FBI agents and two suspected bank robbers exchanged at least 131 shots during the April 11, 1986 shootout on a residential South Dade street that left two agents and the two gunmen dead. Forty of the bullets were fired by Michael Lee Platt, a former U.S. Army Ranger, who carried a rapid-fire, .223-caliber Ruger Mini-14 […]
Read more and view photos »
Books & Books, which opened in March 1982, hadn’t been operating for more than a few months when several of South Florida’s wandering poetic souls found harbor there. When Mitchell Kaplan and his uncle, Julius Kaplan, opened the tiny bookshop on Aragon Avenue, they wanted to do more than sell books; they also hoped to […]
Read more and view photos »
Born in Havana in 1957, Gloria Fajardo was two when her family fled Cuba for Miami. Gloria suffered through a childhood marked by the Cuban diaspora. Her father joined the U.S. Army, fought at the Bay of Pigs and in Vietnam, later developing multiple sclerosis after exposure to Agent Orange. By the time Gloria was […]
Read more and view photos » In this photo Philip W. Bonsal, then US ambassador to Cuba, was coming back to Washington to report back on the all but hopeless degeneration in the relations between the US and Cuba. At the time, there were concerns about a growing anti-American bias of the Cuban government, the harassment of US financed businesses and expropriation […]
Read more and view photos »
Janet Reno was born in Miami but destined for the national stage. The child of two journalists, she distinguished herself early, graduating from Harvard Law School in 1963, one of 16 women among more than 500 men. She became the state attorney for what was then called Dade County in 1978 at age 39, running […]
Read more and view photos »
Eufaula Frazier was born into a family of 11 children in Eastman, Ga., where their farm was among the few black-owned homesteads. She was accepted to Howard University but couldn’t afford to go. She went to Washington anyway, attending cosmetology school. Frazier moved to Miami in 1950, raised four children and opened a beauty shop, […]
Read more and view photos »
Elizabeth Landsberg Virrick was Miami’s champion slum fighter. Born in Winchester, Ky., Elizabeth Virrick was educated at the University of Wisconsin and Columbia University, studying interior design and architecture. She treasured Blue Vanda orchids and designed her own house as a showplace for her collection of antiques. Such was the unexpected background and interests of […]
Read more and view photos »
In 1973, Angela Davis, who had recently been acquitted of murder charges stemming from a Marin County Courthouse shootout in 1970, came to speak at the Jewish Cultural Center in Miami Beach and the New Covenant Presbyterian Church. She came to speak about racism and political repression and more importantly to organize a local chapter […]
Read more and view photos »
In the late 60’s long-haired, beaded, and tie-dyed flower children brought their drugs, incense, guitars and peace symbols to the South Florida surf. The Hippie movement had finally reached Miami. Coconut Grove, known for its laid-back attitude, became the gathering place for the counterculture. On any given day one could find Hippies smoking pot in Bayfront Park, […]
Read more and view photos »
Seminole and Calusa Indians were the first occupants of Key West. Sixteenth-century Spanish settlers found the beaches littered with the detritus of Indian battles and thus named the place Cayo Hueso (Island of Bones). In the 1830s, Key West was the wealthiest city per capita in the country. First, islanders made money by salvaging cargoes […]
Read more and view photos »
The Miami Herald's photo archives offer a front-row seat to South Florida's past. Explore the town like never before with our historical trail app
Browse our many collections & find the perfect print for your home or office display, framed and matted.
Submit a request to use our editorial content (articles, photographs, graphics, headlines, or page images) in your publication or other media.
