Fidel Castro Has Resigned!

Castro's brother Raul is his designated successor, but many observers believe Cuba's communist state will not outlive the man who has divided international opinion for almost half a century.

Born into a wealthy landowning family, he turned to Marxism because of the poverty he saw around him in Cuba.

He came to international prominence in 1959 when, along with Che Guevara, he led the uprising which overthrew the corrupt government of President Fulgencio Batista, who had turned Cuba into a decadent playground for America's rich.

Promising to give the land back to the people, he received the backing of the Soviet Union, driving a wedge between Cuba and the US that has never been removed.

In April 1961 the US tried to topple the Castro government by recruiting a private army of Cuban exiles to invade the island.

At the Bay of Pigs, Cuban troops repulsed the invaders, killing many and capturing 1,000.

As money flowed from the Kremlin the Caribbean island became a cold war battleground.

But it was not just cash that headed west to Cuba from the Soviet Union.

In 1962 US reconnaissance planes discovered Soviet missiles on their way to sites in Cuba and the world stood on the brink of an apocalyptic nuclear war.

It was Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev who blinked first, turning his weapon-laden ships around.

The Cuban missile crisis confirmed Castro, in American eyes, as the enemy in their own back yard.

The CIA tried to assassinate him on many occasions - one plan involved filling his much-loved cigars with explosives.

The collapse of the Soviet Union in the 1980s meant the financial plug was pulled on Castro.

Still blockaded by the US, conditions in Cuba deteriorated, with food and fuel shortages and an economy in ruins.

Soon thousands of Cubans were fleeing to Florida in makeshift rafts, hoping for a better life in the arms of Castro's arch-enemy.

He did however bring about real change in Cuba with free health care for all and one of the highest literacy rates in the world. And his ability to needle the Americans has never diminished.