Coming from the same heart of the American continent, from the Orinoco-Amazon area, ascended gradually towards the island the first residents that were self-determined as" taínos". This aboriginal group, that was characterized to be a town of agriculture-potters, harvesters and hunters, was the most advanced regarding the other two aboriginal establishments: the "guanacabeyes" and the "siboneyes". It is calculated that the"Taina" population only surpassed the 100 000 inhabitants.

In October 27, 1492, to the front of Three Caravels: La Niña, La Pinta and La Santa María, the admiral Christopher Columbus coming from the Old World, disembarks in the bay of Bariay, to the east. At the end of 1510, disembarks the conquering expedition of Diego Velázquez who that same year founds the village of Nuestra Señora de la Asunción de Baracoa. In 1514 the villages of San Salvador de Bayamo, Santa María de Puerto Principe and Santiago de Cuba were founded. Advancing towards the occident of the archipelago, other villages were founded that of the Santisima Trinidad, later on, Sancti Spíritus and San Cristóbal de la Habana, been founded to the south and transferred to the north in 1519, to the foot of the bay of Carenas -call then Bay of Havana -.

The searching work and exploitation of valuable minerals as the gold and the copper began from the early years of the conquest. Exhausted before the troublesome work and the illnesses, the indigenous population began to descend giddily until arriving almost to its total disappearance. Other lines prospered, as the cattle raising, the tobacco; and with the introduction of the sugar (XVI century) and the coffee (in 1748), the massive import of black slaves began. The soil of the island, virgin and fertile, granted the Spaniards the grace of the accelerated growth in the production.

In August of 1762, the village of Havana is taken by the Englishmen, and an occupation that lasts eleven months begins. The occupation -to the occident - it decreed the trade freedom, and it duplicated the enslaved blacks. At the end of the XVIII century, Cuba becomes the first world producer of Cane Sugar. In 1868, in the sugar cane La Demajagua, Carlos Manuel de Cespedes gives the freedom to his slaves, and summons them to run off, and to rise in weapons against the forces of the colony. The Ten Years War, that finishes in the Pacto del Zanjón.

In 1892 by José Martí, the Cuban Revolutionary Party is founded. February 24, 1895 the war begins again. The “mambí" army went victorious from one side to the other of the island, defeating an army of 200 000 Spaniards. José Martí National -Hero and Apostle of the independent fights was deadly wounded in Dos Rios May, 19, 1895 and dies in combat. Antonio Maceo, General Lieutenant of the "mambi" army, carries out in a great deed the invasion of east to west. The United States declares in 1898 the war to Spain, using like pretext the explosion of the ship called Maine, finding a weakened army that difficultly could resist the sudden impetuous attacks.

In May 20, 1902 is established the Republic that was early subjected to a -well-known Constitutional Amendment as "Platt" - of intermeddling character. In 1925 Julio Antonio Mella, university student leader, creates the Cuban Communist Party. Intense political fights faces to the dictatorship of "Machado", well-known in the national history as the revolution of the 30.

In July 26, 1953 a group of young with Fidel Castro to the front, attacked in Santiago de Cuba, in the east of the country, the Moncada Headquarters, second Cuban military fortress, with the objective of arming the people, and to begin a general insurrection. The assault finished in a military defeat, but it highlighted Fidel Castro like leader of the future revolution. La Historia me Absolvera, allegation of self-defense of Fidel Castro in the trial for the fact, in which became defendant instead of plaintiff, it became the best argument for the incorporation of dozens of thousands of Cuban to the fight against Batista regime.

Fidel Castro, and the survivor attackers, was condemned to prison in the Presidio Modelo of Isla de Pinos (today, Isla de la Juventud). A strong popular campaign got the amnesty of the prisoners who exiled in Mexico in 1955.

In Mexico, Fidel Castro organized his partners for the attack of the Moncada Headquarters, and to other revolutionaries that united them, among which was the Argentinean Ernesto Che Guevara. They left the Mexican port of Tuxpan towards Cuba on board the yacht "Granma" and disembarked in December 2, 1956 for the beach Las Coloradas, to the south, restarting the armed fight, this time like guerillas fighters in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. At the same time it was organized in the whole country an underground fight.

