- The British captured Cuba in 1762 but a year later gave it back to Spain in exchange for Florida.
- The CIA World Factbook says 99.8% of Cuba’s population over age of 15 can read and write. Some 30 million Americans (14% percent of the population) fall below basic literacy skills, according to recent National Center for Education Statistics data.
- Less than five percent of Cubans have access to the Internet.
- Under new rules, U.S. visitors to Cuba can legally bring $100 of Cuba’s coveted cigars home with them.
- Only two countries in the world prohibit the sale if Coca-Cola, Cuba and North Korea; both are under long-term US trade embargoes (Cuba since 1962 and North Korea since 1950).
- Cubans were not allowed to own cell phones until 2008.
- John F. Kennedy got 1,200 hand rolled Cuban cigars (Petit Upmann) just hours before he ordered the trade embargo against Castro.
- When Christopher Columbus first reached Cuba in 1492, he believed he was in China.
- Cuba is home of the bee hummingbird, an insect-size bird — in fact, it is the smallest bird in the world. Bee hummingbirds are about two inches long and weigh less than a penny.
- Fidel Castro erected a statue of John Lennon in 2000 to praise him as a revolutionary.
- Nearly 20 percent of the Cuban population is over the age of 60, making it the oldest in all of Latin America.
11 Little-Known Facts About Cuba was last modified: March 10th, 2016 by
