FIDEL CASTRO, CUBA'S LONGTIME REVOLUTIONARY LEADER, DIES AT 90

 (CNN)Fidel Castro, the Cuban despot who famously proclaimed after his arrest in a failed coup attempt that history would absolve him, has died at age 90.

Castro's brother and the nation's President of several years, Raul, announced his death Friday on Cuban TV.

At the end, an elderly and infirm Castro was a whisper of the Marxist firebrand whose iron will and passionate determination bent the arc of destiny.