Timeline: Key dates in the life of Fidel Castro

Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro, a defining figure of the 20th century, has died aged 90.

The socialist revolutionary's death was announced by his brother, Raul Castro, the incumbent Cuban president, on state television late on Friday.

Here are the key moments in his long life:

  • 1926 - Fidel Castro is born on August 13. He attends Catholic schools before graduating from the University of Havana with a degree in law.

  • 1953 - Castro assembles a small force and attacks the Moncada army barracks in Santiago de Cuba, after elections in which he ran for the Cuban House of Representatives were halted by the then dictator Fulgencio Batista. The assault fails and Castro is sentenced to 15 years in prison, but he is later pardoned after just two years.

  • 1956 - His group of revolutionaries - the 26th of July Movement, which he had trained in Mexico - invades Cuba from the ship Gramma, but suffers serious losses.

Fidel Castro at the 19th anniversary of his and his fellow revolutionaries arrival on the yacht Granma, in Havana in 1976. Credit: Reuters

  • 1959 - On January 1, Batista flees the island and, having hid in the Sierra Maestra mountains with his revolutionaries where he gained support of peasants, Castro assumes power.

  • 1960 - Castro takes over the US oil refineries in Cuba and refuses to process Soviet oil. The Americans stop buying Cuban sugar and Washington bans exports to Cuba, other than food and medicine.

  • 1961 - April 16 - Castro declares Cuba a socialist state.

  • 1961 - April 17 - CIA-backed Cuban exiles stage failed invasion at the Bay of Pigs.

A tank of the Cuban Armed Forces near the area where some 1,500 anti-Castro allies attempted the Bay of Pigs invasion. Credit: Reuters

  • 1962 - February 7 - Washington bans all Cuban imports.

  • 1962 - October - US blockade forces removal of Soviet nuclear missiles from Cuba. US President John F. Kennedy agrees privately not to invade Cuba.

  • 1968 - March - Castro's government takes over almost all private businesses.

  • 1991 - December - Collapse of Soviet Union devastates Cuban economy.

Fidel Castro breaks a piece of bread offered to him before the XXVI Congress of the Soviet Union's Communist Party, near Moscow in 1981. Credit: Reuters

  • 1994 - August - Castro declares he will not stop Cubans trying to leave. Some 40,000 take to the sea heading for United States.

  • 2006 - July 31 - Castro announces he has had an operation and temporarily cedes power to brother Raul.

  • 2008 - February 19 - Castro resigns as president

  • 2011 - April 19 - Castro is replaced by his brother Raul as first secretary of the Communist Party, the last official post he held.

  • 2016 - April 19 - Castro delivers a valedictory speech at the Communist Party's seventh Congress, declaring that "soon I'll be like all the others. The time will come for all of us, but the ideas of the Cuban Communists will remain."

  • 2016 - November 15 - Fidel Castro dies, aged 90.

Fidel Castro ruled Cuba for five decades. Credit: Reuters