Hi listeners. Today we wanted to bring you a taster episode from our sister show Real Dictators.

The hit podcast recently returned with a new season. This is part one of the Fidel Castro story.

If you enjoy it and want to hear the rest of the episodes, head over to Real Dictators and hit Follow.

It's July the 26th, 2006,

Sunrise, in the city of Bayamum, Cuba.

In the Plaza de la Patria, something special is stirring.

At this early hour it would normally be all but empty.

This morning is full to bursting.

100,000 people fill every inch of the plaza and the surrounding streets.

Many are dressed in patriotic red t-shirts.

Almost all are holding tiny Cuban flags.

They're here to commemorate events that took place on this very day 53 years earlier,

when a gang of rebels attacked the Moncada Army barracks.

To many in the country this is a cherished event, the opening

sally of the Cuban Revolution. It was also the first time that most Cubans had ever

heard the name of the rebels leader, a name they would never forget, Fidel Castro.

As the song fills the plaza with daylight, An elderly man with a patchy grey beard dressed

in military green, shuffles onto a stage. It's the headline act, the one they're all here

to see. It's Fidel himself. There's a roar from the crowd, chanting of his name.

Then Fidel begins his speech, a lightning quick one by his standards, just two and a half

hours.

It's very much a greatest hit set.

...