Although his life was cut short, Ernesto "Che" Guevara drastically changed the political situation in Cuba and throughout South America. Born in Argentina, he was a revolutionary leader soon after qualifying as a doctor.
Ernesto is born in Argentina to a well off family. His father, of Hispanic-Irish origins, is an Architect and his mother is the descendent of a rich Argentinean family.
Ernesto becomes ill. The doctors diagnose him with Asthma problems and fragile health, which makes the Guevara family settle in Alta Gracia in the Cordoba province, where the air is drier.
The family moves to Buenos Aires. Ana Isabel, his grandmother, passes away due to an illness, and Ernesto, who had looked after her for seventeen days, decides to study medicine.
Changed because of his ever-fragile constitution, Ernesto launches into his medical studies. While the student anti-Peronist protests wail, Ernesto meets ‘Aunty', Berta gilda Infante, who is a member of the communist youth. They become friends and she introduces him to Marxist texts.
Ernesto leaves again, this time by motorbike accompanied by his friend Alberto Grandos, to really discover South America. In order to feed themselves and pay for their temperamental Norton 500cc, they take on many small jobs along the way.
Ernesto and Carlos Ferrer ‘Calica' meet in Bolivia where they observe the social changes brought about by the Nationalist Revolutionary Movement, who has just come to power. They travel along Peru, the equator, Panama, and Costa Rica where they meet the Cubans, Calixto Garcia and Severino Rosell, then onto Nicaragua, Honduras, Salvador and finally Guatemala.
Ernesto makes friends with Hilda Gadea Ontalia, an economist and ex member of the APRA (Alianza Popular Revolucionaria Americana) and with Nico Lopez, a Cuban revolutionary, who names him after his surname ‘Che'.
Ernesto Che Guevara presides as the doctor for the worker's unions and plays an active role in the internal politics of Guatemala, by supporting the democratic and revolutionary government of Jacob Arbenz.
The intervention by the USA and the CIA brings down Arbenz's government and Che has to leave Guatemala for Mexico, where he works as a photographer and as a doctor.
Living at Maria Antonia Gonzales' house, as a Cuban exiled to Mexico, Che Guevara meets Raoul and Fidel Castro, who explain to him their reasons behind their fight against the dictator Batista. The two men discuss all kinds of subjects for more than ten hours. From that day on, Che becomes a member of the Revolutionary circle.
Ernesto, who is following Cuban revolutionary training in Mexico, is arrested. Not long after his release, he separates from Hilda and reveals his revolutionary activities to his parents.
Che disembarks with 80 men to Cuba and settles the guerrilla revolutionaries in the Sierra Maestra. Che shows that he is an excellent fighter in the anti-Batista cause.
Che creates Radio Rebelde, the revolutionary radio station. He actively fights in Sierra Maestra, then in the Sierra del Escambray, and finally, in the Santa Clara battle, which will be decisive for the Revolutionary movement.
On the third Che arrives at Havana, followed by the victorious entry of Fidel on the 8th. His parents, who he has not seen him for six years come to Cuba, followed by Hilda and their daughter who come to live in Havana.
Ernesto Che Guevara marries Aleida March Torres, who he met a year earlier. He officially works for the Cuban government, who regularly sends him on assignments. He is sent to Egypt, Soudan, India, Burma, Indonesia, Ceylan, Japan, Morocco, Yugoslavia and to Spain. He takes on the duties of the Head of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, of the Head of Industry and Agrarian Reform, then at the end of November, President of the National Bank of Cuba.
His son Omar Perez is born, the son from his relationship with Lidia Rosa Lopez. During this year Che represents Cuba at the UN conference for business and development at Geneva. As the head of the Cuban delegation he also goes to France, Algeria, Czechoslovakia and the USSR for the 47th Anniversary of the October Revolution and to New York for the General Assembly of the UN.
At the start of the year, Che travels to China, Mali, the Congo, Guinea, Ghana, Tanzania, Egypt and Algeria again. On his way back, he asks to be discharged of his responsibilities, in order to retake charge of the army for the people of the world.
Che continues his official visits with the economic mission of Cuba, in the USSR, Czechoslovakia, the FRG and the Popular Republic of China. The USA enacts a commercial embargo on Cuba.
