Ernesto Guevara de la Serna (June 14, 1928 – October 9, 1967), commonly known as Che Guevara, el Che, or simply Che; was an Argentine-born Marxist revolutionary, global political figure, author, military theorist, and leader of Cuban and internationalist guerrillas. As a young man, Guevara studied medicine and traveled "rough[›]" throughout Latin America, activities that brought him into direct contact with the poverty in which many lived. Through these experiences he became convinced that only revolution could remedy the region's economic inequality, leading him to study Marxism and become involved in Guatemala's social revolution under President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán.

Later while in Mexico in 1956, Guevara joined Fidel Castro's revolutionary 26th of July Movement that fought a guerrilla war and ultimately seized power from the regime of the U.S.-supported Cuban dictator General Fulgencio Batista in 1959. For a few months after the success of the Cuban Revolution, Guevara was assigned the role of supreme prosecutor, overseeing the revolutionary tribunals and executions of suspected war criminals associated with the previous regime.

Along with serving in several important posts in the new government, and traveling around the world meeting important leaders on behalf of Cuban socialism, he was a prolific writer of an assortment of books, including a classic manual on the theory and practice of guerrilla warfare (foco theory). Guevara left Cuba in 1965 to incite revolutions first in a failed attempt in Congo-Kinshasa and ultimately in Bolivia, where he was captured and executed.

Although a controversial figure during his life, after his death, Guevara became an icon of socialist revolutionary movements worldwide and a countercultural hero. He has since been venerated and reviled in dozens of biographies, memoirs, books, essays, documentaries, songs, and films. An Alberto Korda photo of him (shown) has received wide distribution and modification. The Maryland Institute College of Art called this picture "the most famous photograph in the world and a symbol of the 20th century."[1]