There are 76,000,000 hits for "Che" on Google

This begin our week long series on Che Guevarra:

Time named him one of the most important people of the centuary, his image is plastered all over shirts, hats and other paraphenilia in both the US and Latin America. Some love him, some hate, but he is who he is; which is Ernesto Guevara.

You think you know, but are you sure its right? Read and learn...

http://www.time.com/time/time100/heroes/profile/guevara01.html


He's everywhere:
In Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow, a figure leading a Indonesian rebel force know as Darah Dan Doa named Suhadi Sadono bears a striking resemblence to Guevara. During a between mission cut scene in the form of a news report, a girl in Paris is seen wearing a t-shirt with a image of Sadono printed on it. This is most likely a nod towards the famous image of Guevara printed on t-shirts. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Che_Guevara


In His Youth:
Guevara was born in Rosario, Argentina, the eldest of five children in a family of mixed Spanish and Irish descent. The date of birth recorded on his birth certificate was June 14, 1928, although some sources assert that he was actually born on May 14, 1928 and the birth certificate deliberately falsified to shield the family from a potential scandal relating to his mother's having been three months pregnant when she was married.

Through his first-hand observations of the poverty and powerlessness of the masses, Guevara decided that the only remedy for Latin America's economic and social inequities lay in revolution. His travels also inspired him to look upon Latin America not as a collection of separate nations but as a single cultural and economic entity, the liberation of which would require an intercontinental strategy. He began to develop his concept of a united Ibero-America without borders, bound together by a common 'mestizo' culture, an idea that would figure prominently in his later revolutionary activities. Upon his return to Argentina, he completed his medical studies as quickly as he could, in order to continue his travels around South America.

In Guatemala:
Following his graduation from the University of Buenos Aires medical school in 1953, Guevara went on to Guatemala, where President Jacobo Arbenz Guzmán headed a left-populist government that, through various reforms, particularly land reform, was attempting to bring about a social revolution. Around this time, Guevara also acquired his famous nickname, "Che", due to his Argentine roots. Che (pronounced /tʃe/) is a Spanish interjection used commonly in Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, some parts of Bolivia, Costa Rica and in the Portuguese of the south of Brazil. It is an exclamation, often used to get attention or express surprise, and so it corresponds in some ways to exclamations such as "hey!", "eh!" and "wow!".

His signature:
It is also used in a vocative sense as though it meant "friend", and thus corresponds in some ways to expressions such as "mate", "pal", "man", "dude" that can be found in the speech of various English speakers. In English, the misspelling "Ché" (with an acute accent) and the mispronunciation are fairly common, probably due to French linguistic influence.
The overthrow of the Arbenz government by a 1954 CIA-backed coup d'état cemented Guevara's view of the United States as an oppressive imperialist power that would consistently oppose governments attempting to address the socioeconomic inequality endemic to Latin America and other developing third world countries. This helped strengthen his conviction that Marxist socialism was the only true way to remedy such problems. Following the coup, Guevara volunteered to fight, but Arbenz told his foreign supporters to leave the country, and Guevara briefly took refuge in the Argentine consulate before moving on to Mexico.

tomorrow: Che in Cuba