Timeline Bahamas
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Bahamas
Vacation
Guide
CIA Factbook: http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/bf.html
Emulate: http://www.emulateme.com/bahamas.htm
Map: http://www.lib.utexas.edu/Libs/PCL/Map_collection/americas/Bahamas.GIF
TravelDocs: http://www.traveldocs.com/bs/index.htm
Bahamas Tourism Center: 1-800-422-4262
The 760-mile chain of hundreds of islands is off the southeast coast
of Florida.
(HNQ, 12/15/98)
1492 Oct 11,
Rodrigo de Triana, a sailor on the Pinta, sighted land (the Bahamas) on
the horizon.
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 12, (Old Style calendar;
Oct. 21 New Style), Christopher Columbus sited land, an island of the
Bahamas which he named San Salvador, but which was called Guanahani by
the local Taino people. Seeking to establish profitable Asian trade
routes by sailing west, Columbus seriously underestimated the size of
the Earth--never dreaming that two great continents blocked his path to
the east. Even after four voyages to America, Columbus believed until
the end of his life in 1506 that he had discovered an isolated corner
of Asia.
(NH, 10/96, p.22)(AP, 10/12/97)(HNPD,
10/12/98)(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 16, Columbus' fleet
anchored at "Fernandina" (Long Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 17, Columbus sighted the
isle of San Salvador (Watling Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 19, Columbus sighted
"Isabela" (Fortune Island, Bahamas).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 21, Columbus landed on
San Salvador Island (Bahamas-Watling Island).
(http://tinyurl.com/774v3)
1492 Oct 26, Columbus' fleet
anchored on Ragged Island Range, Bahamas.
(MC, 10/26/01)
1590 Mar 4, Mauritius of Nassau's
ship reached Breda, Netherlands.
(SC, 3/4/02)
1629 Oct 30, King Charles I gave
the Bahamas to Sir Robert Heath.
(MC, 10/30/01)
1771 Mark Catesby had his work:
“The Natural History of Carolina, Florida and the Bahama Islands”
printed in London.
(WSJ, 7/7/98, p.A14)
1776 Mar 3, US commodore Esek
Hopkins occupied Nassau, Bahamas.
(SC, 3/3/02)
1841 Apr 3, From Nassau, Bahamas,
a British magistrate wrote that 193 shipwrecked African slaves from the
ship Trouvadore were found naked on the shores of the East Caicos
Island. The slaves were then quarantined in a jail and given food and
clothing. The accident set free the slaves who became ancestors of many
later residents of the islands. In 2004 the wreck was found and in 2008
marine archaeologists identified it as the remains of the slave ship.
(AP, 8/21/04)(AP, 11/26/08)
1919 Chalk’s Ocean Airways was
founded to fly tourists and fisherman from Florida to the Bahamas.
(SFC, 12/20/05, p.A4)
1926 The Bahamanian government
transferred designation of Columbus’ landfall to Watling Island.
(NH, 10/96, p.23)
1953 Lynden Pindling helped found
the Progressive Liberal Party in opposition to the white colonial-run
United Bahamian Party.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.C10)
1962 Huntington Harford, A&P
supermarket heir, persuaded the authorities to rename Hog Island,
across the bay from Nassau, to Paradise Island.
(WSJ, 7/1/98, p.A1)
1965 Feb 24, Beatles began filming
"Help" in Bahamas.
(MC, 2/24/02)
1965 Nov 13, The ship "Yarmouth
Castle" burned and sank off Bahamas, killing 89.
(MC, 11/13/01)
1967 Monroe "Bud" Karmin (e.1999
at 69) won a Pulitzer Prize in journalism for an expose of Mafia
dominance in gambling in the Bahamas.
(SFC, 1/18/99, p.A21)
1967 Lynden Pindling became
premier.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.C10)
1968 Charles C.G. Chaplin and
James Bohlke co-authored “Fishes of the Bahamas and Adjacent Tropical
Waters.”
(Sm, 2/06, p.42)
1968 The Bahamas elected a
socialist leaning president. This led to the end of the Bahamas as a
major off-shore tax haven and the rise of the Cayman Islands as a tax
haven.
(SSFC, 7/10/05, p.E3)
1968 John Templeton (1912-2008)
American investment analyst, fled to the Bahamas and took British
citizenship in order to avoid American taxes.
(Econ, 7/19/08, p.95)
1971 Robert Lee Vesco (1935-2007)
fled the US to avoid charges of bilking mutual fund investors of $224
million. In 1972 the SEC charged him and others in a civil lawsuit, but
Vesco had fled to the Bahamas and then to Costa Rica where he
established a close friendship with Pres. Jose Figueres, plowing some
11 million into the country.
