Short answers, pulled from the story.
The 26th of July Movement, known as M-26-7, was a Cuban revolutionary organization and later a political party led by Fidel Castro. It is considered the leading organization of the Cuban Revolution, which overthrew the dictator Fulgencio Batista.
The name commemorates the failed attack on the Moncada Barracks in Santiago de Cuba on the 26th of July 1953. It was part of an attempt to overthrow Fulgencio Batista. Fidel Castro led the attack and was captured and sentenced to 15 years in prison.
The Movement's guerrilla forces overran Batista's last troops on the 31st of December 1958. Batista fled Cuba for the Dominican Republic in the early hours of the 1st of January 1959. A government led by Manuel Urrutia Lleó was installed afterward.
Fidel Castro led the 26th of July Movement. He rebuilt it in Mexico in 1955 with fellow exiles including Raúl Castro, Camilo Cienfuegos, and Juan Almeida Bosque. Frank País led the Movement's urban underground in Oriente province until his assassination by Santiago police in July 1957.
In July 1961, the Movement merged with the Popular Socialist Party and the 13th of March Revolutionary Directorate to form the Integrated Revolutionary Organization. On the 26th of March 1962, it dissolved into the United Party of the Cuban Socialist Revolution. That party became the Communist Party of Cuba in 1965.
The Movement fought Batista on rural and urban fronts, combining guerrilla warfare in the Sierra Maestra mountains with sabotage, strikes, and propaganda in the cities. Its tactics included burning sugar cane fields, cutting telephone lines, and bombing government buildings. It also broadcast over Radio Rebelde starting on the 24th of February 1958.