The flag of the Republic of Cuba was designed by the cuban poet Miguel Teurbe Toulon and was used for the first time in the city of Cardenas, located on the north coast of Matanzas province, on May 19, 1850, when a group of rebels took up arms against the Spanish colonial power.
The Shield, has the configuration of an ogival shield divided into three parts, in which upper field a golden key that symbolizes Cuba's key position between the two Americas, and the rising sun of a new nation appear.
To the left are the five lists of blue and white colors that allude to the five departments in which Cuba was divided during the early colonial times to the right, the royal palm, is a symbol of nobility and firmness of the Cuban people.
The music of the anthem was composed in 1867 by the patriot Perucho Figueredo, patriot immersed in conspiracy against the Spanish government work. Initially this march was baptized with the name of The Bayamesa, alluding to the city which had been composed and singing was then main inspiration for the most lucid revolutionary world: La Marseillaise.
Later, on October 20, 1868, ten days after the start of the war for independence, the independence forces seized the eastern city of Bayamo, to the people gathered in the square, Figueredo announced the lyric of Bayamesa that would become the National Anthem:
Al combate corred bayameses,
que la patria os contempla orgullosa.
No temáis una muerte gloriosa
que morir por la patria es vivir.
En cadenas vivir, es vivir
en afrenta y oprobio sumido,
del clarín escuchad el sonido,
¡A las armas valientes, corred!
