20 Pesos Assault to the Moncada Garrison

The Moncada Barracks attack of July 26, 1953 — a failed military operation led by Fidel Castro against Batista's second-largest army garrison in Santiago de Cuba — killed or captured most of the roughly 160 participants. Castro was tried publicly, delivering his "History Will Absolve Me" defense speech in October of that year. The date became the name of the revolutionary movement itself.

This 1988 issue belongs to a sustained Cuban commemorative program that accelerated through the 1980s as the island's hard currency needs deepened. Coins like this were minted explicitly for export sale, rarely if ever entering domestic circulation.