· Circa. 3,500 BC: Cuba’s first inhabitants arrive – South American Native Indian fisherman and hunter-gatherers
· 27 October 1492: Christopher Columbus “discovers” Cuba
· 1514: Diego Velazquez conquers Cuba on behalf of Spain and establishes its first seven “settlements”
· 1542: The abolition of Indian slavery on the island. Up to then, Indian slaves had worked the Spanish estates
· 1542: The Spanish start to “import” slaves from mainland Africa – Cuba’s first ethnic Africans start to arrive (today they make-up over 10 percent of the Cuban population)
· 1762: The first British invasion of Cuba takes place. On this occasion Britain will occupy Havana for 11 months
· 1817: Spain’s monopoly of tobacco comes to an end
· 1820: Cuba is the world’s largest producer of sugar
· 1868: Cuba’s First War of Independence takes place – the war was to last 10 years
· 1895: the “Marti” uprising – Cuba’s Second War of Independence
· 1898: Following an explosion of the US warship Maine, the Spanish-American was begins
· December 12, 1898: Following near victories against Teddy Roosevelt’s Rough Riders at the Battle of San Juan Hill, Spain concedes defeat and a peace treaty with America is signed
· 1903: The US naval base at Guantanamo Bay is opened
· 1933: President Gerado Machado y Morales is overthrown in a coup d’etat following great hardships endured during the Great Depression
· January 1 1959: Fulgencio Batista’s 20-year dictatorship comes to an end – toppled by a young man named Fidel Castro
· 1961: The “Bay of Pigs” affair – a CIA initiated offensive to try and topple Castro
· 1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis: following Cuba’s declared “Socialist” policies following the Bay of Pigs, the Soviet Union tried to put nuclear missiles on the island. This event is said to have been the closest the Cold War came to becoming World War III
· 1997: Pope John Paul the Second visits Cuba on his first official visit to this communist island
