Liliputin-4841

Close, Mr. President, but no cigar! ... "
Fidel Castro on 04/20/61

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Liliputins. What, the heck, is this?
http://stihi.ru/2021/11/24/7101


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Close, but no cigar
The expression 'close but no cigar' is used to indicate that someone has fallen just short of a successful outcome and failed to secure any reward.
Close, but no cigar
What's the meaning of the phrase 'Close, but no cigar'?
Other phrases with
American origin
The expression 'close but no cigar' is used to indicate that someone has fallen just short of a successful outcome and failed to secure any reward.

What's the origin of the phrase 'Close, but no cigar'?
Close but no cigar
The phrase, and its variant 'nice try, but no cigar', are of US origin and date from the mid-20th century. Fairground stalls gave out cigars as prizes, and this is the most likely source, although there's no definitive evidence to prove that.

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One of the undoubtedly American phrases that is now used worldwide.
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It is very much an American expression and is little used elsewhere in the English-speaking world. The first recorded use of 'close but no cigar' in print is in Sayre and Twist's publishing of the script of the 1935 film version of Annie Oakley:

"Close, Colonel, but no cigar!"

It appears in U. S. newspapers widely from around 1949 onwards; for example, a story from The Lima News, Lima, Ohio, November 1949, where The Lima House Cigar and Sporting Goods Store narrowly avoided being burned down in a fire, was titled 'Close But No Cigar'.


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The Bay of Pigs Invasion  was a failed military landing operation on the southwestern coast of Cuba in April 1961 by Cuban Democratic Revolutionary Front (DRF), consisting of Cuban exiles who opposed Fidel Castro's Cuban Revolution, covertly financed and directed by the U.S. government. The operation took place at the height of the Cold War, and its failure influenced relations between Cuba, the United States, and the Soviet Union.

In 1952, the American-allied dictator General Fulgencio Batista led a coup against President Carlos Prio and forced Prio into exile in Miami, Florida. Prio's exile inspired Castro's 26th of July Movement against Batista. The movement succeeded in overthrowing Batista during the Cuban Revolution in January 1959. Castro nationalized American businesses, including banks, oil refineries, and sugar and coffee plantations. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) began planning the overthrow of Castro, which U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower approved in March 1960, and the U.S. began its embargo of the island. This led Castro to reach out to its Cold War rival, the Soviet Union, after which the US severed diplomatic relations. Cuban exiles who had moved to the U.S. following Castro's takeover had formed the counter-revolutionary military unit, Brigade 2506, which was the armed wing of the DRF. The CIA funded the brigade, which also included approximately 60 members of the Alabama Air National Guard,[6] and trained the unit in Guatemala.

Over 1,400 paramilitaries, divided into five infantry battalions and one paratrooper battalion, assembled and launched from Guatemala and Nicaragua by boat on 17 April 1961. Two days earlier, eight CIA-supplied B-26 bombers had attacked Cuban airfields and then returned to the U.S. On the night of 17 April, the main invasion force landed on the beach at Playa Giron in the Bay of Pigs, where it overwhelmed a local revolutionary militia. Initially, Jos; Ramon Fernandez led the Cuban Revolutionary Army counter-offensive; later, Castro took personal control. As the invasion force lost the strategic initiative, the international community found out about the invasion, and U.S. President John F. Kennedy decided to withhold further air support. The plan, devised during Eisenhower's presidency, had required the involvement of U.S. air and naval forces. Without further air support, the invasion was being conducted with fewer forces than the CIA had deemed necessary. The American force, Brigade 2506 invading force were defeated within three days by the Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (Spanish: Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias – FAR) and surrendered on 20 April. Most of the surrendered counter-revolutionary troops were publicly interrogated and put into Cuban prisons.

The invasion was a U.S. foreign policy failure. The Cuban government's victory solidified Castro's role as a national hero and widened the political division between the two formerly allied countries, as well as embolden other Latin American groups to undermine US influence in the region. It also pushed Cuba closer to the Soviet Union, setting the stage for the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

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Knapp daneben ist auch vorbei.
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