Watergate and the Miami connection

On the night of June 17, five men wearing rubber gloves, their pockets packed with $100 bills collected by President Nixon’s reelection committee, were caught rifling Democratic Party headquarters in the Watergate office complex. Four of the five men were from Miami.  For the next 783 days, until Nixon resigned on Aug. 9, 1974, one […]

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Key Biscayne: Island retreat transformed by bridge

Key Biscayne, once home to tree snails, Tequesta Indians, pirates, seafarers and coconut plantations, has come a long way in a short time since a causeway linked island to mainland on Nov. 9, 1947. Some of the first settlers on the island started arriving in 1842 and began clearing the land and building wooden homes. […]

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Nelson Mandela visits Miami, 1990

Anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela was expected to visit Miami in June 1990, four months after being released from a South African prison. Miami made plans for a proclamation and a key to the city, but after Mandela acknowledged support for Fidel Castro, Moammar Gadhafi and Yasser Arafat during a TV interview, commissioners rescinded the official […]

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Read it like a native: 20 books about Florida

In 1568, Brother Francisco Villareal, a Jesuit missionary to the Tequesta settlement on the Miami River, penned what is perhaps the first postcard from South Florida: “I and the others have constantly remained healthy, glory be to God, which helps us endure with little difficulty some of the burdens of the land that otherwise would […]

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Miami Shores

Founded in 1932, Miami Shores has approximately 11,000 residents and 3,000 homes, many of which are historic.  Its story began in the years after the devastation of the Civil War. In the postwar era, William Gleason served as Florida’s lieutenant governor, and in the early 1870s, he settled in the area that would become Miami […]

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Miami Heat Championship, 2006

In 2006 Miami Heat coach and president, Pat Riley, built a team around Dwyane Wade and Shaquille O’Neal to capture the championship he had waited to experience for 11 years as the leader of the team. Miami trailed the Dallas Mavericks by two games and faced a 13-point lead in the closing minutes of Game […]

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Republican National Convention in Miami Beach, 1972

In 1972, it was Miami Beach’s turn to host, not only the Democratic but also the Republican convention, which had also been held here in 1968 — thanks to Key Biscayne part-time resident Richard M. Nixon. Nixon was running for reelection, along with his vice president, Spiro Agnew.  By then the protesters’ numbers had nearly […]

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Democratic National Convention in Miami Beach, 1972

In the summer of 1972, Miami Beach hosted the Democratic and Republican national conventions, the last time one city hosted both conventions. During the four-day Democratic Convention in July, only two people were arrested and two others injured. Four years earlier in Chicago, 680 people were arrested and 1,381 were injured. Rocky Pomerance, the Miami […]

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Cassius Clay vs. Sonny Liston, 1964

Cassius Clay leaped forward, to the center of the ring, and leaned over to all the reporters who had said he was a joke, a clown, a loser, a fraud. He had just made them all liars. He leaned over, and he opened his mouth wide. After six rounds, the favorite, Liston, “sank to his […]

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