On this day 57 years ago, a group of 135 young revolutionaries attacked the Moncada Military Barracks in Santiago de Cuba. The men had gathered the preceding day at a farm in Siboney, and they left early in the morning, planning to attack at dawn. However, the car carrying the rebels’ heavy weapons got lost along the way, and the rebels accidentally started the attack before entering the barracks, so the attack was easily repulsed.
In spite of the disastrous outcome of the attack, from the point of view of the revolutionaries, it marked the start of the Cuban Revolution, and the guerrillas’ leader, Fidel Castro, named his revolutionary movement “Movimiento 20 Julio” after the date on which it had occurred. Although only about 9 of the rebels were killed in the attack, around 50 of them were captured and illegally executed, while most of the rest were put on trial.
FIdel Castro, who was a lawyer, wrote a speech entitled “History Will Absolve Me”, giving plans for reforms in Cuba, and smuggled it out of his prison cell. Some of the prisoners’ mothers started a campaign to free the imprisoned rebels, and an amnesty was granted after Castro had spent almost two years in prison. He went to Mexico with other Cuban rebels to continue the struggle, and in 1959 he succeeded in overthrowing the Cuban government.