Special Period
The Special Period in Time of Peace (Spanish: Período especial) in Cuba was an extended period of economic crisis that began in 1991 after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and, by extension, the Comecon. The economic depression of the Special Period was at its most severe in the early to mid-1990s before slightly declining in severity towards the end of the decade. It was defined primarily by the severe shortages of hydrocarbon energy resources in the form of gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum derivatives that occurred upon the implosion of economic agreements between the petroleum-rich Soviet Union and Cuba. The period radically transformed Cuban society and the economy, as it necessitated the successful introduction of sustainable agriculture, decreased use of automobiles, and overhauled industry, health, and diet countrywide. People were forced to live without many goods they had become used to.
Read more about Special Period: Overview, August 5th, 1994 Protest, Government Response, Other Effects, See Also
Famous quotes containing the words special and/or period:
“An indirect quotation we can usually expect to rate only as better or worse, more or less faithful, and we cannot even hope for a strict standard of more and less; what is involved is evaluation, relative to special purposes, of an essentially dramatic act.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“I don’t like to be idle; in fact, I often feel somewhat guilty unless there is some purpose to what I am doing. But spending a few hours—or a few days—in the woods, swamps or alongside a stream has never seemed to me a waste of time.... I derive special benefit from a period of solitude.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)