| Day | Year | Historical dates of Cuba in the month of April |
| 1 | 1895 | General Antonio Maceo and other patriots landed in Duaba beach. |
| 1923 | Opening in Havana of the First Women’s Congress in Cuba. |
| 2 | 1948 | Assassination of union leader Miguel Fernandez Roig. |
| 4 | 1870 | Incarceration of Jose Marti. He was given number 113. |
| 1960 | Land estates of the United Fruit Co. were expropriated |
| 1961 | Foundation of the Union of Cuban Pioneers. |
| 5 | 1538 | Sea battle between Diego Perez and a French pirate in Santiago de Cuba harbor. |
| 1895 | Death of philosopher and educator Jose Agustin Caballero. |
| 6 | 1895 | Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez arrived in Cape Haitian. |
| 1962 | The sentence of Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) mercenaries was made public. |
| 9 | 1812 | Execution of Jose Antonio Aponte and other participants in his conspiracy. |
| 1958 | Revolutionary strike against Batista. Underground leader Marcelo Salado was killed. |
| 10 | 1869 | Adoption of Guaimaro Constitution and foundation of the Liberation Army. |
| 1892 | Foundation of the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC), led by Jose Martí. |
| 11 | 1895 | Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez landed in Playitas. |
| 12 | 1869 | Inauguration of Carlos Manuel de Cespedes as President of the Republic in Arms. |
| 13 | 1849 | Birth in Matanzas of youth educator Enrique Jose Varona. |
| 1961 | Sabotage in “El Encanto” department store. Fe del Valle was killed. |
| 14 | 1895 | Jose Marti was appointed Major General of the Independence Army by Maximo Gomez. |
| 15 | 1961 | Airplanes coming from USA, Guatemala and Nicaragua bombed the airports of Ciudad Libertad, San Antonio de los Baños and Santiago de Cuba. 7 people were killed and 53 were wounded. |
| 16 | 1961 | Commander in Chief Fidel Castro announced the socialist nature of our revolution. |
| 17 | 1961 | Playa Giron (Bay of Pigs) invasion. Day of the Revolutionary Air Force. |
| 18 | 1819 | Birth of the Father of our Homeland, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes. |
| 19 | 1961 | Overwhelming defeat of the mercenaries that landed in Playa Giron. |
| 1959 | US citizen Loren Eugene Hall was arrested and subsequently expelled from Cuba. He had arrived the previous month and was running an underground military school in Marianao, Havana City. |
| 1963 | Creation of the first internationalist medical brigades to serve in Algeria. |
| 1973 | The “Giron” plant, based in Havana Province, delivered the first urban bus manufactured in Cuba. |
| 1980 | First Combatant People’s Rally along 5th avenue. |
| 20 | 1898 | The Yankees adopted the Joint Resolution, degrader of Cuban sovereignty. |
| 1957 | Underground revolutionary fighters Fructuoso Rodriguez, Juan Pedro Carbo Servia, Jose Machado (Machadito) and Joe Westbrook murdered in Humboldt 8. |
| 1895 | Jose Marti, Maximo Gomez and their troops took off at 03:00 in the morning, under candle lights. They took a break under a cluster of palm trees, from where they could see the sea to the south. A hunter brought news from Imias that Spanish troops were chasing them. |
| 1930 | The first 8 poems of Nicolas Guillen’s “Motivos del son” were published by “El Diario de la Marina.” They had the verbal rhythm of “Son” and the tune of Havana City black people. According to Guillen: “They drew the eyes of official critics towards a phenomenon that so far had not been regarded as important, or rather as existent: the role of black people in national culture.” |
| 21 | 1898 | The United States interfered in the Spanish-Cuban war. |
| 1879 | Jose Marti spoke at a tribute to journalist Adolfo Marquez Sterling in the upper floor of “El Louvre” café, in Havana City. He demanded immediate, distinct and effective solutions to the Cuban issue. |
| 1895 | Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez knew of General Flor Crombet’s death in the vicinity of San Antonio, where they had been headed since 06:00 in the morning. |
| 1958 | Camilo Cienfuegos received notice from Commander in Chief Fidel Castro, where he was appointed Military Commander of the triangle between the cities of Bayamo, Manzanillo and Victoria de Las Tunas. He would thereafter fight many successful battles in his campaign across the plains next to Cauto River. |
| 1959 | The revolutionary government decreed unrestricted public use of Cuban beaches and seashores. |
| 1998 | Cuba and Dominican Republic reestablished full-fledged diplomatic relations. |
| 22 | 1970 | Commander in Chief Fidel Castro spoke at the solemn ceremony for the centennial of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s birthday in “Karl Marx” theater. He stressed the influence of the brilliant Russian politician on Cuban revolutionaries. Fidel said: “In the months prior to July 26 1953, most of the young men involved in those activities usually carried Marx’s and Lenin’s books. We always drew conclusions from Lenin’s books that turned out to be crucial.” |
| 1895 | Day of impatient waiting for Jose Marti. He was also grieving the death of General Flor Crombet, whom somebody saw “…lying dead, with his cold beautiful head, a broken lip and two bullet wounds in his chest.” |
| 1898 | Beginning of US naval siege on Cuba. |
| 1915 | Opening of Havana National Theater. |
| 1959 | During his private visit to the United States, Fidel privately met the Secretary General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld. Later on, Fidel was invited to a lunch with foreign correspondents at the UN and told them that Cuba would act with absolute independence in that organization. |
| 1966 | Over 8 000 high school students and teachers started in Camagüey the first experience of countryside boarding schools, when they joined agricultural works in different areas of that province. |
