Cuba

State · 1898–present

Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country in the Caribbean, the largest Caribbean country by area and the third-largest by population; its capital and largest city is Havana. The territory remained part of the Spanish Empire until the Spanish-American War of 1898, after which it was occupied by the United States and gained independence in 1902. In January 1959, the 26th of July Movement overthrew Fulgencio Batista's government during the Cuban Revolution, establishing a communist government under Fidel Castro that remains to this day. Cuba became a major point of contention between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War, and the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis is widely considered the closest the world has come to a nuclear war.