Francis is expected to be greeted as something of a hero to Cubans who rightly credit him with having helped restore diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba.
Francis issued a personal appeal to presidents Barack Obama and Raul Castro last year to end 50 years of animosity, and later hosted the Cuban and US delegations to finalise the deal.
The Pope has also been critical of Cuba's socialist and atheist revolution, saying it denies individuals of their "transcendent dignity."
Yet, the pontiff's critiques of the excesses of capitalism have caused Cuban president Raul Castro to vow earlier this year that if Francis kept it up, he would return to the Catholic Church.
Francis will become the first pope to address the US Congress and he will also proclaim the first saint on US soil by canonising the controversial Hispanic missionary, Junipero Serra.
Francis becomes the third pontiff to visit Cuba in the past 17 years, despite the communist country maintaining a tiny Catholic community.
The Pope becomes the third pontiff to speak before the United Nations to press his agenda on migration, the environment and religious persecution while more than 100 world leaders listen in.
It's largely unknown territory for the 78-year-old Argentine Jesuit, who has never visited either country and confessed that the United States was so foreign to him that he would spend the summer reading up on it.
