5 Pesos Landing of the Granma

The Granma — a leaky 58-foot yacht purchased in Mexico for $15,000 — carried Fidel Castro and 81 other revolutionaries from Tuxpan to the Oriente coast in December 1956. The crossing took seven days instead of the planned five, the vessel was dangerously overloaded, and the landing site was wrong. Of the 82 aboard, only a handful survived the initial encounter with Batista's forces at Alegría de Pío days later. Cuba struck commemorative issues on the 30th anniversary of that landing, this being among them.