MIAMI -- There was some horn honking, flag waving and dancing along Calle Ocho on Tuesday, but most Cuban-Americans seemed unimpressed by the news that Fidel Castro had resigned as Cuba's president.

"It was expected," said Mariela Gonzalez, who left the Communist island when she was 17. "He was sick. The brother's supposed to be taking over. That's it."

An ailing Castro resigned after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when the new parliament meets Sunday.

"I will not aspire to nor accept -- I repeat, I will not aspire to nor accept -- the post of President of the Council of State and Commander in Chief," read a letter signed by Castro and published early Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma.

Reporters and photographers seemed to outnumber those celebrating Castro's resignation. It was a far cry from the scene in 2006, when hundreds of Cuban-Americans crowded the streets after Castro temporarily ceded power to his brother, Raul Castro.

Gonzalez, who stopped for coffee at Little Havana's most famous Cuban restaurant, Versailles, still has family in Cuba.

"We're hoping everything will change, but God knows I'm not expecting anything to change," said Gonzalez.

Another patron, Joe Pireto, said he doesn't believe true change in Cuba will come any time soon.

"There'll be very insignificant change," said Pireto. "He's made sure that his brother takes off exactly where he left off."

A sign in front of a Little Havana theater perhaps best summarized the sentiment among many Cuban exiles living in South Florida. It read in Spanish: "Cabaret ache. No Fidel. No renuncies. Muerete ya," which basically means, "Don't resign, just die."

The announcement effectively ends the rule of the 81-year-old leader after almost 50 years, positioning his 76-year-old brother, Raul, for permanent succession to the presidency. Fidel Castro temporarily ceded his powers to his brother July 31, 2006, when he announced that he had undergone intestinal surgery.

Since then, the elder Castro has not been seen in public, appearing only sporadically in official photographs and videotapes and publishing dense essays about mostly international themes.

A new National Assembly was elected in January and will meet for the first time Sunday to pick the governing Council of State, including the presidency that Fidel Castro has held for decades. There had been wide speculation about whether he would continue in that role.

"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath. That's all I can offer," Castro wrote. But, he continued, "it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer. This I say devoid of all drama."

Castro's Legacy Has Lasted For Nearly Half Century

Castro rose to power on New Year's Day 1959 and reshaped Cuba into a communist state just 90 miles from the coast of Florida. The fiery guerrilla leader survived assassination attempts, a CIA-backed invasion and a missile crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Ten U.S. administrations tried to topple him, most famously in the disastrous Bay of Pigs invasion of 1961.

His ironclad rule ensured Cuba remained communist long after the breakup of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism across Eastern Europe.

Monarchs excluded, Castro was the world's longest ruling head of state.

"The adversary to be defeated is extremely strong," Castro wrote Tuesday, referring to the United States. "However, we have been able to keep it at bay for half a century."

Raul Castro had long been his brother's designated successor. The longtime defense minister had been in his brother's rebel movements since 1953 and spent decades as No. 2 in Cuba's power structure. Local 10 senior political reporter Michael Putney said Raul Castro began reading the works of Karl Marx long before his older brother and, in fact, turned his older brother on to Marxist writings.

The United States, bent on ensuring neither brother is in power, built a detailed plan in 2005 for American assistance to ensure a democratic transition on the island of 11.2 million people after Fidel Castro's death. But Cuban officials insisted there would be no transition, saying the island's socialist political and economic systems would outlive Castro.

Castro's supporters admired his ability to provide a high level of health care and education for citizens while remaining fully independent of the United States. His detractors called him a dictator whose totalitarian government systematically denied individual freedoms and civil liberties such as speech, movement and assembly.

The U.S. was the first country to recognize Castro after his guerrilla movement drove out then-President Fulgencio Batista in 1959. But the two countries soon clashed over Castro's increasingly radical path. Castro seized American property and businesses and invited Soviet aid.

On April 16, 1961, Castro declared his revolution to be socialist. A day later, he defeated the CIA-backed Bay of Pigs invasion.

The U.S. squeezed Cuba's economy and the CIA plotted to kill Castro. Undaunted, the Cuban president supplied troops and support to revolutionaries in Africa and Latin America.

Hostility over Cuba reached its peak Oct. 22, 1962, when President John F. Kennedy announced there were Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba. After a tense week of diplomacy, Soviet Premier Nikita S. Krushchev pulled out the weapons.

With the end of the Cold War in the early 1990s, Castro eventually made peace with many governments that once shunned him. Pope John Paul II visited the island in January 1998.

The loss of Soviet aid plunged Cuba into financial crisis, but the economy slowly recovered in the late 1990s with a tourism boom. Castro later reasserted control over the economy, stifling the limited free enterprise tolerated during more difficult times.

Castro was born in eastern Cuba, where his Spanish immigrant father ran a prosperous plantation. His official birthday is Aug. 13, 1926, although some believe he was born a year later.

He attended Roman Catholic schools and the University of Havana, where he received law and social science degrees.

Castro launched his revolutionary battle as a young man, organizing an unsuccessful July 26, 1953, attack on a military barracks in the eastern city of Santiago. Later freed under a pardon, Castro went to Mexico and organized a rebel army that returned to Cuba and rallied support in the Sierra Maestra Mountains. His rebels took power when Batista was forced to flee.

Entering Havana triumphantly, Castro declared: "Power does not interest me, and I will not take it."

What Does Cuba's Future Hold?

Dr. Susan Purcell, an expert on Cuban politics who serves as director for the Center for Hemispheric Policy at the University of Miami, said she expects the National Assembly to elect Raul Castro as the permanent replacement.

"It's not entirely surprising, but on some level it is, because even though he said in that letter in the remarks from a couple of weeks ago that it's never been his intention to cling to power, of course, it has been," Purcell said. "So this must mean, I think, that there's really no possibility in terms of his health, not only in returning, but that his health must be worse than many had thought."

Now that Castro is stepping down, there is the chance someone other than Raul will be elected president, though Purcell admitted she thought it was slim.

"It's the most probable, but it's not improbable that they don't (select Raul)," Purcell said. "If they don't pick Raul Castro as the head (of state), it would be because Raul and Fidel decided on a different course."

So who would be the likely successor if not Raul? Among the names to consider are Ricardo Alarcon, Cuba's former ambassador to the United Nations and the head of the National Assembly; Peres Roque, Cuba's prime minister; and Carlos Lage, a physician who has functioned as Cuba's prime economist, Putney said.

At 70, though, Alarcon might be considered too old to succeed Castro, Putney said. As for Roque, he might be too inexperienced, Putney added.

"I think if they went that route and if Raul did not take the presidency, then, to my mind, Lage would be the one," Purcell said. "At least that's what's the consensus is among Cuba watchers."

Purcell said Raul would like a better relationship with the U.S. but that Fidel has cut him down each time he has tried.

Joe Garcia, the former executive director of the Cuban-American National Foundation who recently announced his intention to unseat Mario Diaz-Balart in the U.S. House of Representatives, said even if Raul is elected, it opens the lines of communications for a changed Cuba.

"The reality is this allows to take a breath and start thinking about the future, because Raul's no spring chicken," Garcia said.