April 20th...This Day in History (Mariel Boat lift 'Cuba to the U.S.' + others)

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Castro announces Mariel Boat lift 1980

 

On April 20, 1980, the Castro regime announces that all Cubans wishing to emigrate to the U.S. are free to board boats at the port of Mariel west of Havana, launching the Mariel Boat lift. The first of 125,000 Cuban refugees from Mariel reached Florida the next day.

The boatlift was precipitated by housing and job shortages caused bythe ailing Cuban economy, leading to simmering internal tensions on the island. On April 1, Hector Sanyustiz and four others drove a bus through a fence at the Peruvian embassy and were granted political asylum. Cuban guards on the street opened fire. One guard was killed in the crossfire.

The Cuban government demanded the five be returned for trial in the dead guard’s death. But when the Peruvian government refused, Castro withdrew his guards from the embassy on Good Friday, April 4. By Easter Sunday, April 6, some 10,000 Cubans crowded into the lushly landscaped gardens at the embassy requesting asylum. Other embassies, including those of Spain and Costa Rica, agreed to take a small number of people. But suddenly, two weeks later, Castro proclaimed that the port of Mariel would be opened to anyone wishing to leave, as long as they had someone to pick them up. Cuban exiles in the United Statesrushed to hire boats in Miami and Key West and rescue their relatives.

In all, 125,000 Cubans fled to U.S. shores in about 1,700 boats, creating large waves of people that overwhelmed the U.S. Coast guard. Cuban guards had packed boat after boat, without considering safety, making some of the overcrowded boats barely seaworthy. Twenty-sevenmigrants died, including 14 on an overloaded boat that capsized on May 17.

The boatlift also began to have negative political implications for U.S.President Jimmy Carter.When it was discovered that a number of the exiles had been released from Cuban jails and mental health facilities, many were placed in refugee camps while others were held in federal prisons to undergo deportation hearings. Of the 125,000 “Marielitos,” as the refugees came to be known, who landed in Florida, more than 1,700 were jailed and another 587 were detained until they could find sponsors.

The exodus was finally ended by mutual agreement between theU.S. and Cuban governments in October 1980.

(More Events on This Day in History)

• American Revolution

• 1777 New York adopts state constitution

• Automotive

• 2008 Danica Patrick becomes first woman to win Indy race

• Civil War

• 1861 Lee resigns from U.S. Army

• Cold War

• 1978 Korean Air Lines jet forced down over Soviet Union

• Crime

• 1999 A massacre at Columbine High School

• Disaster

• 2010 Massive oil spill begins in Gulf of Mexico

• General Interest

• 1689 Siege of Londonderry begins
• 1871 Ku Klux Act passed by Congress
• 1902 Curies isolate radium
• 1999 Columbine High School massacre

• Hollywood

• 1926 New sound process for films announced

• Literary

• 1841 First detective story is published

• Music

• 1923 “Mambo King” Tito Puente is born

• Old West

• 1914 Militia slaughters strikers at Ludlow, Colorado

• Presidential

• 1898 McKinley asks for declaration of war with Spain

• Sports

• 1986 Jordan scores 63 points in playoff game

• Vietnam War

• 1970 Nixon announces more troop withdrawals
• 1971 “Fragging” on the rise in U.S. units

• World War I

• 1917 Nivelle Offensive ends in failure

• World War II

• 1945 Operation Corncob is launched while Hitler celebrates his birthday