You’ve seen the image, even if you’re not sure you know the man. His face looks back at you from concerts, protests, college campuses and the mall.
Ernesto Rafael Guevara de la Serna, Che to the millions he influenced, is the freedom-fighter you want on your T-shirt – even if most people likely don’t know why.
Guevara, the man, rests in history for his devotion to left-wing causes, but Guevara the ideologue lives on in pop culture through his image, his features gracing shirts, caps and posters for nearly half a century.
Guevara was executed 48 years ago today in a mud schoolhouse in La Higuera, Bolivia. His story is a complex one.
Here are a few things you may not have known about the man behind the face.
Early life: Che Guevara was born in 1928 in Rosario, Argentina. He was a member of a wealthy family and lived a privileged life. Well-read and intelligent, he was accepted at the University of Buenos Aires where he studied medicine, and eventually earned a medical degree.
His travels: Feeling restless in school, Guevara took time out from college to make a lone motorcycle trip across South America. While on the trip he saw the abject poverty many people across the continent suffered, and his experiences greatly influenced his actions the rest of his life, his contemporaries would say.
The beginning: Not long after his first trip across South America, Che took a second trip through central America and ended up in Guatemala. He decided he would stay because he liked the political climate. However, not long after he settled there, the country was pitched into chaos as the government was overthrown. He fought for the country in a losing battle, hid in the Argentine Embassy and eventually made his way to Mexico. There, through friends, he met a follow revolutionary -- Fidel Castro.
Meeting Castro: After meeting first Raul Castro (the current president of Cuba), then his brother Fidel, Guevara joined the 26th of July Movement – a group whose aim was to overthrow the government of American-backed Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista. Guevara was one of the group of 82 who boarded a boat in 1956 and made an attempt to attack the island nation. Most were killed when Batista's forces turned them back, but Guevara and the Castros, along with 19 others, survived and fled into the Sierra Maestra mountains. There, they lived for years, training for the next attempt to oust Batista.
In hiding: During their years in the mountains, Guevara became a second-in-command to Fidel Castro. When the group was finally successful in overthrowing Batista -- on Jan. 1, 1959 -- he became part of the new Cuban government. Guevara had a reputation for ruthlessness, and it was not unusual for him to dispense the most harsh punishment for any infraction. He was known to shoot on sight deserters or those who had gone AWOL. He oversaw executions at the La Cabaña prison as his first job in the Cuban government.
Cuba and beyond: He served in the government until 1965 when he either resigned or was forced out by Fidel Castro. He left Cuba and attached himself to revolutionary actions throughout Latin America. In 1967, he ended up in Bolivia. It was there he would be caught and killed.
The end: He was captured by American-backed Bolivian troops in the Yuro ravine on Oct. 8, 1967. He was executed one day later. Mario Teran, a sergeant in the Bolivian army volunteered to shoot Guevara. According to some accounts, Teran said he wanted to kill Guevara because three of his friends, all with the same first name of "Mario," had been killed in a fight with Guevara's men. As Teran hesitated in carrying out the execution, Guevara allegedly spat at him and shouted: "Shoot me, you coward! You are only going to kill a man!"
The image: The photo of Guevara you see on T-shirts and posters was taken by photographer Alberto Korda in 1960. The then 32-year-old Guevara is seen bearded and wearing a beret. The image has become one of the most iconic in recent memory and can be seen on T-shirts, posters, and lately, in advertising. It remains one of the most enduring images in pop culture.
Sources: history.com; newhistorian.com; PBS
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