stamp

Disney's involvement in Disney World ended in late 1966; after many years of chain smoking cigarettes, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. He was admitted to Providence St. Joseph Medical Center across the street from the Disney Studio, where his health began to deteriorate, causing him to suffer cardiac arrest.

The statue "Partners" located on Main Street, U.S.A. in Magic Kingdom, Disney World, Florida.

GOD OF MODERN ERA...

Little boy Edison.
Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel "The Iron Shovel" Edison, Jr. (1804–1896)
and Nancy Matthews Elliott (1810–1871). He considered himself to be of Dutch ancestry.

Edison's Birth place...

Edison, the addled.
In school, the young Edison's mind often wandered, and his teacher, the Reverend Engle, was overheard calling him "addled." This ended Edison's three months of official schooling. He recalled later, "My mother was the making of me. She was so true, so sure of me; and I felt I had something to live for, someone I must not disappoint."

Edison in 1878

On December 25, 1871, Edison married 16-year-old Mary Stilwell, whom he had met two months earlier as she was an employee at one of his shops. They had three children

Photograph of Edison with his phonograph.
Around the middle of his career Edison attributed the hearing loss to being struck on the ears by a train conductor when his chemical laboratory in a boxcar caught fire and he was thrown off the train in Smiths Greek and Michigan along with his apparatus and chemicals.

U.S. Patent #223898: Electric-Lamp. Issued January 27, 1880.

Thomas Edison's first successful light bulb model, used in public demonstration at Menlo Park, December 1879.

The lamp, made by the American physicist, Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931), has a single loop of carbon which glowed when a current flowed through it.

"Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." - Thomas Alva Edison.

Thomas Alva Edison 1901.

Thomas Alva Edison using his dictating machine.

Edison's Band making Phonographic record.

The key to Edison's fortunes was telegraphy. With knowledge gained from years of working as a telegraph operator, he learned the basics of electricity. This allowed him to make his early fortune with the stock ticker, the first electricity-based broadcast system. Edison patented the sound recording and reproducing phonograph in 1878. Edison was also granted a patent for the motion picture camera or "Kinetograph".

American Thomas Alva Edison invented the phonograph. He recorded sounds on to a wax cylinder. When the cylinder is put on the phonograph the sound can be played back. A stylus follows the grooves cut on the cylinder and sound comes from the horn.

Henry Ford, Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone—the fathers of modernity. Ft. Myers, Florida, February 11, 1929.

Extravagant displays of electric lights quickly became a feature of public events, as this picture from the 1897 Tennessee Centennial Exposition shows.

Thomas A. Edison Industries Exhibit, Primary Battery section, 1915.

His writings.

Historical marker of Edison's birthplace in Milan, Ohio.


Edison's Last Breath, Vintage 1931.
Thomas Edison died on October 18, 1931, in his home, "Glenmont" in Llewellyn Park in West Orange, New Jersey, which he had purchased in 1886 as a wedding gift for Mina. Edison's last breath is reportedly contained in a test tube at the Henry Ford Museum. Ford reportedly convinced Charles Edison to seal a test tube of air in the inventor's room shortly after his death, as a memento. A plaster death mask was also made.

Seminole Lodge, Edison's winter home in Fort Myers, Florida

Edison's Menlo Park Laboratory, removed to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan.

Edison is considered one of the most prolific inventors in history, holding 1093 U.S. patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France and Germany. He is credited with numerous inventions that contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications.
Edison was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's Age of Reason. Edison defended Paine's "scientific deism," saying, "He has been called an atheist, but atheist he was not. Paine believed in a supreme intelligence, as representing the idea which other men often express by the name of deity." In an October 2, 1910 interview in the New York Times Magazine, Edison stated:

"Nature is what we know. We do not know the gods of religions. And nature is not kind, or merciful, or loving. If God made me—the fabled God of the three qualities of which I spoke: mercy, kindness, love—He also made the fish I catch and eat. And where do His mercy, kindness, and love for that fish come in? No; nature made us—nature did it all—not the gods of the religions."

Edison was accused of atheism for those remarks, and although he did not allow himself to be drawn into the controversy publicly, he defended himself in a private letter: "You have misunderstood the whole article, because you jumped to the conclusion that it denies the existence of God. There is no such denial, what you call God I call Nature, the Supreme intelligence that rules matter. All the article states is that it is doubtful in my opinion if our intelligence or soul or whatever one may call it lives hereafter as an entity or disperses back again from whence it came, scattered amongst the cells of which we are made."