| 24 | 1961 | US president John F. Kennedy publicly admitted his responsibility in the invasion to Playa Giron and Playa Larga. After the defeat of the mercenary brigade, Kennedy had no other choice, because hundreds of prisoners had confessed that they had been hired, trained, armed and sent by the CIA. |
| 1863 | First experience of mechanized farming in Latin America at the “Concepcion” sugar mill, one of the largest of the world in those days. The test was made with a steam plough that had been exhibited in Paris the year before. |
| 1974 | Commander in Chief Fidel Castro attended the inauguration of the first apartments building erected by Micro-brigades at La Coronela neighborhood in Havana City. |
| 1980 | Writer Alejo Carpentier died in Paris where he served as Cultural Counselor in the Cuban Embassy. The author of “The Century of Lights” renovated contemporary novel writing and recreated the real and marvelous of the Caribbean. |
| 26 | 1895 | A warring journey for Jose Marti, who inched his way across the woods through slashing thorns and whipping weeds with Maximo Gomez and a few men escort. As they neared Arroyo Hondo, they heard shots. On the way to the battlefield they met the victorious Cubans and were told that Jose Maceo’s troops had successfully engaged enemy forces. |
| 1895 | Marti wondered in his campaign diary “Why I am not appalled at the blood I saw on the way?” After sleeping for a few hours at the foot of a tree, the Delegate sought for medicines in his backpack to assist the wounded. He gathered all and with the kind help of Paquito Borrero, he cured them. |
| 1959 | Commander Camilo Cienfuegos spoke at a demonstration in Zulueta, in the center of the country. The town had been recently freed by the invading column, which declared him adoptive son. The Master of the Forefront humbly said that those who gave their lives for the Homeland were more entitled to such honors. He then asked the local citizens to accompany him to lay a flower wreath to Jose Marti and together pledge loyalty to the Revolution. In the meantime, Fidel, in the last day of his official visit to the United States, delivered a lecture at Harvard University. He had previously met students of the Universities of Princeton and Columbia. |
| 1961 | US president John F. Kennedy decreed a full embargo of the exports of that country to Cuba. |
| 1962 | Death in Guanabacoa of Miguel Valdes Garcia, at the age of 81. He was one of the founders of the first Cuban Communist Party. |
| 1967 | Cuban internationalist fighter Eliseo Reyes Rodríguez (San Luis) died in Bolivian jungles. Commander Ernesto Guevara said the day when the dear captain died was a “black day.” He had joined war in Sierra Maestra Mountain Range at the early age of 17. Che wrote in his campaign diary: “We have lost the best man of the guerilla.” |
| 1976 | Burial of Adriana Corcho and Efren Monteagudo in Havana. They were killed in a bombing perpetrated by the CIA against the Cuban Embassy in Portugal. |
| 1869 | Dismissal of the Camagüey Assembly. |
| 27 | 1963 | Commander in Chief Fidel Castro paid an official visit to the USSR. |
| 1879 | Jose Marti spoke in a tribute to fiddler Rafael Diaz Albertini, at the Guanabacoa Lyceum and said: “Children should serve their mother, but every man should serve his Homeland.” In his speech, Marti managed to spur his countrymen’s love for Cuba. The Spanish governor Ramon Blanco was present and had to reckon: “I never thought anyone would dare to say such things in front of me. That man, Marti, may be a lunatic, but he is a dangerous one.” |
| 1876 | General Maximo Gomez boldly attacks Ciego de Avila, in search of supplies. It was a stronghold for the concentration of troops in the middle of the Jucaro-Moron by-path. |
| 1959 | Commander in Chief Fidel Castro made a statement to Cuban radio stations when the plane that took him from the USA to Argentine flew over Cuba. He advanced the views that he would advocate in the Conference of the 21, held in Buenos Aires shortly afterwards. “It is time to find effective solutions to the greatest sources of concern and social, economic and political upheavals in our continent. They are underdevelopment and the chronic economic that all the Latin American countries are undergoing.” |
| 28 | 1872 | Cespedes vetoed the Military Organization bill passed by the House of Representatives. |
| 1957 | Photograph of the historical image of Fidel, Raul and a group of rebels holding their guns and singing the national anthem at the Turquino Peak. This symbolical picture was taken by journalist Bob Taber and cameraman Wendell Hoffman, from Columbia Broadcasting System. It was part of a documentary film, which that TV network would broadcast next month from Sierra Maestra Mountain Range. |
| 1895 | At 09:00 in the morning, Jose Marti and Maximo Gomez harangued the troops based in Camp Philippines, in Baracoa Hills. Day of intense work since dawn. They sent memorandums to field officers; letters to likely friends; another one to open the mail and ammunition supply service and instructions for Bartolome Maso, Felix Ruenes and Jose Maceo, whom was appointed Major General. |
| 1910 | Scholar, journalist and patriot Martin Morua Delgado died in Santiago de las Vegas. |
| 1959 | The Council of Ministers passed a law for the foundation of Casa de Las Americas, barely 4 months after the triumph of the Revolution. Haydee Santamaria, its first president, gave the institution an air of brotherhood that would make it the true house of intellectuals in the continent. |
| 1980 | Fidel y Raul attended the funeral of Alejo Carpentier, in Colon cemetery. The illustrious writer had died in Paris o n April 24, while serving as Cultural Counselor at the Cuban Embassy in France. |
| 29 | 1956 | Attack to the Goicuria Garrison in Matanzas. 15 young combatants killed, including Reynold Garcia. |
| 1960 | Commander in Chief Fidel Castro handed over the Goicuria Garrison to the Ministry of Education. |
| 30 | 1896 | Battle of Cacarajicara. The Cuban liberation troops, under Antonio Maceo’s command, wrote a glorious page of our history. |
| | (Translated by: Pedro A. Fanego) |
