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History of Havana, Cuba

Havana is a synthesis of the whole Cuba, capital of the island and one of the most beautiful cities of Latin America. The delight of "Perla del Caribe" keeps on acting, the one who knows her returns enriched and conquered. Conquered by an extraordinary people, any feeling, for the best cigars and the best rum of the world and for the most magical rhythms never fictitious.

The city offers everything imaginable on the subject of colonial architecture. His most important quarters, Old Havana, I Centre Havana, Vedado, Miramar and they will make the Levee enjoy the memories of the ancient architecture to the pleasure of the walk, and they will not be able to stop concluding the party dancing the best thing that they could in one of the rooms of fashion of the city.

It is possible to say that Havana is the tropical splendour, which there assembles the best of Spain, the best of Africa and the best of the Antilles. Havana, with his ancient American automobiles, his pother, his flaky buildings, his history, his peoples and his rhythms it will not make him indifferent.

In the Square of Weapon, which was in the colonial epoch the center of the official and public life of Havana, a called monument rises Moderate you. In his commemorative column there is an inscription in Latin, almost erased, that we translate as it continues: " Stop the step, walker, it adorns this place with a tree, a leafy ceiba, rather I will say memorable sign of the prudence and ancient religion of the young city, since truly down his shade the author of the health was immolated solemnly in this city. There was had for the first time the meeting of the prudent councilmen it already does more than two centuries: it was preserved by a perpetual tradition: nevertheless, it yielded to the time. You will see an image done today in the stone, that is to say the last one of November in the year 1754 ".

The inscription gives faith of which in this place there was a ceiba and which down his shade celebrated the first mass and the Town council received the watch{flyleaf} and custody of the jurisdictions and privileges of the town of Havana, according to custom and custom of the laws of Castile. The commemorative column of the foundation of the city was erected by the governor don Francisco Cagigal de la Vega in 1754, when the ceiba could not support oneself any more.

But before the foundation of Havana, in his current emplacement, the city had, between 1514 and 1519, at least two different establishments: that of 1514, which in one of the first maps of Cuba, that of Paolo Forlano of 1564, places the town in the mouth of the river Onicaxinal, on the south coast of Cuba: another establishment in La Chorrera, which is today in the quarter of Big Bridges, along with the river Almendales, that the Indians were calling Casiguaguas, where the founders tried to restrain{dam} the waters, surviving at present the walls of containment of this hydraulic work, the most ancient of the Carib.

And the last one, which he commemorates Moderate you, that was the sixth town founded by the Spanish on the island called St Kitts of the Havana for Simple of Narvaez: St Kitts, perhaps because this holy giant was crossing the rivers supported on a palm tree like cane, and Havana, patrimony of dark origin, that there can come from Habaguanex, name of the Indian chief, master of those grounds, quoted by Diego Velasquez in his relation to the king of Spain.

Havana re-arose in several occasions of the debris and ashes to which the pirates and French corsairs were limiting it from time to time during the first half of the XVIth century, until in 1561 the Crown arranges that the city is the place of concentration of the Spanish ships proceeding from the American colonies to divide for the passage of the ocean.

Gold and silver, wool of alpaca of the Andes, emeralds of Colombia, mahoganies of Cuba and Guatemala, leather of the Guajira, spices, stick of dye of Campeche, corn, swallows, manioc, cocoa ... they come in the sailing ships to the port best protected from America, between March and August, to form the big convoyes that guarded by the military ships, divide in the special days course to Spain.
With them, thousands of sailors, officials, colonists, merchants, adventurers ... they boil in the incipient city, which grows from the port to vertiginous rhythm.
On December 20, 1592, Felipe II awards to Havana the title of city, twenty-nine years after the governor of Cuba was moving to her{it} his official residence from Santiago, sedate till then of the government of the island.

