The famous image has appeared on posters, women’s lingerie, coffee mugs and baseball caps as well as almost anything else on which an image can be printed.

Che was born in Rosario, Argentina in 1928. He excelled in sport and studied medicine until 1953 when he went to Guatemala where he saw the regime of Jacobo Arbenz overthrown in a coup supported by the CIA.

This episode made Che believe that the US would always oppose progressive leftist governments and set in motion his plan to bring socialism to all of Latin America by means of revolution.

In 1954 he went to Mexico and joined forces with Fidel and Raúl Castro who were planning the overthrow of Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista.

They landed in Cuba in November 1956 and although initially suffering huge losses to Batista’s forces they formed a guerrilla army in the Sierra Maestra and began winning support and strength. It took over two years but in early 1959 they entered Havana and Fidel Castro formed a Marxist government.

Che had been one of Castro’s most trusted aides and was given Cuban citizenship and a prominent position in the new government. He became known in the west for his opposition to imperialism and for his attacks on US foreign policy with his speeches and writing, particularly “Man and Socialism in Cuba” and “Guerrilla Warfare”.

In 1965 He disappeared from public life and for two years little was known about his whereabouts. In fact he spent some time in the Congo helping to organise the Patrice Lumumba Battalion which fought a civil war there.

In late 1966 Che went to Bolivia where he created and lead a guerrilla movement in the Santa Cruz region.

The group was virtually wiped out in October 1967 by the Bolivian army. Che was captured and later shot.

Alberto Diaz, better known as Korda, snapped the famous photograph on March 5, 1960 at a funeral service for those killed in an explosion on a French freighter transporting weapons to Cuba.

It became an icon for idealistic revolt and one of the world’s most reproduced image as well as one of the most merchandised.

But the photograph wasn’t immediately famous. It was seven years later that Korda gave a print to Italian publisher Giangiacomo Feltrinelli to use on the cover of Che’s “Bolivian Diary”. Six monthes later on the news of Che’s death Faltrinelli cropped the photo and published large posters which sold over a million copies.