20 Years ago

[Bobcat]

1959 Advance spearheads of Fidel Castro's revolutionary forces entered Havana. The auto-passenger ferry City of Havana left Key West on a special round trip to Havana to evacuate American citizens who wished to return to this country.

 

[Bobcat]

1959 About 500 Castro supporters sailed from Key West to Cuba on the auto-passenger ferry City of Havana.

1961President Eisenhower broke diplomatic relations with Castro's Cuba.

1967 Heavily armed Cuban and Haitian exiles bent on overthrowing Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier, and then moving on to hit Fidel Castro , were arrested north of Marathon before they could launch their invasion.

 

[Bobcat]

1974 TV stars Jonathan Winters and Ernest Borgnine arrived in Key West to join Curt Gowdy in filming an ocean fishing feature for the ABC TV show "American Sportsman

 

[rschap1]

Quite the cast there

 

[Ratickle]

1967 Heavily armed Cuban and Haitian exiles bent on overthrowing Haitian dictator Francois Duvalier, and then moving on to hit Fidel Castro , were arrested north of Marathon before they could launch their invasion.

Why would they stop them here????????

 

[Bobcat]

Probably had a similar operation in place, and didn't want some amateurs muddying up the water.

There is a really good fictional book on this era, called "Libra" authors name is Aiello(or close, I'll look it up )

 

[Bobcat]

1951 The crew of the 20th Century Fox movie "The Frogmen" arrived in Key West. The film, which stared Dana Andrews, Richard Widmark and Gary Merrill, was filmed partly in Key West

 

[Bobcat]

1959 There were persistent rumors that the boat that brought Cuban Sen. Rolando Masferrer to Key West carried $17 million. There were also rumors of a large amount of money on Batista's private yacht, which arrived with seven Cuban naval officers. Customs had not searched the boats when they arrived and a later search revealed slightly more than $90,000 on the Batista yacht.

1997 A commercial fisherman fishing near Pickles Reef landed a 17-foot great white shark estimated to weigh 1,500 to 1,800 pounds.

 

[Ratickle]

How many Cuban naval officers did the shark arrive with???:huh:

 

[Bobcat]

And where in the hell is Pickles Reef ?

 

[old377guy]

And where in the hell is Pickles Reef ?

right across the channel from Relish Key.

 

[Bobcat]

It'll take a little while for the rest of the sharks to catchup :banghead:

 

[Bobcat]

ON THIS DAY IN:

1861 The state of Florida seceded from the Union.Key West was the only Southern city in the United States to remain loyal to the Union during the Civil War.

 

[Bobcat]

1967 A Key West-based crawfishing boat and two boats out of Marathon were involved in a gunbattle near the Cay Sal Banks, Bahamas, in which one man was killed and one wounded.

1974 ABC records finished shooting a film special at the Pier House titled "Introducing Jimmy Buffet"

 

[Ratickle]

And where in the hell is Pickles Reef ?

right across the channel from Relish Key.

It'll take a little while for the rest of the sharks to catchup :banghead:

Groan.......

 

[old377guy]

y'all just don't recognize great comedic talent when ya see it.....

 

[Bobcat]

ON THIS DAY IN:

1861 During the night, Capt. James M. Brannan, commanding the Army Barracks Key West (now Peary Court Navy housing), marched his men to Fort Taylor and took command of the fort. This action ensured that Key West would remain in the Union during the Civil War and provided the Union Navy with a secure base to blockade Southern ports.

1923 An Aero-Marine Airways plane from Key West to Havana crashed off the Cuban coast and four passengers were lost. The railroad ferry rescued the other five people on the plane.

1958 Former President Herbert Hoover arrived in the Keys for his mid-winter fishing trip.



1981 A 41-degree temperature during the night tied the all-time record low for Key West. The same temperature was recorded on the same date 95 years before.



1989 President-elect George Bush arrived at Marathon airport to spend a few days fishing at Islamorada.

1994 Former City Commissioner Harry Powell took over a construction trailer with what he claimed was dynamite with a dead man's switch in an attempt to stop construction of the Navy housing project at Peary Court. After a nine hour standoff, he was taken into custody and charged with armed burglary and possession of a destructive device.

 

[Bobcat]

1941Carl Bervaldi was elected chairman of the County Commission for the fourth time. Capt. Edward "Bra" Saunders, 75, died at his residence. He was the fishing guide for Ernest Hemingway and "gang." Hemingway used him as his model for the character Capt. Willie Adams in the novel "To Have and Have Not."

 

[old377guy]

Edward "Bra" Saunders...........any relation, I wonder, to Edie "Braless" Saunders???

 

[Bobcat]

1933 With the exception of New York, there were more passenger arrivals in Key West than any other port in the United States. The number of arrivals for 1932 was 18,051.

1961 The United States banned all tourist travel to Cuba. The loss of the air and ship traffic to Cuba had an adverse impact on the Key West economy.