The USA and Cuba - a troubled history

Before the revolution, for many Americans Cuba was synonymous with gambling, night clubs and other subversive pleasures. Here, Americans are enjoying a dinner at the Havana Yacht Club. "Cuba was the brothel of the USA," political analyst Karl E. Meyer said later. But for its citizens, Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship mainly meant stagnation, unemployment and poverty.

A guerilla army of several hundred men was enough to help Fidel Castro (in the jeep, center) topple the regime. On January 1 1959, Batista fled, and the rebels took over Havana. The USA immediately imposed sanctions, which were tightened in the following years. Cuba's leadership developed ties with the Soviet Union.

In 1961, a troop of soldiers made up of exiled Cubans, with the help of the US intelligence service the CIA, attempted to overthrow the regime. The attempt was a fiasco: Cuba's revolutionary army managed to stop the Bay of Pigs Invasion within three days, having captured more than 1000 prisoners.

The shattered relationship between the US and Cuba meant the Soviet Union had a base just 90 miles (144km) from the US at their disposal. The Kremlin wanted to station missiles there – and in 1962 the Cuban Missile Crisis led the world to the brink of a nuclear war. The USA used a naval blockade to force the removal of the missiles.

The Soviet Union invested in the new relationship, massively supporting the island for decades – for instance with crude oil, which Cuba re-exported to acquire foreign currency. This way, Cuba was able to establish exemplary health and education systems.

In 1980, Fidel Castro allowed volunteers to leave for the USA from Cuba's Mariel harbor. Around 125,000 Cubans arrived in Florida. Among them were people who had been released from jails and psychiatric wards by the Cuban government shortly before. The crime rate in Miami increased dramatically.

Over decades, the US embargo severely restricted the Cuban economy. In addition to this, there was no economic diversification: sugar cane - being harvested in this photo - remained the main export of the island after the revolution. Cuba was completely dependent on help from the Soviet Union - just how dependent became apparent after 1990.

With the collapse of the Soviet Union came the collapse of the Cuban economy. Without help from the East, the Cubans had nothing. In 1990, Castro announced the "Período especial." The lack of petrol and replacement parts for cars meant ox carts came back into daily use. Since the end of the 1990s, Venezuela has supplied Cuba with discounted oil.

Since 1993, the United Nations General Assembly has been calling for the US to end its embargo policy. The US has continually changed the levels of restrictions. In 1996, for example, the embargo restrictions were tightened; in 1999 they were eased again. In 2004, President George W. Bush - seen here on a poster in Havana - increased the sanctions.

Now the USA and Cuba seem to be starting a new chapter. A US embassy should be reopened in Havana, travel and trade restrictions are to be relaxed. Cuba's president Raul Castro (seen here on the TV screen) announced the changes at the same time as US President Barack Obama.