Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born near Biran in Orient Province, Cuba, in 1926. He was the third child born to Castro y Argiz and Lina Ruz Gonzalez. Angel became wealthy from laying track for the sugar railway and transporting the cane.
             Castro attended public school near the town of Mayari. He then enrolled in Santiago de Cuba's La Salle School, run by French Priests. Castro was often undisciplined and his father sent him to Dolores Colegio, a private Catholic school renowned for its discipline and high academic standards. There he saw how American soldiers treated Cubans as inferiors and came to resent American influence in Cuba's political affairs. In 1940 he attended the Belen Secondary School. There he studied Cuban history and Jose Marti, the father of the Cuban independence movement.
             While enrolled in the University of Havana Law School he became involved in the school's politics. Politics was usually violent there, with fights between rival political gangs. He became bored with university politics and became a member of the Party of the Cuban People, or the Ortodoxo Party. The Ortodoxos exposed the government's corruption under Rao Grau San Martin, of the Autentico Party. They demanded reform, advocating social justice, economic equality, a strong Cuban identity, and Cuban influence in international affairs. In 1947 he tried to overthrow Dominican Republic Dictator Rafael Trujillo with the group the Caribbean Legion, but he failed.
             He returned to Cuba with the sole purpose of defeating the Autentico Party. He gave inspired speeches that brought him national recognition amidst the domestic violence of electoral disputes. In 1948 he attended the Ninth Pan American Union Conference in Bogota Colombia to protest American domination of Latin America. His fervent political activity has been blamed for violence that ensued in the streets of Bogota.
             In 1948 he became involved in the Cuban ...