Ernesto Che Guevara, one of Time magazine’s “icons of the century,” was born in Argentina in 1928.

As a young medical student he traveled extensively throughout Latin America, finding himself in Guatemala in 1954 when a U.S.-backed coup overturned the popular Arbenz government.
He fled to Mexico where he met with the group of Cuban revolutionaries in exile who nicknamed him “Che.” After fighting alongside Fidel Castro in the two-year guerrilla war in Cuba, he became a leader of the revolutionary government in 1959, but always made clear his ultimate commitment to return to Latin America.
He led a guerrilla mission to Bolivia where he was captured and killed in 1967.