Granma is a yacht that was used to transport 82 fighters of the Cuban Revolution from Mexico to Cuba in November 1956 to overthrow the regime of Fulgencio Batista.

The 60-foot (18 m) diesel-powered vessel was built in 1943 by Wheeler Shipbuilding of Brooklyn, New York, as a light armored target practice boat, US Navy C-1994, and modified postwar to accommodate 12 people.

[14][page needed] The yacht was purchased on October 10, 1956, for MX$50,000 (US$4,000 in 1956) from the United States–based Schuylkill Products Company, Inc., by a Mexican citizen—said to be Mexico City gun dealer Antonio "The Friend" del Conde[15]—secretly representing Fidel Castro.

The builder, Wheeler Shipbuiding, then of Brooklyn, New York, now of Chapel Hill, North Carolina, also built Ernest Hemmingway's boat Pilar.

The money to purchase Granma had been raised in the US state of Florida by former President of Cuba Carlos Prío Socarrás[17] and Teresa Casuso Morín.

Granma was piloted by Norberto Collado Abreu, a World War II Cuban Navy veteran and ally of Castro.

[20] The location was chosen to emulate the voyage of national hero José Martí, who had landed in the same region 61 years earlier during the wars of independence from Spanish colonial rule.

A rebellion organized by the 26th of July movement and planned by Haydée Santamaría, Celia Sánchez, and Frank País occurred in Santiago de Cuba.

However, due to choppy weather, the Granma had landed two days late on December 2, and as a result, the supporting uprising was left isolated and was quickly destroyed.

Exactly 10 days after our departure from Mexico, during the early morning hours of December 5, following a night-long march interrupted by fainting and frequent rest periods, we reached a spot paradoxically known as Alegría de Pío (Rejoicing of the Pious).

[23] Shortly after midnight on December 5, the rebel column had halted to rest for the night at a sugarcane field, where they had feasted on stalks of cane, leaving behind their presence to enemy forces.

Fidel ordered his men to follow him into the forests to escape, however, in the midst of the fighting, many abandoned their equipment, and others who were paralyzed by shock and terror remained where they were.

According to the most credible version, the survivors were Fidel, Raúl, Guevara, Armando Rodríguez, Faustino Pérez [es], Ramiro Valdés, Universo Sánchez, Efigenio Ameijeiras, René Rodríguez, Camilo Cienfuegos, Juan Almeida Bosque, Calixto García, Calixto Morales, Reinaldo Benítez, Julio Díaz, Luis Crespo Cabrera,[citation needed] Rafael Chao, Ciro Redondo [es], José Morán, Carlos Bermúdez, and Fransisco González.

[citation needed] Since 1976, the yacht has been displayed permanently in a glass enclosure at the Memorial Granma adjacent to the Museum of the Revolution in Havana.

UNESCO has declared the Landing of the Granma National Park—established at the location (Playa Las Coloradas)—a World Heritage Site for its natural habitat.