Ernesto Guevara, better known as Che Guevara, was born on June 14 of 1928 in Rosario, Argentina.
He was the older of the five children that Ernesto Guevara Lynch and Cecilia de la Serna
had, and was raised in a comfortable wealthy class life.
When he was two years old Ernesto suffered his first asthma attack, affliction that would
haunt him for all his life.
By medical recommendation, the Guevara family moved to the city of Alta Gracia in Córdoba.
During his childhood and teenage years he absorbed leftist ideas instilled by family
and friends, and despite his respiratory affliction, Ernesto managed to stand out as a rugby player.
After graduating high school with honors, Ernesto moved to Buenos Aires to study medicine.
In 1951 he left university to travel through South America for nine months, on his motorbike,
with his friend Alberto Granado.
The terrible life conditions he witnessed during his travels had a deep effect in Ernesto,
and he returned to Argentina to help change things.
He graduated in 1953, but his interests were no longer focused in medicine.
He went to La Paz during the National Revolution, and from there traveled to Guatemala, where
witnessed the overthrow of the socialist government of Jacobo Arbenz.
This experience made Ernesto strengthen his position that any revolution has to be carried
out through armed and violent insurrection.
It was also in Guatemala where he befriended the Cuban Ñico López, who would give Ernesto
the "Che" nickname as a reference to that typical Argentinian expression Ernesto frequently
used.
He also met Hilda Gadea there, who he would end up marrying.
When Arbenz fell, Ernesto went to Mexico City to work in the general hospital.
Shortly after his arrival he met Raúl and Fidel Castro, and joined their communist revolutionary
movement which planned to overthrow Fulgencio Batista from the government.
On December 2 of 1956 he landed on Cuba with the revolutionaries, and during the next few
years worked as an advisor for Fidel Castro, and helped him direct the growing guerrilla
force.
He participated in the battle to overtake the city of Santa Clara, and finally, in January
of 1959, Fidel Castro took control of the Cuban government, ending Batista's rule.
The new Cuban government conceded Ernesto the Cuban nationality, and named him chief
of the military and director of the agrarian reform institute.
Later on Ernesto would also be named president of the National Bank as well as Minister of
Finance, to finally be named director of the Ministry of Industry.
In his personal life, he divorced in 1959 to marry Aleida March, which whom he had four
children.
During the next few years Ernesto represented Cuba in different international forums, and
denounced North-American imperialism up front.
He was interviewed by leftist leaders and revolutionaries from around the world, and
was a key actor at the Bay of Pigs invasion, and the Cuban Missiles Crisis.
In 1965 he left Cuba and all of his official positions there to spread his socialist ideas
in other parts of the world.
First he traveled to Congo to train troops for guerrilla warfare and carry out a violent
revolution there, but was not successful.
Afterwards he returned briefly to the island, and on 1966 traveled to Bolivia with a small
rebel force to carry out a revolution there.
He was captured by the Bolivian army, and was burned alive on October 9 of 1967.
His remains, along with the remains of the other combatants, were sent to Cuba in 1997,
where they rest at the Ernesto Guevara memorial in Santa Clara.
Besides being an instigator of violent revolutions, Ernesto was also a socialist ideologue, a
Marxist intellectual, and a military theorist.
His leftist ideas are shared in works such as the Tricontinental Magazine, and the book
"Guerrilla Warfare".
In 1964 he delivered a famous speech to the United Nations where he condemned the foreign
policy of the US government, and the apartheid of the South African government.
Ernesto "Che" Guevara is a historical figure both venerated and vilified to this day.
His life is still a topic of public interest, and has been explored and portrayed in many
books, movies, documentaries, essays, and even songs.
Time Magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people of the 20th century, while
the photograph of him taken by Alberto Korda, titled "Heroic Guerrilla Fighter", was declared
by the Maryland Institute of Art as the most famous photograph in the world.
Che Guevara became a legend, and is an idol for young Marxist revolutionaries all around
the world.
His name and image are still considered a counter-cultural symbol by many, and are an
international icon of pop culture.