(SFC, 8/21/96, p.A8)(SFC, 5/3/08, p.A6)
1973 Jul 10, The Bahamas became
independent after three centuries of British colonial rule.
(AP, 7/10/97)
1977 In the Bahamas the
People-to-People program was established about this time to help
visitors experience a more personal side of the island and its
inhabitants.
(SFEC, 1/18/98, p.T8,9)
1979 Aug 20, Diana Nyad succeeded
in her 3rd attempt to swim from the Bahamas to Florida.
(AP,
8/20/99)(http://andrejkoymasky.com/liv/fam/bion1/nyad1.html)
1986 The Bahamas banned fishing on
its coral reefs.
(Econ, 1/7/06, p.72)
1992 Aug 24, Hurricane Andrew
smashed into Florida, causing record damage; 55 deaths in Florida,
Louisiana and the Bahamas were blamed on the storm.
(AP, 8/24/97)
1992 Prime Minister Lynden
Pindling was defeated by Hubert Ingraham. There were allegations that
Pindling had taken bribes from Colombian drug lords.
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.C10)(SFC, 5/3/02, p.A10)
1998 Apr 13, Some 300 angry
protestors faced 180 lesbian passengers on the cruise ship SS Seabreeze
chartered by Olivia Cruises and Resorts.
(SFEC, 4/19/98, p.A26)
1998 Jul 18, Lori Fogleman, an
American school teacher vacationing in the Bahamas, was murdered about
this time along with Joanne Clarke, 24, from Oxfordshire. In 2002
Tennel McIntosh was found guilty of manslaughter.
(AP, 6/13/02)
1998 Dec, The new $750 million
Atlantis resort was scheduled to be completed on paradise Island. It
was developed under Solomon Kerzner, chairman of Sun Int’l. Hotels.
(WSJ, 7/1/98, p.A1)
1998 Sep 24, The death toll from
Hurricane Georges was 1 in the Bahamas.
(SFC, 9/25/98, p.A16)(WSJ, 9/28/98, p.A1)(SFC,
10/3/98, p.A11)
1999 Sep 15, Extensive damaged
from Hurricane Floyd was reported in the Bahamas on the islands of
Abaco, Eleuthera, Cat and San Salvador.
(SFC, 9/16/99, p.A1,15)
2000 Mar 16, About a dozen whales
became stranded on 2 Bahama beaches one day after a US Navy exercise
propagated loud noises through the waters of the region. 5 of the
whales died. In 2001 testing confirmed that Navy sonar caused the
whales to beach themselves.
(SFC, 3/22/00, p.A9)(WSJ, 12/21/01, p.A1)
2000 Aug 26, Lynden Pindling,
former prime minister (1967-1992), died at age 70. He was known as the
“Black Moses.”
(SFEC, 8/27/00, p.C10)
2001 Aug 25, In the Bahamas 9
people were killed when a small plane crashed. R&B singer and
actress Aaliyah (Aaliyeh, 22) was among the dead.
(SSFC, 8/26/01, p.A16)(SFC, 8/27/01, p.A16)
2001 Aug 29, The government
estimated that 30-60 thousand Haitians were living in the Bahamas
illegally.
(SFC, 8/29/01, p.A8)
2001 Sep 4, In the Bahamas a fire
destroyed Bay Street businesses in Nassau’s Straw Market.
(WSJ, 9/6/01, p.A1)
2001 Nov 5, Hurricane Michelle
swept past the Bahamas with 85 mph winds, flooding houses and cutting
power.
(AP, 11/5/02)
2002 The opposition Liberal
Progressive Party won Parliamentary elections with 23 seats in the
40-seat legislature.
(SFC, 5/3/02, p.A10)
2002 Jun 13, A jury on Thursday
found Tennel McIntosh guilty of manslaughter in the slaying of Lori
Fogleman in 1998, an American school teacher who had been vacationing
in the Bahamas.
(AP, 6/13/02)
2003 Oct 29, In the Bahamas
Cordell Farrington (35), a hardware store stock clerk, was charged with
five counts of murder in connection with the disappearance of four boys
and a young man on Grand Bahama Island.
(AP, 10/29/03)
2004 Sep 2, Hurricane Frances
raged through the sparsely populated southeastern Bahamas.
