On This Day, 1961: Bay of Pigs Invasion

[Dennis the 'Bloody Peasant']

"The invasion of Cuba was carried out by a force of about 1,400 exiled Cubans, with American support from the sea and air. The main landing point at the Bay of Pigs was a beach surrounded by a mosquito-infested swamp...
The fighting lasted just three days. The invasion force was badly outnumbered and the mass defection of Cubans they had hoped for - their only realistic hope of success - never materialised."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/april/17/newsid_3394000/3394067.stm

[Art Vandelay]

The Cuban Army was too well trained and prepared for an invasion for it to have been anything but failure for the U.S.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

I think my favorite part was when Fidel and Che went down to the battlefield themselves to help repel the imperialists; showed that though they had led the revolution and were now heads of state they hadn't forgotten their guerrilla roots.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Thread moved

[Positivist]

The best part is how the American organizers just assumed that Cuban people would rise up to welcome their former rentiers and factory bosses