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History Daily plus other fantastic history podcasts at IntoHistory.com. It's shortly before dawn on December 2nd, 1956.

A rickety yacht struggles through the choppy waters off the southwest coast of Cuba.

Battered by a rough week at sea, the vessel is barely afloat, creaking beneath the weight of its cargo.

Men in green military fatigues crowd the deck, their faces pallid with seasickness.

There are 82 men in total packed tightly onto a 50-foot yacht built to accommodate no more than two dozen.

Conditions on board are hellish. The men are starving,

thirsty, and exhausted. Above all, they're beginning to doubt their leader, a 30-year-old lawyer

with a patchy black beard and intense mournful eyes. He squats at the prow of the yacht, scanning

the darkness for signs of land. This lawyer

and his armed revolutionaries are on their way to Cuba to overthrow a corrupt military general

named Fulgencio Batista, who seized the reins of power in Cuba a few years back. This lawyer

already tried to overthrow the general once, but his coup failed and he was

exiled to Mexico. He's been plotting his next attempt ever since. Now, after months of careful planning,

this lawyer and his men are on their way back to Cuba to finish what they started and get rid of

Batista once and for all.

Suddenly, there's a sound of splintering wood as the vessel lurches violently forward,

throwing the men to their knees. The yacht has crashed into a mangrove swamp,

some 30 miles from their intended landing site, where reinforcements await their arrival.

Left with no choice, the revolutionaries abandoned the wreckage, along with their equipment and supplies, and begin the laborious trudge to dry land. With their rifles held above their

heads, the men waved through muddy water and tangled mangrove routes. And soon, the government will catch wind of

...