60 Fun Facts About Che Guevara

In which country was Che Guevara born?

He was born in Rosario in 1928, the eldest of five children in an upper-class family with Spanish, Basque and Irish roots.

Which chronic condition afflicted Guevara throughout his life?

It ended his teenage plan to sell insecticide after a severe reaction, and hampered him in the Congo and Bolivia.

Which sport earned the young Guevara the nickname 'Fuser', for his aggressive play?

It contracted El Furibundo (furious) and his mother's surname, de la Serna; he played fly-half.

Which two poems could Guevara recite by heart?

The family home held 3,000 books; he learned chess from his father and played tournaments at 12.

How did a 1958 CIA personality report describe Guevara?

His notebooks contained sketches of Buddha, Aristotle, Freud and Nietzsche.

What did Guevara study at the University of Buenos Aires from 1948?

He got his degree in June 1953 after taking a year off for his motorcycle trip.

How long was Guevara's solo 1950 motorised-bicycle trip through his country's north?

He then worked six months as a nurse on merchant ships before the bigger journey of 1952.

With which friend did Guevara make his 1952 motorcycle journey across South America?

The nine-month, 8,000-km trip ended with volunteer work at the San Pablo leper colony in Peru.

In what year was The Motorcycle Diaries, Guevara's account of the 1952 trip, finally published?

It became a New York Times bestseller and a 2004 film.

Which Chilean copper mine's working conditions angered Guevara during his 1952 journey?

He also met a shivering communist couple in the Atacama who did not own a blanket.

On whose image did Guevara swear in 1953 not to rest until the 'octopuses' of United Fruit were vanquished?

Stalin had just died; Guevara used an aggressive tone to frighten his conservative aunt.

Which Guatemalan president's CIA-backed 1954 overthrow cemented Guevara's anti-US views?

Árbenz had taken 225,000 acres of uncultivated land from the United Fruit Company.

How did Guevara acquire the nickname 'Che'?

He picked it up among Cuban exiles in Guatemala; 'che' works like 'eh' in English.

Which Peruvian economist introduced Guevara to the Árbenz government and later became his first wife?

They married in Mexico in September 1955 and divorced in 1959.

Who introduced Guevara to Raúl Castro in Mexico City in June 1955?

After one long night's talk with Fidel, Guevara had signed up to the 26th of July Movement before daybreak.

What role had Guevara planned to fill in Castro's expedition before being called 'the best guerrilla of them all'?

He scored highest on the guerrilla training tests despite the 15-hour mountain marches.

When Batista's troops attacked the Granma party, what did Guevara pick up instead of his medical supplies?

He later called it a symbolic moment; only 22 of the 82 men found each other afterwards.

What did Guevara call 'the most painful days of the war' in the Sierra Maestra?

He had an allergy to the bites; morale and supplies were also at their lowest.

What nickname did Time magazine give Guevara around 1960?

In the Sierra he had built grenade factories, bread ovens, schools and clinics.

Which peasant guide, who sold the rebels' position for ten thousand pesos, did Guevara personally shoot?

His clinical diary entry noted the .32 pistol and the exit wound; he later rewrote it as the parable 'Death of a Traitor'.

Which clandestine broadcaster did Guevara help create in February 1958?

He had noticed how effective the CIA's radio had been in toppling Árbenz in Guatemala.

Which city did Guevara's column capture on New Year's Eve 1958, in the decisive victory of the revolution?

His men were outnumbered 10 to 1; Batista fled Havana at 3 a.m. the next morning.

On what date did Guevara enter Havana to take control of the capital?

Castro took six more days, rallying crowds in city after city on the way.

Which fortress prison did Castro put Guevara in command of for five months in 1959?

He reviewed appeals from the revolutionary tribunals; his jurisdictional death toll there is put at 55 to 105.

Which police chief's execution, ordered by Guevara, was one of the first killings ever broadcast on television?

His family had been sent a letter of safe departure and were watching when he was put before the firing squad.

How did Cuba's new government honour Guevara in February 1959?

He renounced the honorary citizenship in his 1965 farewell letter.

Whom did Guevara marry on 2 June 1959 in a civil ceremony at La Cabaña?

A Cuban member of the 26th of July Movement, she had lived with him since 1958; he had five children from his two marriages.

On his 1959 Asia tour, which Japanese city did Guevara insist on visiting instead of laying a wreath for the war dead?

He called Truman a 'macabre clown' and wrote home: 'In order to fight better for peace, one must look at Hiroshima.'

How did Guevara sign Cuba's banknotes as President of the National Bank?

The gesture horrified financiers and signalled his contempt for money.

At whose memorial service in March 1960 did Alberto Korda take the photograph Guerrillero Heroico?

The Maryland Institute College of Art has called it 'the most famous photograph in the world'.

How many Cuban adults were taught to read and write in the 1961 literacy campaign Guevara championed?

100,000 volunteers formed 'literacy brigades'; the literacy rate rose to 96%.

What term did Guevara use for the selfless, non-materialistic citizen he hoped socialism would create?

