Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro dies aged 90
Video report by ITV News Washington Correspondent Robert Moore
The former Cuban leader Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90.
The socialist revolutionary's death was announced by his brother, Raul Castro, the incumbent Cuban president, on state television late on Friday.
In his address the elderly leader said Mr Castro died at 10.29pm on Friday and he will be cremated on Saturday before a period of national mourning is observed. He ended the announcement by shouting the revolutionary slogan: "Toward victory, always!"
Castro, who built a communist state on the doorstep of the United States, defied US efforts to topple him for five decades.
He stepped down as Cuba's president 10 years ago after suffering a severe gastrointestinal illness, and before his 90th birthday in August he told supporters he expected to die soon.
Hostile to Washington throughout his life, he led a coup in 1959 to overthrow the regime of the US-backed former Cuban president Fulgencio Batista.
When Castro, and his Marxist revolutionary friends, seized power that year, he proceeded to nationalise all American property, leading to relentless hostility towards him from the United States.
In 1960, Castro took over the US oil refineries in Cuba and the Americans stopped buying Cuban sugar.
He responded by taking over all US businesses in Cuba. A furious President Kennedy retaliated with the 1961 CIA-bankrolled attempted invasion at the Bay of Pigs, but forces led by Castro successfully fought them off.
It was a defining moment in the Cold War, which reached its peak a year later when the world came to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
The CIA tried all manner of ways to assassinate him, including a bizarre exploding cigar, designed to detonate when Castro puffed on it, and booby-trapped seashells in spots where he used to enjoy diving.
But he clung on to power, enduring decades under a crippling US trade embargo.
As its greatest ally, the Soviet Union, collapsed, Cuba remained a pariah Communist state at a cost of becoming one of the world's poorest nations.
When his brother opened the door to a thawing of relations with the US in 2014 Castro cautiously blessed the deal - but only after a month-long silence.
In August last year, Castro said the United States owned the country "millions of dollars" due to a 50-year trade embargo.