Alan Gomez

USA TODAY

For nearly a half-century, Fidel Castro helped bring the world to the brink of nuclear war, tormented 11 American presidents and exerted almost total control over the last remaining communist government in the Western Hemisphere.

Few other world leaders in history could boast the longevity or influence of the iconic bearded, cigar-chewing Cuban dictator, who died Friday night after years of failing health. He was 90.

Raúl Castro, who succeeded his older brother as president of Cuba in 2008, announced Fidel's death "with profound pain" on Cuban television early Saturday. "Ever onward to victory," he said of "the founder of he Cuban Revolution."

The Cuban government will observe nine days of mourning for Fidel Castro. After two days of observances in Revolution Plaza in Havana, Castro’s ashes will be transported across the country to the eastern city of Santiago. The final Mass and ceremony will take place Dec. 4, and his ashes will be interred in the cemetery of Santa Ifigenia.

Fidel Castro: From Catholic schoolboy to dictator

For 47 years, Castro maintained his grip over the island nation by forging close bonds with the Soviet Union, Venezuela and China, inspiring a wave of anti-American leaders throughout Latin America along the way.

His undoing began with surgery in 2006 that forced him to cede power to his brother, Raúl Castro, and forever changed the image of the man. Gone was the romantic vision of the bearded, cigar-smoking guerrilla leading his group of rebels through the mountains of Cuba, replaced by occasional pictures and videos of a frail, old man recovering in bath robes and track suits.

The prolonged physical collapse gave hope to Washington and to more than a million Cuban-Americans who have fled his regime over the decades that a political change would soon follow. But his illness proved to be a blessing to those closest to him, easing the transition to a new leader and ensuring that they remained in power.

In Miami, celebrations break out after Fidel Castro's death

And true to his character, it did little to change his view of his own place in history.

“His personality was such that he always saw himself as the man on the horse, the only guy who could possibly do what he has done,” said Dennis Hays, a former chief Cuba analyst at the State Department. “In his mind, he was the only one who could hold back the tides of time and human nature as he has.”

Fidel Castro's rise to power

Castro’s ascent to international prominence was a meteoric one. In the span of seven years, he went from solitary confinement in a Cuban prison to dictator of a country that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Once the Cold War ended and the Soviet Union collapsed, Cuba’s status as a security threat to the United States diminished greatly and Castro was left to hold together a system no longer benefiting from Soviet aid.

While universal health care and education remained the pillars of his revolution, crumbling infrastructure, a stagnant economy and widespread poverty became prevalent in Cuba, forcing the country to rely on outside help — including the United States — to simply feed its people.

Fidel's legacy: A repressive regime, waves of exodus

Yet his influence on America continued, as waves of Cubans took to the seas in makeshift boats and rafts to flee his grip, a flight that continues today. That group — concentrated mostly in South Florida — has steered U.S. policy toward Cuba and has become a deciding factor in local, state and national politics.

His influence over his own country is visible everywhere, from the billboards bearing his image to the crumbling buildings to the pre-embargo American-made cars that are still chugging along.

Ever since Castro officially stepped down on Feb. 19, 2008, and his brother was named president, he watched as Raúl Castro made sweeping changes to Cuba and its relationship with the United States. Raúl Castro made economic changes, taking small steps toward a more capitalist economy. For the first time, Cubans were allowed to buy and sell their homes and cars. They were allowed to own cell phones and computers.

World leaders react to Fidel Castro's death

While many U.S. officials dismissed the changes as cosmetic, Phil Peters of the Lexington Institute said Raúl Castro’s rush to implement them speaks volumes about the Cuba that Fidel Castro left behind.

“It shows that when he left office, the socialist system was on an unsustainable course,” Peters said. “And it shows that politics and ideological purity always came first for Fidel, even at the expense of an economy that could function and provide for people’s basic needs.”

Fidel's rule: Popular overseas, a 'disaster' at home

Then, on Dec. 17, 2014, Raúl Castro forged a historic deal with President Obama to end more than five decades of isolation and begin the long process of normalizing relations.

The Cold War foes have since re-established diplomatic ties, reopened embassies in Washington and Havana and resumed regularly scheduled commercial flights. U.S businesses, from airlines to cell phone carriers to Internet providers, have struck deals with Cuba and more people have traveled between the two countries.

President Obama even visited the island nation in March, sitting side by side with Raúl Castro at a baseball game, delivering a joint press conference and providing a clear sign that the times of Fidel Castro's rule were over. And even though Fidel Castro was nowhere to be seen during Obama's trip, the elder Castro made it clear in a newspaper column that completely normalized relations were still far off.

"We don't need the empire to give us anything," Castro wrote in Cuba's state-run newspaper, Granma.