1900

1900: At the turn of the twentieth century traders introduce hand-cranked sewing machines to Florida Indians. check print copy for number

1900: Florida possesses more than 3,500 miles of railroad track.

1900: In Tampa/Ybor City a Cuban population of over 3,500 work in cigar factories or related industries.

1902: Cuban independence is officially declared on May 20. The United States ends direct administration of the island.

1902: Platt Amendment enacted. Cuba becomes a U.S. protectorate.

1905: Entrepreneurs in Tarpon Springs bring experienced sponge divers from the Dodecanese Islands of Kalymnos, Halki and Symi in Greece to support the burgeoning commercial sponge business. Recruitment of Greek divers continues today.

1906: The first canals are cut into the Florida Everglades to drain the wetlands, dramatically reducing the fish and game populations.

1906: In the state of Florida, 300 automobiles are registered to drive on a small number of paved roads.

1907: Henry Ford introduces the Model-T automobile.

1908: Albert Spaulding, the American violinist, appears on stage at age twenty.

1912: Henry Flagler extends the railroad from Miami to Key West.

1915: President Guillaume Sam of Haiti is dismembered and the United States invades the country occupying it until 1934.

1917: Some Seminole families choose to live in exhibition villages. They make souvenirs to sell in gift shops and wrestle alligators for the tourists' amusement.

1917: The first rows of patchwork designs are added to the bands of Seminole clothing which is worn with many strands of bead necklaces and silver ornaments.

1917: Land is set aside for the Big Cypress Reservation as a result of the efforts of the Friends of the Seminoles. 320

1917: On March 2 President Woodrow Wilson signs the Jones Act making Puerto Rico a U.S. territory.

1920: Middle class tourists begin to enjoy vacations in destinations far away from home.

1920: Bahamians constitute over 16% of Miami's population and a majority of agricultural labor from Ft. Pierce to Florida City.

1920: The city of Miami has a population of 29,571.

1920: A race riot and deaths occur in Ocoee in Orange County.

1923: The entire African-American town of Rosewood, Florida, is set fire and seventeen black Floridians are killed by a white mob caught up in national and regional racist fears.

1925: More than 500,000 tourists arrive annually to Florida by automobile.

1926: The Dania (Seminole) Reservation, later known as the Hollywood Reservation, is established.

1928: Completion of the Tamiami Trail (US 41) connects Miami with Florida's West Coast.

1929: On January 9, Pan Am Airline inaugurates flights from Puerto Rico to Miami.

1930: Florida possesses more than 6,000 miles of railroad track and more than 3,200 miles of paved highways.

1933: Congress passes the Indian Reorganization Act which brings expansion to reservations, funds for development of economic ventures, and encourages the American Indian way of life, including religion, arts, and crafts.

1933: Deaconess Harriet M. Bedell begins her work with Seminole Indians at the Glade Cross Mission.

1933: Miami is home to former Cuban president Major General Mario G. Menocal, leader of the Miami exiles.

1934: Platt Amendment rescinded. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt ends overt U.S. role in Cuba under his "Good Neighbor Policy" towards the Caribbean and Latin America.

1934: A one-room school is built on the Hollywood Seminole reservation and opens with a record enrollment of fifty students.

1935: Brighton Reservation is established near Lake Okeechobee for Muskogee-speaking people who have camps in the region.

1936: The Seminole school closes due to poor attendance.

1939: Mr. and Mrs. William Boehmer, in charge of educational work and community development, open a school at Brighton Reservation.

1950: On Christmas Eve, Harry T. Moore, state leader of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), is killed by a bomb beneath his bed.

1952: Former president and military officer Fulgencio Batista suspends the Cuban constitution and establishes a dictatorship following a military coup.

1953: The largest migration of Puerto Ricans to the United States mainland occurs with 69,124 emigrating (mostly to New York, New Jersey and Florida).

1957: The Seminole Tribe of Florida is legally incorporated.

1957: Francois Duvalier, a doctor and union leader, is elected president of Haiti. Duvalier, also known as 'Papa Doc', terrorizes the country, rooting out any and all opponents to his administration. He is a practicing vodunist, his loa being Baron Samedi, the guardian of cemeteries and a harbinger of death. He ensures his power through his private militia, the tontons macoutes (which means in kreyol, "uncle boogeyman").

1959: Fidel Castro leads revolutionary forces into Havana. Batista flees.

1959: Santería is exported with Cuban exiles to Florida.

1960: The new Castro regime allies itself with the Soviet Union. President Eisenhower prohibits U.S. oil companies in Cuba from refining Soviet oil. The United States cuts off all military and economic aid to Cuba and by the end of the year, imposes a total embargo on exports to Cuba, excepting food and medicine.

1961: President Kennedy authorizes the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba by 1,500 CIA-trained Cuban exiles. The anti-Castro forces are defeated within three days of their landing on the island.

1961: Miguel A. Bretos arrives as a teenage Cuban refugee to Miami.

1962: Cuban Missile Crisis. Following the installation of Soviet offensive nuclear missiles in the U.S. and Soviets brace for a nuclear confrontation. The Soviets finally agree to remove their missiles in exchange for a U.S. pledge not to invade Cuba.

1962: The Miccosukee Tribe of Florida incorporates and is granted reservation land adjoining the Tamiami Trail in the Everglade swamps some forty miles west of Miami, where their tribal offices are located.

1962: The Cuban Missile Crisis occurs.

1962-5: The prophetic faith of Las Casas and other like-minded clergymen of his time anticipated the principles proclaimed by the Second Vatican Council: liberty as the supreme value of humankind; the hatefulness of force and oppression; and the priority of peaceful persuasion and good example as the true means of preaching the gospel)

1963-4: Martin Luther King organized demonstrations in St. Augustine.

1968: The first black is elected to the Florida legislature since Reconstruction.

1969: Launch of Apollo 11, Cape Canaveral, Florida.

1971: Walt Disney transforms acres of wilderness into one of the world's greatest tourist attractions.

1971: The first annual Seminole Tribal Fair and Powwow on the Hollywood reservation is held on the second week of February.

1971: Francois Duvalier dies and is succeeded by his son Jean Claude, age 19 (also known as 'Baby Doc'). Haiti is now the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

1980: Mariel Boat Lift. Close to 125,000 refugees, many of them former prison inmates, flee Cuba for the United States. Despite public opposition, President Carter agrees to admit them.

1985: Mel Fisher discovers sunken treasure from the wreck of the Atocha off the coast of the Florida Keys.

1987: While digging the foundations for an office building near Tallahassee workers discover the encampment where Hernando de Soto had rested his troops during the winter of 1539-40.

1990: Jean-Bertrand Aristide (a religious priest) is elected President of Haiti in a landslide victory. Military coup deposes Aristide's government; Organization of American states imposes an embargo lasting three years.

1994: Aristide returns to Haiti to serve out his presidential term of office, facilitated by the US military and UN troops.

1999: The Miccosukee Tribe opens its resort and convention center bringing in big name entertainers and staging boxing events, a la Las Vegas