Happy Birthday Fidel!

After surviving more than 600 assassination attempts, defying 10 US presidents and shaping half a century of history, Fidel Castro turns 90 today.

The years have left their mark on the father of the Cuban Revolution, who transferred power to his younger brother Raul 10 years ago.

The magnetic giant of the 20th century long black beard has turned a wispy gray. He has given up his iconic Cohiba cigars. He rarely appears in public.

But Fidel lives on.

No one could have predicted his place in history when he launched his revolutionary career with a botched attack on Cuba's Moncada military barracks in 1953.

The 26-year-old lawyer was captured and jailed for the failed raid, which ended with dozens of rebels killed or executed by dictator Fulgencio Batista's forces.

Fast forward six years, and Castro was triumphantly rolling into Havana, having returned from exile to lead a guerrilla army that once numbered just 12 men to defeat Batista and his military of 80,000.

The unlikely victory brought the "red menace" of Communism to the United States' doorstep at the height of the Cold War.

Alarmed, the US Central Intelligence Agency and Cuban exiles tried to assassinate Castro 634 times, his ex-intelligence chief, Fabian Escalante, has estimated.

Castro once told Spanish journalist Ignacio Ramonet he nearly always carried his Browning pistol just in case. But he denied reports he wore a bullet-proof vest.

"I have a moral vest. It's strong. It has always protected me," he told journalists in 1979, baring his chest to prove the point.

His bitterness over that botched CIA plot played a part in pushing the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis the following year, when the Soviet Union agreed to his request to send ballistic missiles to Cuba. And he had ruled the communist nation with iron fist for decades, forcing thousands to seek exile.

But Castro had a penchant for trying to pull off the seemingly impossible.

Despite a biting sanction regime imposed by the US and West, In 1961, he all but eradicated illiteracy with an ambitious rural education campaign.

When the exodus of Cuban exiles left the country with just 3,000 doctors, he vowed to make the island a "medical superpower." Today it has 88,000 doctors and one of the most respected health systems in the world.

Castro is a hero to revolutionary movements and independence struggles worldwide.

He sent 386,000 troops to fight in spots where the Cold War turned hot: Angola, Ethiopia, the Congo, Algeria and Syria. And he backed leftist guerrillas across Latin America.

The military results were mixed. But the symbolism was powerful.

"He's the most important personality of the 20th century in the Western hemisphere," said Ivan Marquez, second-in-command of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).

Castro's revolution "ignited... the desire to struggle, to take to the mountains, to grab a rifle and try to change things," Marquez told AFP.

As Castro gave his speech proclaiming the triumph of the revolution in 1959, a white dove landed on his shoulder. The man had officially become the myth.

Happy birthday, Fidel Castro.