Cuban leader Fidel Castro is still in the hospital but expected to recover, according to his sister. He handed the reins of power temporarily to his brother Raul before surgery this week.
Fidel Castro has been in power for 47 years, since 1959. How long is that?
He’s outlasted nine American presidents and he’s working on a tenth: Eisenhower, JFK, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush the Elder, Clinton, Bush the Younger. If Fidel makes it to age 90 he’ll cover his 11th, 12th, and possibly even 13th presidents from the elections of 2008, 2012 and 2016.
He’s also lasted through eight British prime ministers: Macmillan, Douglas-Home, Wilson, Heath, Callaghan, Thatcher, Major and Blair. (He’s made it through only one British sovereign: Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953, six years before Fidel took power.)
Fidel’s rule started before The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, before Fred Flintstone and Gilligan, before Blofeld and Dr. Who, before Spiderman and The Incredible Hulk. Baseball fan that he is, Castro started his streak before Cal Ripken was even born.
Fidel was born the same year as Marilyn Monroe, John Coltrane and Allen Ginsberg, and he outlasted them all by decades.
But! Fidel was also born the same year as Chuck Berry and Hugh Hefner — and from the looks of it, he’ll have to go a long way to outlast those cats.
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