What Happened in Cuba?       

This is a question we have asked ourselves for the better part of a half a century. We still don’t have an answer. A friend (not Cuban) sent me a list of what he called “historical Cuban achievements” he had found on a website, of which the following is a partial listing, and asked the same question… I still did not have an answer… 

•     First Iberian American country to use vapor powered machinery and ships was Cuba in 1829
•    The third country in the world (after US and England) to have railroads was Cuba, in 1837
•     First ether based anesthesia applied in the Spanish speaking world was by a Cuban MD in 1847.
•  The first public electric light system in the Spanish speaking world was completed in Havana in 1889
•  Cuba eliminated bullfights before the end of the 18^th century, because they were “unpopular,        sanguinary and abusive with the animals”
•  The first Latin American Trolley service was established in Cuba in 1900.
•  The first city in the world with a direct dial (no operator) telephone system was Havana in 1906. 
•   In 1915, the first Cuban Peso was minted; with values identical to the US dollar and until 1959, at times being worth 1-3 cents more the US Dollar
•  The first Latin American country to approve a divorce law, in 1918. 
•  In 1928 Cuba already had 61 radio stations, 43 of them in Havana, being the 4^th radio market in the world at the time. Only the US, Canada and the Soviet Union surpassed Cuba.
•  In 1937 by government decree, Cuba becomes the first country in the Spanish speaking world to have 8 hour work days, minimum salary and university autonomy.
•  In 1940, Cuba becomes the first country in the Spanish Speaking world to have a black citizen elected as president, at a time when the population in Cuba was 75% white. 
•  In 1940, Cuba approved the most advanced of all the Constitutions of the world at the time: women’s rights to work and to vote, equal rights of the sexes and races.
• The first hotel in the world built with central air conditioning, was built in Havana: The Hotel Riviera, in 1951.
•  In 1954, there was one cow per inhabitant in Cuba; it had the 3^rd highest per capita consumption of beef after Argentina and Uruguay. 
•  In 1955, Cuba has the second lowest infant mortality rate within the Spanish speaking world.
•  In 1956 UN recognizes Cuba as having the second highest alphabetization level in the Spanish speaking world
•  In 1957 the UN recognizes Cuba as having the highest per capita (1 per 957) number of Medical Doctors in the Spanish Speaking world; the highest % of households with electricity and the highest caloric consumption per person per day (2870).
•   In 1957 Havana becomes the second city in the world to have 3D movies and multi-screen movies.
•   In 1950, Cuba was the second country (after the US) to have TV transmissions; in 1958, Cuba is the second country in the world to transmit TV in color and has the third color TV station in the world.  
•  In 1958, Cuba has the highest number of automobiles in the Spanish Speaking world (one per 38 inhabitants or 160,000); the highest number of electrodomestic equipment, the most Km of railroad and is the second in radio receptors.
•  During the decade of the 50’s, Cuba fluctuated between 2^nd and 3^rd highest in per capita income in the Spanish speaking world; higher than Italy and doubling that of Spain.
•  Despite being small in size and having only 6.5 million inhabitants, in1958 Cuba had the 29^th strongest economy in the world
•   In 1959, Havana was the city that had the most movie houses in the world (358). More than NYC and Paris which were #’s 2 & 3 respectively.

Our Caribbean island was not a perfect country; none is. We had ups and downs, inequalities and troubled times with folks who were not happy about how things may have stood. Still, after many years of traveling around the world, the memories I have of what was available as I was growing up in that island, surpass much of what I have come to see and witness in these travels, years after.

What happened?

We have been trying to answer that question for some 55 years now… there is still no real answer... and rhetoric is NOT an answer…

 “Socialism is the philosophy of failure; the creed of the ignorant ant the preaching of envy. Its one virtue is the equal distribution of misery”     Sir Winston Churchill

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