1910 – After having laid in state for 24 hours at Key West’s San Carlos Institute, the remains of Cuban revolutionary leader Francisco Vicente Aguilera were put onto a Cuban revenue cutter for transport to his native land. Aguilera worked to overthrow Spanish rule in 1851, and he joined Carlos Manuel de Cespedes’ first war of independence in 1868. Aguilera died in New York in 1877.
1911 – Mrs. Eliza Cleare died at age 105. She was born at Harbor Island, Bahamas, on April 14, 1806, and had come to Key West in 1886.
1954 – The Navy’s first Underwater Swimmers School was commissioned in Building 107 on the Naval Station with Lt. R.J. Fay as commanding officer.
1987 – Presidential candidate Jesse Jackson was in Key West to attend an anti-drug rally and to visit a drug interdiction vessel.
1988 – Voters denied the City of Key West authority to issue bonds to buy the Salt Ponds tract now occupied by the Ocean Walk Apartments and Las Salinas condominiums at the eastern end of the island.
2004 – Otha Cox, a 35-year employee of the Monroe County school system as a popular teacher and assistant superintendent, died in Key West at the age of 70. Cox was also active in the island’s civic life: He was on the board of City Electric System (now Keys Energy Services) for 26 years and led annual celebrations of the life of Martin Luther King.
Information compiled by Dr. Corey Malcom, Lead Historian, Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.
Image: Navy Underwater Swimmers School Key West Class of 1955. From the Ida Woodward Barron Collection. Monroe County Public Library, Florida Keys History Center.