Fidel Castro, Cuba's former president and leader of the Communist revolution, has died aged 90, Cuban state media reports.

He ruled Cuba as a one-party state for almost 50 years before Raul Castro took over in 2008.

His supporters said he had given Cuba back to the people. But he was also accused for repressing opposition.

Castro lived long enough to see a historic thaw in relations between Cuba and the United States. President Barack Obama announced in December that the United States would re-establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and urged Congress to lift a 52-year-old economic embargo, according to CNN.

Castro's stage was a small island nation 90 miles from the underbelly of the United States, but he commanded worldwide attention.

"He was a historic figure way out of proportion to the national base in which he operated," said noted Cuba scholar Louis A. Perez Jr., author of more than 10 books on the island and its history.

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