Cuba gained independence from the Spanish in the late 1800s but not really as a result of a Cuban uprising (there had been one prior to that egged on by José Marti, now regarded as a Cuban national hero). The US had already shown an interest in acquiring Cuba and in early 1898 A US battleship called "The Maine" (obsessively sent "to protect US citizens") anchored of the coast of Havana mysteriously exploded and the Spaniards were blamed (since then it's been suggested that the US blew up the ship themselves to give them an excuse to intervene in Cuba. It's probably not a coincidence that the Captain and crew of the ship happened to be safely ashore at the time...). 
The US offered to buy Cuba for $300M as recompense, Spain said "no", the US declared war, blockaded Cuba (how things change...) and in summer 1898 a peace treaty between the US and Spain was signed in Paris (no Cubans invited) saying that the US should respect Cuban self-determination. The Cubans were now independent from Spain but under US military occupation. The eventual withdrawal of the US was accepted by means of the "Platt Agreement" which stated that the US could still intervene militarily in Cuba's affairs whenever it saw fit. This allowed them to acquire the famous Guantánamo Bay naval base which of course, they still have.
A number of fairly dodgy puppet regimes governed Cuba over the next wee while including an army sergeant called Fulgencio Batista, who seized power in a coup in 1933 and later that year, the Platt Agreement was repealed (but the lease on Guantanamo extended for 99 years with the stipulation that both sides would have to agree before it was ever terminated. Yeah right.). In 1944 Batista's preferred candidate lost an election and after a few years of governments who ran the Cubans into the ground, he re-took power with a vengeance in a second coup in 1952. He then ran a seriously corrupt and unpleasant dictatorship trying to gain legitimacy by means of rigged elections in 1955 and 1958.
Now names that you'll recognize start to crop up. A revolutionary group formed in Havana led by the bearded Fidel Castro. He organised an attack on Batista's army on July 26th 1953 aided by 119 rebels. The attack failed and a number of Castro's army were captured and tortured to death. Castro himself escaped but was captured a week later by an army general who defied orders by taking him to jail instead of shooting him on the spot. Fidel was sentenced to 15 years in jail but was later released when Batista tried to gain popular support by releasing all political prisoners following the dodgy election in 1955. Castro fled to Mexico leaving a couple of supporters in Cuba to organise things there while he trained folk up as his revolutionary movement, now named M-26-7 after his failed coup. At this point enters the face on the T-shirts and posters, a young Argentinian doctor named Ernesto Guevara or "Che" for short. (“Che”, incidentally was the generic name Cubans called Argentinians, like calling a Scot “Jock”.) 
He had spent some time travelling Latin America on a motorbike observing the people and the poverty there and forming some fairly seriously left-wing views (no doubt influenced by recent events in China and Russia). He was young, intelligent, handsome and idealistic and as far as I can make out wasn't power hungry but was genuinely well-meaning. He ended up in Mexico after being chucked out of Guatamala for being a leftie. He'd heard about the Cubans in Mexico on the grapevine and you can imagine him riding up on his bike, flinging off his helmet, shaking back his hair and saying "hey boys, I hear you're planning a revolution, can I be of any assistance?". It’s not how it really happened as the motorbike was knackered and left in Chile but you can begin to see why he's become such an icon. Post revolution (once he'd helped establish socialist Cuba) he left Cuba and tried to instigate revolutions in the Congo and the Andes. He was captured in Bolivia where he was shot by the US-backed army there.
Anyhow, Guevara, Castro and co took a ship over to Cuba called "Granma" in 1956. It was filled with his trainees who started a guerilla capmaign which lasted for the next two years with success coming on January 1st 1959 when Batista fled. Castro became Prime minister and started setting up Cuba as a socialist republic (meeting then US vice president Nixon in mid-1959 who accused Castro of being a commie, something he didn’t admit ‘till a lot later and probably then only to win over the Cuban Communist Party). 
