the economic downturn of the "Special Period", embracing environmentalist and anti-globalization ideas. In the 2000s, Castro forged alliances in the Latin American "pink tide" – namely with Hugo Chávez's Venezuela – and formed the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas. In 2006, Castro transferred his responsibilities to Vice President Raúl Castro, who was elected to the presidency by the National Assembly in 2008. The longest-serving non-royal head of state in the 20th and 21st centuries, Castro polarized opinion throughout the world. His supporters view him as a champion of socialism and anti-imperialism whose revolutionary government advanced economic and social justice while securing Cuba's independence from US hegemony. Critics call him a dictator whose administration oversaw human rights abuses, the exodus of many Cubans, and the impoverishment of the country's economy. Early life and career Youth: 1926–1947 Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz was born out of wedlock at his father's farm on 13 August 1926. His father, Ángel Castro y Argiz, a veteran of the Spanish–American War, was a migrant to Cuba from Galicia, in the northwest of Spain. He had become financially successful by growing sugarcane at Las Manacas farm in Birán, then in Oriente Province (now Holguín Province). After the collapse of his first marriage he took his household servant, Lina Ruz González (1903–1963) – of Canarian ancestry – as his mistress and later second wife; together they had seven children, among them Fidel. At age six, Castro was sent to live with his teacher in Santiago de Cuba, before being baptized into the Roman Catholic Church at the age of eight. Being baptized enabled Castro to attend the La Salle boarding school in Santiago, where he regularly misbehaved; he was next sent to the privately funded, Jesuit-run Dolores School in Santiago. In 1945, Castro transferred to the Jesuit-run El Colegio de Belén in Havana. Although Castro took an interest in history, geography, and debate at Belén, he did not excel academically, instead devoting much of his time to playing sports. In 1945, Castro began studying law at the University of Havana. Admitting he was "politically illiterate", Castro became embroiled in student activism and the violent gangsterismo culture within the university. After becoming passionate about anti-imperialism and opposing US intervention in the Caribbean, he unsuccessfully campaigned for the presidency of the Federation of University Students on a platform of "honesty, decency and justice". Castro became critical of the corruption and violence