Ernesto "Che" Guevara

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, born in 1928, was a Marxist revolutionary, intellectual, doctor, and diplomat throughout Latin America. Guevara was from Rosario, Argentina, about 305 kilometers (190 miles) northeast of Buenos Aires. He attended the Universidad de Buenos Aires studying medicine before embarking on his famed motorcycle expedition through South America. In 1951, Guevara and his friend, Alberto Granado, traveled from Buenos Aires to the San Pablo Leper colony in Peru and witnessed the devastating poverty along the journey. During this life-changing year of discovering South America, Guevara wrote in his journal, comments and observations that turned into the bestselling book The Motorcycle Diaries and the 2004 film, The Motorcycle Diaries. Guevara felt and saw poverty on a whole new level and decided to help the people he saw who were too impoverished to help themselves.

Guevara embarked on a trip to Central America in the early 1950’s, settling in Guatemala, where he decided that armed forces would be needed create a Marxist society.  He moved to Mexico City and met Cuban revolutionaries (notably Fidel Castro) who wanted to overthrow Cuba’s current dictatorship. Guevara sympathized with this movement and helped greatly in Castro’s overthrow of the Cuban government through leading guerrilla soldiers and planning guerrilla attacks.

When the revolution worked, Guevara became an extremely influential figure in Cuba and was revered as a revolutionary in many parts of the world. Guevara traveled to the United States, Europe, Asia, and Africa meeting other Marx idealism leaders or helping in revolutionary conflicts. The last years of his life Guevara spent in Bolivia trying to build a guerrilla army for an impending revolution, which ultimately failed. In 1967, Cuban exile Felix Rodriguez helped the Bolivian government track down and execute Guevara. His spirits live on nonetheless and today, the Alberto Korda’s famous 1960 photo of Guevara is plastered on t-shirts, flags, posters, notebooks, and paintings around the world. 

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