Socialist reforms in Cuba followed, including the nationalisation of all US businesses in Cuba with no compensation and as a result the US instigated the trade and travel embargo which continues to this day (this made our visit to Cuba trickier and more expensive - a US citizen who visits Cuba is still liable for a US$25 000 fine if found out and US businesses such as American Airlines will have nothing to do with Cuba). Cuba then inevitably made friends with the USSR (also seriously pissing of the US) and allowed them to plant US-aimed missiles on Cuba aimed at the US (the famous Cuban Missile Crisis). The US did try and wrestle Cuba from the reds by means of an invasion in 1961 at the Bahia de Cochinos (Bay of Pigs) but that failed and the US was eventually distracted by events in Vietnam.
The fall of the Iron Curtain in the early 90s crippled Cuba beyond belief as it removed it's most important trading partner. A period of particular hardship began called by now President Castro "the Special Period" which the Cubans we've spoken to talk about as a particularly hellish time. In 1993 Castro attempted to end the hardship by allowing a double economy to develop with one in Cuban Pesos and the other in US dollars. The dollar economy was eventually replaced by the “Convertible Peso” (CUC - with one CUC roughly equivalent to a dollar) and US dollars were taken back out of circulation. There remains now the Peso economy (generally for Cubans only and particularly the poor) and the Convertible economy (for tourists, richer Cubans and those who want to make serious dough). Pretty much all industries remain state-owned including the hotels and tourist resorts but in 1998 Cubans were allowed to rent rooms to tourists as Casas Particulares (albeit for a very high tax) and many have entered the tourist market this way as it's one of the few ways they can make serious CUC cash (as opposed to earning ~£8 a month in Cuban Pesos). Tourism has flourished and now Cuba's even seeing the impoverished backpacker tourist (like us) arriving as a result of the cheap accommodation now available in Casas. The rise in tourism has however led to the unfortunate side-effect that many have found that there's more money to be made begging money/clothes/soap etc. from tourists than doing something productive. A further echelon of society have become "Jineteros" who hassle tourists in the street offering restaurants/cigars/casas/taxis that they then don't provide themselves but lead you to demanding a hefty commission from you or the establishment providing the item/service.
Castro is now 84 and retired from public life after a bout of diverticulitis being replaced by his brother Raul. With Obama in place the US is showing vague signs of extending an olive branch with for example the US National Ballet being allowed to take part in the festival here in Cuba this year. After both Fidel and Raul die, who knows what will happen here. If you ask the Cubans they just shrug - it's very much a wait and see job. It's been very interesting being here, particularly as Cuba is probably on the brink of a radical change. Most countries have a history which is complete but here you definitely get the feeling that it’s still in progress. Cuba does live up to it's reputation of feeling like the 1950s with the crumbling buildings, vintage cars, fairly bland (an unavailable) food and lack of the modern technologies we now take for granted (long distance bus tickets are written out by hand a rung up on old-style mechanical tills) and all of this is as a result of the US embargo. Arguably, the embargo has kept Castro and co. in power as it’s given him a good “bad guy” to unite the Cubans against. In the US’ favour it’s true that rights of free speech here are iffy, there are political prisoners who we’d describe as “prisoners of conscience” and the Cubans have little to no say over who’s in charge but the embargo has certainly kept your average Cuban in unnecessary poverty so who’s human rights record is dodgiest? Take your pick.
So if and when the embargo is lifted what will happen? Will Cuba suddenly become just another Caribbean island with only the rich coming for the sun, sea, sand, salsa and expensive hotels? Will it get a high-speed broadband network with Skype, Windows Messenger and will all the Cubans suddenly own iPods? Will the vintage cars all be scrapped and replaced by Ford Mondeos? Who knows? Certainly, it's been a pleasure being here and I'm sure the ever resourceful Cubans will embrace whatever future they have and try and persuade it to take a taxi/buy a cigar/go to a restaurant.Viva la Revolucion!
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