obama, cuba — US President Barack Obama shakes hands with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez at Havana airport, Cuba. It is the beginning of the three-day visit. 20 March 2016 (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

On Sunday 20 March, at 4:18 pm local time, the President of the United States and his family landed in Havana, the capital of Cuba, beginning their official visit. A historic moment. A story that, with just these few details, could be called "of the century." It is the first time in 88 years, in fact, that an American president has visited Cuba. Before Obama, it was Calvin Coolidge who landed in Havana on 16 January 1928 to attend the proceedings of the sixth Pan-American conference. When Cuba was not yet communist.

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¿Que bolá Cuba? Just touched down here, looking forward to meeting and hearing directly from the Cuban people.

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The Obama doctrine

This time, by contrast, the sitting President of the United States decided to visit the "red" island in keeping with what is now known — thanks to an article by Jeffrey Goldberg in the April issue of the Atlantic — as the "Obama doctrine." The president has based part of his foreign policy on trying to understand why the United States' historic adversaries have remained so over the decades, and on attempting to break that stereotype. Cuba, then, is merely the latest stage of a journey that has also included the nuclear deal with Iran, which now seems almost a small milestone by comparison.

L'ex presidente americano Calvin Coolidge fu l'ultimo a visitare Cuba nel 1928 prima di Obama. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images) — Former US President Calvin Coolidge was the last to visit Cuba in 1928 before Obama. (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

Obama's trip represents the culmination of a rapprochement that began on 17 December 2014 thanks to a speech that brought an end to the silence that had begun in 1962 with the embargo — still in force — imposed by John Fitzgerald Kennedy in the wake of the missile crisis. It continued with the reopening of their respective embassies and with the first agreement for the protection of the environment based on the safeguarding of marine ecosystems.

The thaw, as recounted by Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser and secret US envoy to Cuba, began on the day of Nelson Mandela's funeral — the former president of South Africa and one of Obama's heroes and icons. In December 2013, secret negotiations with the Cubans had been under way for six months and "up to that point had not led anywhere," Rhodes stated in an interview with Goldberg. "We were mainly talking about the desire to release several Cubans detained in the United States and in Florida, and our desire to bring Alan Gross home, but we wanted something more. We wanted the prisoner exchange to be a starting point for a change in relations."

The handshake with Raul Castro

Mandela's funeral provided the opportunity to set the hoped-for change in motion. Among the many leaders present at the ceremony was Cuban President Raul Castro. And Obama thought to seize the moment and shake his hand, given the historic importance that he, his brother Fidel, Cuba and the Cuban people had in supporting — both politically and militarily — Mandela's party, the African National Congress, during and after the period of apartheid, the racial segregation of black people by whites.

Obama visits Cuba. The presidential family's departure from Washington (Martin H. Simon-Pool/Getty Images)

Air Force One arrives in Havana, Cuba (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Obama and his family step off Air Force One after landing in Havana, Cuba, 20 March 2016 (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

US President Barack Obama shakes hands with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez at Havana airport, Cuba. It is the beginning of the three-day visit. 20 March 2016 (REUTERS/Carlos Barria)

Obama waves before getting into the presidential car at Havana airport, Cuba (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Havana prepares for Obama's visit (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

That moment, combined with the good sense that has always characterised him and the desire to pay worthy tribute to one of the people who made him the man we all know, led Obama to the decision — so as to avoid any diplomatic incident — to shake Raul Castro's hand: this is the moment that history books will record as the episode that brought an American president back to Cuba after 88 years.

Obama's Cuba visit itinerary

Obama's visit itinerary includes a meeting with the Cuban president on Monday 21 March, followed by a joint press conference. A speech at the Gran teatro de La Habana "Alicia Alonso" will be followed by a meeting with a number of dissidents, and on Tuesday 22 March by attendance at the friendly baseball match between the Cuban national team and the American team Tampa Bay Rays. After Cuba, Obama's Latin American trip will continue in Argentina.

Obama visits Cuba, the first time in 88 years