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10 Historic Photos Show How Far U.S.-Cuba Relations Have Come

The United States re-established diplomatic ties with its former foe in July 2015 after 54 years of frozen relations.
By 

Editorial Fellow, The Huffington Post

President Barack Obama will visit Cuba for the first time on Sunday, becoming the first sitting U.S. president to visit the country in almost 90 years.

He is expected to meet a range of people, from entrepreneurs to government dissidents, during his visit. He will also attend a baseball game between the Cuban national all-star team and the Tampa Bay Rays with Cuban President Raúl Castro.

Obama's visit heralds a new opening of U.S.-Cuban relations after the two countries re-established diplomatic ties last July, after 54 years of frozen relations. The U.S. severed diplomatic ties with Cuba's Communist government under the former leader Fidel Castro, brother of the current president, on Jan. 3, 1961. It was during the height of the Cold War between the U.S. and the Soviet Union, Cuba's close ally.

Take a look at these images documenting some of the biggest moments in the Caribbean country's history with the U.S. since Fidel Castro rose to prominence.

Keystone-France/Gamma-Keystone via Getty Images
Fidel Castro is captured as he heads for trial following the failed attack on the Moncada military barracks on July 26, 1953. Despite its failure, many saw the attack as an important moment in the Cuban revolution against the rule of incumbent president Fulgencio Batista.
Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Fidel Castro and his supporters speak from a podium in Camaguey on Jan. 4, 1959, three days after Batista flees the island for the Dominican Republic in what is known to Communist supporters as "Victory Day."
Underwood Archives/Getty Images
Fidel Castro and Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev embrace at the United Nations in Sept. 1960. The two communist countries had close relations during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West.
Michel Setboun/Getty Images
The end of U.S.-Cuban diplomatic relations brings trade embargoes that prohibit the two countries from importing and exporting goods, including American automobiles, to and from each other. Many Cubans still use American cars made in the 1950s due to supply scarcities.
Keystone/Getty Images
This April 1961 photo shows hundreds of CIA-trained Cuban exiles being tried in a revolutionary court after the botched invasion of Playa Girón, or the Bay of Pigs, in which 1,400 people arrived on the island attempting to overthrow Castro's government.
AFP/Getty Images
On Oct. 22, 1962, U.S. President John F. Kennedy orders a naval and military blockade of Cuba after the U.S. finds evidence of Soviet Union plans to install nuclear missiles on the island nation that would be able to attack the U.S. Days later, Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev pledges to stop work on military bases in Cuba and return the nuclear warheads to Russia. The Cuban missile crisis was one of the tensest moments of Cold War history.
ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images
A vintage car decorated with American flags drives by the newly reopened U.S. embassy on the day the U.S. and Cuba restore diplomatic relations on July 20, 2015.

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