Elias Aguirre Romero , was born in Chiclayo, department of Lambayeque, in 1843, the son of Carlos Aguirre and María Candelaria Romero. At the age of eleven he moved to Lima, studying at the high school of the brothers Manuel and Isidro Pérez and later with Jacobo López Castilla. In 1858 he entered the naval school, graduating at two years as a midshipman and assigned to the frigate "Amazonas". He was a member of the commission that received the 1,150-ton corvette “Unión” in Valparaíso, which arrived from Europe under the command of Miguel Grau. On board this ship he participated in the naval combat of Abtao against the Spanish squadron in 1866 and in merit of his services he was promoted to the rank of first lieutenant and was awarded the title of worthy of the country.
A man of wide culture, he translated the Notes for the navigation of the Strait of Magellan by Captain R.G. Mayne and in 1870 he already held the rank of lieutenant commander, assuming the deputy direction of the Naval School. Unfortunately, in 1875 the gunboat "Chanchamayo" that he commanded sank and he was held responsible for said loss, being prosecuted and separated from service.
he ventured into political activity supporting the Civil party for the parliamentary elections of 1877 . When the war with Chile took place, he promptly rejoined active service and was again assigned to the corvette "Unión", under the command of Captain Aurelio García y García. However, at the request of Miguel Grau he was transferred to the "Huáscar" monitor, as second in command. For months he shared the successive triumphs of the "Huáscar", despite its obvious disadvantages against the enemy, such as its lesser armor. On October 8, 1879, the heroic monitor was confronted in combat by two enemy naval divisions:the battleships "Blanco Encalada" and "Lord Cochrane", the gunboat "Covadonga", the corvette "O'Higgins" and the transports "Matías Cousiño” and “Lora”. A few minutes into the confrontation, a grenade fired by the “Cochrane” killed Miguel Grau and left his assistant, First Lieutenant Diego Ferré, dying. Aguirre then assumed command of the ship and ordered the "Cochrane" to be spurred, with such bad luck that the spur twisted and, before completing the maneuver, another grenade decapitated Aguirre, who was replaced by Melitón Carbajal. His remains were buried first in the Bolivian port of Mejillones and since 1908 they rest in the Crypt of the Heroes .
Fidel Castro became interested in politics when he was in college. Opposed to the social and economic inequalities of the country, in 1953 he attempted an armed reaction against the government of Batista. He was arrested and exiled to Mexico. In 1956, he returned clandestinely to Cuba in order to ov