Che Guevara

Born Ernesto Guevara in Rosario, Argentina. Upper-middle-class family. He has severe asthma from age two. His mother teaches him to play chess and read French.

Takes a motorcycle trip across South America with his friend Alberto Granado. He's a 23-year-old medical student. In leper colonies, copper mines, and indigenous villages, he sees a continent of poverty held in place by American corporations and local oligarchs. He comes back radicalized.

Meets Fidel and Raul Castro in Mexico City. They're planning to overthrow Batista in Cuba. Guevara signs on as the group's doctor. He's Argentine. He has no connection to Cuba. He joins anyway.

Batista flees Cuba on New Year's Day. Guevara's guerrilla column took Santa Clara, the decisive battle. He becomes a Cuban citizen by birth decree, runs the national bank, oversees agrarian reform, and signs execution orders at La Cabana fortress. The revolution's doctor becomes its executioner.

Alberto Korda photographs him at a memorial rally in Havana. Black beret, star, long hair, distant stare. The image is called Guerrillero Heroico. It doesn't circulate widely until after his death. Then it becomes the most reproduced photograph in history.

Vanishes from public life. He writes a farewell letter to Castro, renounces his Cuban citizenship, and goes to the Congo to start a revolution. It fails badly. He moves to Bolivia.

Captured by CIA-trained Bolivian forces near La Higuera. Shot the next day in a schoolhouse. He's 39. His last words to the soldier who pulls the trigger: "I know you've come to kill me. Shoot, coward. You are only going to kill a man."