1. ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA

2. CHE GUEVARA 14 June 1928 9 October 1967 Argentine Marxist revolutionary Politician Author Physician Military theorist Guerrilla leader during the Cuban revolution 3. EARLY LIFE Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, known as Che Guevara, was born on 14 June 1928 in Rosario, Argentina into a middle-class family. He was very active in his youth, playing rugby, swimming and doing other physical activities. He also received an excellent education. He studied medicine at Buenos Aires University. 4. A teenage Ernesto (left) with his parents and siblings, c. 1944. Seated beside him, from left to right: Celia (mother), Celia (sister), Roberto, Juan Martn, Ernesto (father) and Ana Mara. 5. MEDICINE In 1947 Ernesto moved to Buenos Aires to care for his elderly grandmother. She died shortly thereafter and he began medical school: some believe that he was driven to study medicine because of his inability to save his grandmother. 6. THE MOTORCYLE DIARIES At the end of 1951, Ernesto set off with his good friend Alberto Granado on a trip north through South America. They traveled through Chile, Peru, Colombia and Venezuela, where they parted ways. Ernesto continued to Miami and returned to Argentina from there. 7. Ernesto kept notes during his trip, which he subsequently made into a book named The Motorcycle Diaries. It was made into an award-winning movie in 2004. The trip showed him the poverty and misery all throughout Latin America and he wanted to do something about it, even if he did not know what. 8. FIDEL CASTRO AND CUBAN REVOLUTION Ernesto returned to Argentina in 1953 and finished medical school. He left again almost immediately from Argentina. In 1954 he went to Mexico and the following year he met Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro. Castro was planning a communist rebellion in Cuba. Guevara joined Castro's '26th July Movement' and played a key role in the eventual success of its guerrilla war against Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista. 9. Castro overthrew Batista in 1959 and took power in Cuba. From 1959-1961, Guevara was president of the National Bank of Cuba, and then minister of industry. In this position, he travelled the world as an ambassador for Cuba. At home, he carried out plans for land redistribution and the nationalisation of industry. 10. In 1965, Che decided that he was not meant to be a government worker, even one in a high post. His calling was revolution, and he would go and spread it around the world. He disappeared from public life and began plans for bringing about revolutions in other nations. The communists believed that Africa was the weak link in the western capitalist/imperialist stranglehold on the world, so Che decided to head to the Congo to support a revolution there led by Laurent Dsir Kabila. The Congo venture was a total fiasco. Che wanted to remain and die fighting as a martyr, but his Cuban companions convinced him to escape. All in all, Che was in Congo for about nine months and he considered it one of his greatest failures. 11. Back in Cuba, Che wanted to try again for another communist revolution, this time in Argentina. Fidel and the others convinced him that he was more likely to succeed in Bolivia. Che went to Bolivia in 1966. From the start, this effort, too, was a fiasco. 12. THE DEATH OF CHE GUEVARA He was captured in Bolivia. On October 9, the order was given, and Che was executed, shot by a Sergeant Mario Tern of the Bolivian Army. His body was not found until 1997.