1977. María Villar Buceta dies in Havana.

She was 11 years old when the premature death of her mother forced her to drop out of elementary school and dedicate herself to raising her younger siblings. The prevailing poverty in her home conspired against her desire for intellectual development. But her fondness for her reading offered new horizons to her lyrical dreams and concerns. In 1915 she published the sonnet Disillusionment in the Diario de La Marina. The following year she decided to venture into the journalistic field as well. On October 3, she appeared in the Heraldo de Cuba, her first work entitled "El hombre nuevo", an article that described the sad way of being and acting of the bourgeoisie, through a dialogue between a bourgeois and a bohemian.

She was an outstanding fighter, poet, journalist and librarian. She offered her contributions to the field of bibliography and the development of library activity in Cuba. She was the first library science professor on the island. Her journalistic work reached its best expression in the magazine Adelante, from which she denounced the suffocating environment in which writers and journalists moved, as well as the general crisis that restricted the expression of political and social thought.

After the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, for which María Ella had fought, most of the time from anonymity, she dedicated herself with great willingness to carrying out various tasks.

She was called to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, where she commented on books in the International Policy magazine, she translated works and she also worked until her retirement in 1968, in the Library Subdirectorate of the aforementioned ministry.

Her birth took place in a rural area of ​​the current Pedro Betancourt municipality, in the province of Matanzas, on April 25, 1899.

2014. Army Corps General Sixto Batista Santana dies in Havana.

He joined the revolutionary struggle in February 1957.

In his revolutionary work he had contact with the July 26 Movement between March and April 1957. He rose up in the Sierra Maestra on June 13, 1958 and later joined the group of rebels that made up the Third Eastern Front "Mario Muñoz Monroy" . led by Commander Juan Almeida.

He actively participated in several combative actions, until January 1959 when he was designated to be part of the Caravan of Freedom headed by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro towards Havana.

In his life as a combatant during the fight against the Batista dictatorship and later as a member of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, he was promoted in military rank from soldier to Army Corps General.

After the triumph of the Revolution he played an active role in the Revolutionary Armed Forces. He fulfilled an internationalist mission in the republics of Angola and Ethiopia.

He was founder of the Communist Party of Cuba. He was a member of the Central Committee of the Party, he was also a full member of the Political Bureau, and of the Secretariat. He was elected as Deputy to the National Assembly of People's Power and member of the Council of State.

He was also National Coordinator of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution.

For his contributions to the defense of the Homeland, his career, fidelity to the revolutionary cause and his attitude in fulfilling the assigned missions, he was awarded different decorations, among which the clandestine struggle combatant medal and the liberation war”, Ernesto Che Guevara First Degree Order and Antonio Maceo Order, First Class Internationalist Combatant Medal, First Class Eliseo Reyes Medal and the Order for Service to the Homeland.

His birth took place in the area of ​​Atillo, Palma Soriano, then province of Oriente, on March 28, 1932.