The strategic importance of Havana and the wealths that come to her{it} and from her{it} they depart her{it} they turn in pirates' coveted target and galleons with patent of Corsican of the hostile potency of the Spanish Crown. Havana is fortified during the XVIIth century by order{tenure} of the kings who sign it as{like} " Key of the New World and antemural of the West Indies ". At the same time, the city is built by the most abundant materials of the island: the wood, which provide to the architecture of the epoch a peculiar delight in combination with the styles come from the Iberian Peninsula and, very profusely, from Canaries.

In 1649 an epidemic of pest come from Cartagena of the Indies, in Colombia, exterminates to the third part of the population of Havana. On November 30, 1665, the queen Mrs{Ms} Mariana de Austria, widow of Felipe IV, ratifies the ancient shield{escudo} of Cuba, which took as heraldic symbols the first three castles of the city: that of the Real{Royal} Force, of Three Santos Reyes Magos of the Knob{Mouth} and that of San Salvador de la Punta, like three silver towers on blue field. Also, a golden key that was symbolizing the title of " Key of the Gulf ", granted from ancient to the city.

During the XVIIth century the city engrandece with monumental civil and religious constructions. The convent of San Agustin is erected, one concludes the castle of The Knob{Mouth}, and there are constructed the chapel of the Humilladero, the source of Dorotea of the Moon in The Spout, the church of the Holy Angel, the hospital of San Lazaro, the Saint's monastery Teresa, the convent of San Felipe Neri ... in 1728 there is founded the Real{Royal} and Pontifical University of San Jeronimo on the convent of Saint John of Letran.

In the middle of the XVIIIth century, Havana has more than 70.000 inhabitants. On June 6, 1762, at the dawn, an impressive British navy appeared, with more than 50 vessels and 14.000 men. To take the city, the Englishmen had to produce the Castle of the Knob{Mouth}, defended by a determined garrison at the head of the captain of vessel Luis de Velasco and the Marquess Vicente Gomez. Havana fell down after two months of place. Sir Georges Keppel governed for one year, until middle of 1763, date in which the Britons returned Havana to the Spanish, in exchange for Florida. To this period they mend the freedom of commerce and that of worship.

In 1763 there was begun the construction of The Fortaleza of San Carlos of the Hut, the biggest of the constructed ones by Spain in the New World, which propped the defensive system of Havana up after the English occupation. The works extended for more than eleven years and with such an enormous cost for his time that is said that Carlos III, King of Spain begins to show to the window of his palace with a spyglass so that they were indicating him where one was finding so expensive construction. His privileged position was turning him into an unassailable bastion. It was provided{relied on} with a high number of cannons melted in Barcelona in the XVIIIth century, which keep on keeping symbolically the entry of the Bay of Havana.

In 1774 the first official census of Cuba is realized: 171.670 inhabitants, of whom 44.333 are slaves. Between 1789 and 1790 the diocese of Cuba splits: the Biggest Church of Havana is erected in cathedral whereas{while} the ancient{former} mitre{bishopic} remains in Santiago de Cuba. Six years later, on January 15, 1796, come to Havana the remains of Cristobal Columbus proceeding from Santo Domingo.

Since Spain already did not dye{have} the monopoly of the commerce, Havana turned in a city more flourishing that never, and in 1818 it was a free port. The luxury and the voluptuousness settled. The shops were offering the last scream of the fashion, the theaters were receiving the best actors of the moment, the enriched bourgeoisie was making to construct splendid mansions with columns, one was speaking about the Paris of the Antilles.

The XIXth century is opened by the arrival to Havana of Alejandro von Humboldt, who remains impressed by the vitality of the port of Havana. In the year 1837 there is inaugurated the first stretch of railroad{railway}, of 51 km, between Havana and Bejucal, which is used for the transport of sugar of the vale of Guines up to the port of the city. With it Cuba turns in the fifth country of the world in having railroad{railway} and the first one of those of Spanish speech{talking}. Throughout the century. Havana enriches with cultural centers, as{like} the theater Heel, one of the most luxurious of the world, the Artistic and Literary Lyceum, the theater Coliseum... He{She} visits the city Garibaldi under the name of Giuseppe Pani and the patriots' conspiracies happen independentistas to the same rhythm as the authority of the Crown it suppresses and suffocates them.

