Cuba University Entrance History Exam cheat sheet

Indigenous communities and their histories were diverse; colonial violence and disease did not justify a claim of complete cultural or biological disappearance.

Spanish colonization transformed settlement and labor; coerced labor, disease and violence caused catastrophic Indigenous losses, followed by an expanding African slave system.

Distinguish the 1817 anti-trade treaty, continuing illegal trafficking and abolition of slavery in 1886; trade suppression and abolition are not the same event.

The Ten Years' War (1868–1878) ended at Zanjón; Baraguá and the Guerra Chiquita kept the independence project alive.

Martí's PRC (1892) and the Montecristi programme (1895) reorganized the struggle; US intervention in 1898 produced occupation, not independence.

The Platt Amendment (1901) constrained the Republic proclaimed in 1902 and was abrogated only in 1934.

The 1902 Republic was born under the Platt Amendment, which permitted US intervention until its abrogation in 1934; Guantánamo was leased in 1903.

Sugar monoculture produced the danza de los millones, the 1920 crash and seasonal unemployment (tiempo muerto).

The 1912 suppression of the Partido Independiente de Color is central evidence for the racial question in the Republic.

Machado's fall (1933) and Batista's sergeants' revolt opened a reforming cycle that culminated in the 1940 Constitution.

Ortiz's transculturación (1940) and Guillén's Motivos de son (1930) reframed cubanidad around African and Spanish fusion.

Batista's coup of 10 March 1952 closed the constitutional path and set the stage for the insurrection.

The Agrarian Reform of 17 May 1959 and the 1960 nationalizations were the structural break, before any formal socialist declaration.

The socialist character of the Revolution was proclaimed on 16 April 1961, on the eve of Playa Girón; Marxism-Leninism was confirmed in December 1961.

The 1962 missile crisis and exclusion of the Cuban government from OAS participation intensified Cold War alignment; the 1968 offensive greatly expanded nationalization.

The 1970 zafra fell short of ten million tons, prompting reassessment of economic strategy.

Institutionalization came with the 1975 party congress, the 1976 Constitution and Poder Popular, alongside CMEA membership and intervention in Angola.

Mariel (1980) and the 1986 rectification campaign revealed strains inside the institutionalized model.

The Special Period was declared in 1990 and deepened with the loss of Soviet/CMEA relationships; quantify contraction only with a dated, defined series.

1993 reforms legalized dollar holdings and turned state farms into UBPCs; Law 77 (1995) opened foreign investment.

The Maleconazo (5 August 1994) and the balsero crisis produced the 1994 migration accords with the United States.

Raúl Castro's presidency (2008) brought usufruct land distribution and the 2011 Lineamientos for "updating" the model.

Separate the 2014 announcement from diplomatic restoration inJuly 2015; later policy changes and constitutional developments require their own dates and definitions.

The 2021 currency reform, July 2021 protests and 2022 Family Code are dated historical developments, not a complete account of the present.

Identify provenance, audience, genre and transmission before judging evidentiary value.

A normative text does not by itself establish actual compliance.

Chronological sequence alone does not prove a causal mechanism.

Periodization is an interpretation with explicit criteria.

Different perspectives remain subject to evidence and contextual evaluation.