Workers who beat their quota got a certificate; those who missed it got a pay cut.

Whom did Guevara meet in East Germany in 1960, his interpreter who would die with him in Bolivia?

Known as 'Tania', she was installed as his primary agent in La Paz.

How did Guevara get a bullet graze to the cheek during the Bay of Pigs deployment?

He had been drawn west by a fake landing off Pinar del Río, so played no direct role in the fighting.

What message did Guevara send to President Kennedy via Richard Goodwin in August 1961?

He also mocked US aid plans as preparing 'the revolution of the toilets'.

Which Soviet leader signed off the Cuban missile deal with Guevara in August 1962?

Guevara wanted the deal made public; the Soviets insisted on secrecy, and U-2 flights found the missiles anyway.

What did Guevara tell the Daily Worker he would have done had the missiles been under Cuban control?

He said socialist liberation would have been worth 'millions of atomic war victims'.

How did Guevara describe Cuba's four-year economic programme in a March 1962 speech?

Rationing began that year; the 1963 sugar harvest was the lowest in twenty years.

What did an exile fire at the UN from an East River boat during Guevara's 1964 speech?

He quipped that the explosion had 'given the whole thing more flavor'; another exile came at him with a hunting knife.

In which Irish city did Guevara celebrate St Patrick's Day during his 1965 world tour?

He wrote to his father from 'this green Ireland of your ancestors' but said little about the Lynches 'in case they were horse thieves'.

In which city did Che Guevara make his last public international appearance, in February 1965?

He got a solemn airport reception from the Castros on his return and vanished from public life two weeks later.

Under what alias did Guevara travel to the Congo in 1965?

Nasser had warned him he would become a 'Tarzan' figure doomed to failure.

Which Congolese guerrilla leader, later president, did Guevara dismiss as not 'the man of the hour'?

Guevara's Congo Diary begins: 'This is the story of a failure.'

Which exiled Argentine president met Guevara in Spain and called the Bolivian plan suicidal?

Perón later called him 'an immature utopian... but one of us'.

Under what false identity did Guevara fly into La Paz in November 1966?

He had shaved his beard and dyed his thinning hair grey.

Which language had Guevara's Bolivian guerrillas learned, only to find peasants spoke Tupi-Guarani?

He wrote in his diary: 'Talking to these peasants is like talking to statues.'

According to Sergeant Huanca, what did the wounded Che shout as Bolivian Rangers closed in?

He was captured in the Yuro ravine and taken to the village of La Higuera.

In what kind of building was Guevara held and shot in the village of La Higuera?

He asked the 22-year-old teacher why campesino children were taught in such conditions while officials drove Mercedes.

Which Bolivian president ordered Guevara's execution on 9 October 1967?

The US reportedly wanted him taken to Panama for interrogation; CIA operative Félix Rodríguez relayed the order.

Which half-drunk 27-year-old sergeant volunteered to shoot Guevara?

Three of his friends had died fighting the guerrillas; he was told not to shoot Che in the head so it would look like combat.

How many times was Guevara shot by his executioner?

Five in the legs, once in the shoulder and arm, once in the chest and throat; he was declared dead at 1:10 p.m.

What did a military doctor remove from Guevara's body before it was buried in secret?

They went to Buenos Aires for fingerprinting and later to Cuba; a plaster mould of his teeth identified the body in 1997.

What object in a hidden jacket pocket clinched the 1997 identification of Guevara's body?

A Bolivian pilot had given him the tobacco the night before he died; since 1997 the remains have lain in a mausoleum in Santa Clara, the Cuban city where he won his greatest victory.

Which artist's 1968 high-contrast graphic of Che's face became the ubiquitous T-shirt image?

Cuban schoolchildren still pledge each morning 'We will be like Che', and his face is on the 3-peso coin.

In which Argentine city was Ernesto Guevara born on 14 May 1928?

The city unveiled a 3.5-metre bronze statue of him in 2008, and Bolivian campesinos have since taken to praying to 'Saint Ernesto'.

What was the planned final destination of Guevara and Granado's 1952 motorcycle journey?

They meant to volunteer for a few weeks at San Pablo on the banks of the Amazon; a leprosy specialist there, Hugo Pesce, first introduced him to Marx.

Which board game did Guevara learn from his father and play in tournaments from age 12?

He grew up in a home with 3,000 books and could recite Kipling's If— by heart, making him an unusually bookish guerrilla.

How many children did Guevara have across his two marriages?

He married Aleida March in June 1959, honeymooning in the seaside village of Tarara after a civil ceremony at La Cabaña.

After his execution, Guevara's body was flown to which Bolivian town to be photographed on a slab?

Lashed to a helicopter's landing skids, the body was displayed in a hospital laundry room; British journalist Richard Gott helped confirm the identity.

Which Irish actress recalled Guevara knowing 'every battle in Ireland' from talking with him?

His father said the blood of Irish rebels flowed in his son's veins; the family descended from Patrick Lynch, an emigrant to the Río de la Plata.