In January, 1, 1959, the President Fulgencio Batista with its family abandons the country going to Santo Domingo taking with him 40 millions of dollars of the public treasure. Triumphantly, January 8, 1959, the troops of the Ejercito Libertador enter in Havana led by Fidel Castro. May, the17th of the same year, is promulgated the Primera Ley de Reforma Agraria that distributed the soil among the peasants.

In October 28, in a trip Camagüey-Havana the Commander Camilo Cienfuegos disappears. In April of 1960 it arrives to the bay of Havana the first Soviet ship loaded with petroleum. In July 5, the United States imposes the economic and commercial blockade to the island. In celebrated public act April, 16, 1961, the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro proclaims the Socialist Character of the Revolution. It is carried out the Campaña Nacional de Alfabetizacion during the year 1961. In the region of the south coast of the current province of Matanzas mercenary troops disembark, April 17 at same year, trained in the United States with the purpose of overthrowing the revolution. Three days later the invasion is defeated, becoming this fact the first defeat of the Yankee Imperialism in America.

In 1962 the OEA suspends Cuba as a permanent member of this organization. It loosens, and then in October of 1962, because of the installation in the island of Soviet nuclear weapons, what is known worldwide as the October Crisis that could have unchained in a nuclear catastrophe.

The Commander Ernesto Che Guevara is made prisoner October 8, 1967 and killed the following day in Valle Grande, Bolivia.
In 1969 the country gets ready to carry out the monumental task of arriving to the ten million tons of sugar in the harvest, figure that cannot be reached. In 1972 Cuba is accepted in the Economic Community of the well-known Socialist Countries as CAME that facilitated the development and the trade.

At the end of the year 1975 leave in mission of war towards Angola the first Cuban troops that respond to a military pact signed among the two nations. In the war, which extends up to 1984, take part more than a million Cuban combatants.

In 1980, Fidel Castro government opens the port of Mariel, in the northern area, for those that want to abandon the country in legal emigration toward the United States.

In 1982 the historical bottom of Old Havana, is declared World Heritage by the UNESCO. Later on, Trinidad also reached this denomination.

The fall of the Socialist Block of Europe rebounds deeply in the economy of the island that falls, in an almost total crisis, acquaintance as Special Period and opened the doors to the foreign investment controlled in the Island. The Ordinance Law 140 of the Council of State authorizes in 1993 the free circulation of the dollar in the whole national territory.

In August of 1991 in Havana and Santiago de Cuba were celebrated the XI Pan-American Sport Games, where Cuba with 140 medals of gold, achieves the first place for countries, overcoming the United States, traditional winner.

A resolution that condemns the economic blockade of United States towards Cuba is approved by the UN in 1992.

In the month of August of 1994 the called Rafters Crisis takes place in Havana: hundred of thousands of people abandon the island in invented rafts, stimulated by the illegal entrance favored by the laws of United States. That same year, the government from Cuba is excluded of the Hemispheric Summit carried out in Miami.

In 1995 the self-employed work was settled down in a regular way. The European Union approves that same year a program of 19, 5 million dollars to finance programs of public health.

The President William Clinton signs in 1996 the Helms-Burton Law that means a worsening of the blockade against Cuba, the interference of the United States in the internal matters of the country and in his international projection. Months later, the Cuban Parliament approves the Law 80 that declares the illegality of the Helms-Burton Law and the right of the Cuban people to choose his own destination.

In the month of January of 1998, officially invited to carry out an extensive journey of five days for the whole island, our Sanctity the Pope John Paul the II, it is received with all the honors by the highest representatives in the church and the government. While at the end of 1999, Havana receives the Head of State and Presidents of Iberia-américas Governments during the celebration of the XI Iberia-American Summit.

In November 22, 1999, Elián González is taken illegally out of Cuba in a raft for his mother, who died when the artifact sank. In support to his father's petition so that she returned to him his son, Cuba rushed to the streets and with public acts and marches of millions of Cuban during more than 7 months, it achieved the return, finally to the kidnapped boy's homeland. Later on the leader of the Cuban Revolution throws the called Battle of Ideas for the liberation of five Cuban prisoners in American jails for carrying out espionage activities inside opposed groups to the government of the Island.