(AP, 9/2/04)
2004 Sep 4, Hurricane Frances
ripped apart roofs, shattered windows and flooded neighborhoods as it
raged through the Bahamas leaving 2 people dead.
(AP, 9/5/04)
2004 Sep 25, Hurricane Jeanne
lashed the Bahamas with violent winds and torrential rains, making a
direct hit on Abaco island and threatening the country's second-largest
city, Freeport.
(AP, 9/25/04)
2004 Nov 24, Arthur Hailey
(b.1920), author of the 1968 novel “Airport,” died in the Bahamas.
(SFC, 11/26/04, p.B3)
2006 Jan 13, In the Bahamas the
Compleat Angler Hotel on North Bimini Island was destroyed by fire. The
hotel's owner Julian Brown helped the guests escape before disappearing
in the flames to fight the fire. The hotel claimed to be a one-time
writing headquarters for Ernest Hemingway and advertised room No. 1 as
the place where Hemingway worked on "To Have and Have Not."
(AP, 1/13/06)
2006 Mar 9, The Bahamas Court of
Appeals ruled that Atain Takitota (41), a Japanese amnesiac who was
kept in a Bahamas prison and an immigration center for eight years
without being charged, was held unlawfully. He was awarded $500,000
"for the loss of eight years and two months" of his life.
(AP, 3/11/06)
2006 Sep 10, Daniel Smith (20),
the son of Anna Nicole Smith (38) died suddenly in the Bahamas, three
days after the former Playboy Playmate gave birth to a girl.
(Reuters, 9/11/06)
2007 Apr 10, A court in the
Bahamas announced that DNA tests proved Larry Birkhead, the former
boyfriend of Anna Nicole Smith, is the father of her infant daughter.
(AP, 4/11/07)
2007 May 2, A former prime
minister led his opposition party to victory in the Bahamas, returning
to power in elections dominated by questions about the direction of the
tourism-driven economy. Hubert Ingraham's Free National Movement won 23
seats in the 41-seat legislature, while PM Perry Christie's Progressive
Liberal Party claimed the other 18.
(AP, 5/3/07)
2007 Nov 26, The Bahamas ratified
the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, bringing to 141 the number
of nations that have done so. The treaty, which bans all nuclear
explosions, will not enter into force until it has been ratified by all
44 states listed in an annex, that participated in a 1996 disarmament
conference and had nuclear power or research reactors at the time. 34
of those countries have ratified the pact. The holdouts include the
United States, China, India, Pakistan, Israel and North Korea.
(AP, 11/27/07)
2008 Apr 20,
The US Coast Guard recovered the bodies of 20 migrants, 19
Haitians and one Honduran, from the sea near the Bahamas after their
boat apparently capsized.
(AP, 4/21/08)
2008 May 19, Huntington Hartford
(b.1911), the deep-pocketed A&P grocery heir who burned through
most of a $100 million fortune in a series of fruitless business and
cultural endeavors before his life unraveled, died at his home in
Lyford Cay, Nassau, in the Bahamas.
(AP, 5/19/08)
2008 Sep 4, Tropical Storm Hanna
roared along the edge of the Bahamas ahead of a possible hurricane hit
on the Carolinas, leaving behind at least 137 dead in Haiti.
(AP, 9/4/08)
2008 Sep 7, Hurricane Ike damaged
most of the homes on Grand Turk island as it roared onto the Bahamas,
raked Haiti's flooded cities with rain and threatened the Florida Keys
on its way to Cuba as a ferocious Category 4 storm.
(AP, 9/7/08)
2008 Dec 30, The Bahamas' foreign
affairs minister said China will help build a national sports stadium.
Construction will start early next year in the capital of Nassau. China
will send the Bahamas a $7.3 million grant as well as Chinese
construction workers who will build the stadium.
(AP, 12/31/08)
2009 Jan 23, Authorities in the
Bahamas charged an island lawmaker and detained two other people in an
alleged plot to extort money from actor John Travolta after the death
of his son. Sen. Pleasant Bridgewater, an attorney from Grand Bahama,
was arrested a day earlier and charged with abetment to extort and
conspiracy to extort.
(AP, 1/23/09)
2009 Jan 24, Bahamas Sen. Pleasant
Bridgewater, accused of trying to extort money from actor John Travolta
after his son's death, resigned and vowed to prove her innocence.
(AP, 1/24/09)
2009 Jan 26, A Bahamas paramedic
was charged in an alleged scheme to extort $25 million from John
Travolta after his chronically ill son died of a seizure at the
family's vacation home.
(AP, 1/27/09)
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