Che Guevara

Ernesto Rafael Che Guevara de la Serna 14 June 1928 9 October 1967 was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary physician author guerrilla leader diplomat and military theorist A major figure of the Cuban Revolution his stylized visage has become a ubiquitous countercultural symbol of rebellion and global insignia in popular culture As a young medical student Guevara traveled throughout South America and was radicalized by the poverty hunger and disease he witnessed His burgeoning desire to help overturn what he saw as the capitalist exploitation of Latin America by the United States prompted his involvement in Guatemalas social reforms under President Jacobo Árbenz whose eventual CIAassisted overthrow at the behest of the United Fruit Company solidified Guevaras political ideology Later in Mexico City Guevara met Raúl and Fidel Castro joined their 26th of July Movement and sailed to Cuba aboard the yacht Granma with the intention of overthrowing USbacked Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista Guevara soon rose to prominence among the insurgents was promoted to second in command and played a pivotal role in the victorious twoyear guerrilla campaign that deposed the Batista regime Guevara remains both a revered and reviled historical figure polarized in the collective imagination in a multitude of biographies memoirs essays documentaries songs and films As a result of his perceived martyrdom poetic invocations for class struggle and desire to create the consciousness of a new man driven by moral rather than material incentives Guevara has evolved into a quintessential icon of various leftist movements Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century while an Alberto Korda photograph of him titled Guerrillero Heroico was cited by the Maryland Institute College of Art as the most famous photograph in the world Description above from the Wikipedia article Che Guevara licensed under CCBYSA full list of contributors on Wikipedia