In 1863, the walls of the city were knocked down so that the metropolis could be extended and construct him new and splendid buildings{edifices}. At the end of the century, the well-off classes moved to the quarter of the Preserve. Later, they emigrated towards Miramar, and today, increasingly on the west, they have settled in Siboney.

At the end of the XIXth century Havana lives through last moments of the Spanish colonization in America, which closes definitively when the armoured North American Maine is sunk{destroyed} in his port giving to the United States the pretext to invade the island. The change of century passes in Havana, and therefore in Cuba, under the occupation and the government of the United States.

Under the American influence, the city grew and prospered with numerous buildings{edifices} in the 30s, when there are constructed sumptuous hotels, casinos and splendid night clubes. Saint Traficante takes the roulette of the Sans-Souci, Meyer Lanski directs the Riviera, Lucki Luciano National.. Before the hotels and restaurants, the Cadillac, Crevrolet and Buick park in triple line waiting, to the buttons. For that one then, the money of the Serbian mafia, at least, to embellish the Gomorra of the Antilles. But the quarters of barracks that were surrounding the city were developing to the same rhythm. Havana turned in capital of the game and of the corruption. A gallery of black and white portraits of personages of that epoch adorns, today still, the walls of the bar of the National. It can turn to Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner, to the big toreador Dominguin, to Marlene Dietrich and Gary Cooper, and other great ones: gangsters and artists were mixing in a fragile happiness.

From the victory of the revolution in 1959 big transformations did, principally in what it affects to the services, the construction of social housings and official buildings{edifices}, but, as for the topography of Havana, it is possible to keep on describing in accordance with the same big areas of 1958, although adding someone more.

For a few years, the historical center of Havana, declared national monument for the Cuban government in 1976 and patrimony of the humanity for the UNESCO in 1982, is an object of Herculean restorations, realized by a team{equipment} of historians and architects directed by the Office of the Historian of Havana, Mister Eusebio Leal, that do not save the used means not the quality, copy{specimen}, of the works of renewal.

Today, Havana has two million inhabitants. And the fourth three parts of all of them have less than 20 years. For them, Havana changes almost year after year, with the opening to the tourism. The ancient hotels, closed for thirty years, shine again with all his lights.

Cuba

Official name: Republic of Cuba
Surface: 111.000 km ² like{as} it teaches{shows} itself the students, it is a number scarcely inaccurate{inexact} and easy to memorize. The real surface of Cuba is 110.922 km2, that is to say slightly less than 1/5 it departs from Spain. Cuba possesses 7.000km of coasts and 289 beaches.
Population: 11.000.000 hab, of which{whom} 2.200.000 concentrate in Havana. According to the official statistics{statisticians} there are 65 % of targets, 13 % of blacks and 22 % of mulattos, but the very crossbred this population.
Religion: Catholics 47 %, Protestants 4 %, santeria 2 %
Politics: socialistic diet{regime} of the only party (Communist Cuban Party, the PCC)
Head of state: Fidel Castro Ruz, in the power from 1959, is the first secretary of the Communist Cuban Party, commander in chief of the Armed forces, president of the Council of State{Condition} and of the Cabinet.

With 1500 km from top to top of the island, Cuba is a big country provided with an unusual geographical variety: beaches, forests, islets, mountains, a desert...
Cuba is placed in the archipelago of the Antilles. Havana is only 170 km from Key West, in Florida, and the province of Pine grove of the River to 210 km from the peninsula of Yucatan, in Mexico. Other nearby neighbors are Jamaica, the Bahamas and Haiti (to 77 km across{through} the step of Windward). The principal island of Cuba occupies for his dimensions the fifteenth place of the world, since it measures 104.945 km ² of surface (1.250 km long and 191 km from largeness, in his maximum points). The country contains also the island of the Youth (220 km ²) as well as more than 4.200 coral keys and islets, many of which{whom} are uninhabited.

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