Asalto al cuartel Moncada (Official name - "Día de la Rebeldía Nacional")
The date after which the revolutionary movement (M 26-7) was named. In the morning of July 26, 1953, some 160 men under the command of Fidel Castro attacked the Moncada army garrison in Santiago de Cuba, Cuba's second-largest city. Although this action crushingly failed, it is seen as the beginning of the Castro-led insurrection that expelled Fulgencio Batista. There are normally two or three days public holiday together.
This day in 1868, Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, "Father of the Homeland", gave freedom to his slaves and started the independence war against the Spanish colonial power, which led to the Ten Years' War
For decades Christmas was a normal working day in revolutionary Cuba. The Christmas celebration (and the corresponding holiday) was reinstalled in 1998 after Pope John Paul II visited Cuba.
