A short historical note
Ernesto
“Che” Guevara
Physician, writer and revolutionary whose life moved through Argentina, Guatemala, Cuba, the Congo and Bolivia.
Explore the timeline
1928—1967
A life shaped by movement and conviction
Born in Rosario, Argentina, Guevara trained as a doctor and travelled widely through Latin America. Those journeys sharpened his interest in inequality and political change. In the 1950s he joined the Cuban revolutionary movement, later serving in the new government as an administrator, diplomat and public voice.
His later attempts to encourage armed movements abroad ended in Bolivia, where he was captured and killed in 1967. Since then, his image and ideas have remained contested—read by some as a symbol of resistance and by others as a warning about revolutionary violence.
In brief
A chronology
Rosario, Argentina
Ernesto Guevara is born into a middle-class family. Asthma shapes his early years, but not his appetite for travel.
Across Latin America
A motorcycle journey brings him into contact with miners, patients and communities living with deep economic inequality.
Guatemala and Mexico
After the fall of Guatemala’s government, he settles in Mexico, where he meets the Cuban exiles who will change his course.
The Cuban Revolution
He joins Fidel Castro’s expedition and becomes a commander in the Sierra Maestra. The rebels enter Havana in January 1959.
A final campaign
Guevara leaves Cuba to support revolutionary projects in the Congo and Bolivia. He is captured near La Higuera in October 1967.