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Europeans first arrived in Cuba when Christopher Columbus sailed south after making landfall in the Bahamas in 1492. The natives of the Bahamas told of wealthy people to the south on an island that they called Cuba, which makes Cuba special as a place still with its original name. Because Columbus had thought he had arrived in Asia, he made the assumption that Cuba was Japan.

The first European settlement wasn't made in Cuba until 1511 by Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, who founded a small town called Baracoa, which still survives to this day. Cuéllar also went on to establish the cities of Santiago de Cuba and Havana.

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11y ago

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