Raul Castro

Raúl Castro is a Cuban former politician and military officer who served as the 17th President of Cuba (2008–2018) — succeeding his older brother Fidel Castro after the February 2008 health-related transfer of presidential power. He was born Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz on June 3, 1931, in Birán, Holguín Province, Cuba. He was the third of seven children of Spanish-Cuban sugar planter Ángel Castro y Argiz and Cuban household employee Lina Ruz González.

He attended the University of Havana with his older brother Fidel through the late 1940s, where both became increasingly politically active. He was involved in the 1953 Moncada Barracks attack — the failed July 26, 1953 attempt by Fidel Castro to overthrow the Fulgencio Batista regime — for which Raúl was arrested and imprisoned for 22 months. Following his 1955 release in a general amnesty, he traveled to Mexico to plan the 1956 Granma yacht expedition that landed in Cuba on December 2, 1956 with 82 revolutionary fighters.

The 1956–1959 Cuban Revolution succeeded with the January 1, 1959 fall of the Batista regime and the January 8, 1959 entry of the revolutionary forces into Havana. Raúl served continuously as the Cuban Minister of the Revolutionary Armed Forces from 1959 to 2008 — making him the continuously-longest-serving defense minister in the world for nearly five decades. He simultaneously served as the First Vice President of Cuba (1976–2008) under his older brother Fidel.

His transfer to the Cuban presidency came on February 24, 2008, following Fidel's 2006 health-related sidelining and the 2008 formal transfer of power. The Raúl Castro presidency (2008–2018) was characterized by substantial economic-policy reforms (the limited expansion of small private business, the abolition of the two-currency system), the 2014 normalization of US-Cuba diplomatic relations under President Barack Obama, and the 2018 transfer of the Cuban presidency to Miguel Díaz-Canel. Raúl continued as First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba until April 2021, when he formally retired.

His name Raúl is the Spanish form of Ralph (from the Old Germanic Radulf meaning "wolf-counsel"). Raul has been continuously among the most-popular Spanish-American boys' names for over a century.