Show Notes
On April 1, 1980, five men drove a bus through the gate of the Peruvian embassy in Havana. Within days about ten thousand Cubans had crowded onto the grounds seeking asylum. Fidel Castro opened the port of Mariel, and between April 15 and October 31, 1980, about 125,000 people sailed to Florida. This episode tells what the record shows: how it began, how it ended, and the disputed claim about criminals among the arrivals. Sources: the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training, Britannica, History.com, the University of Miami's Cuban Heritage Collection and reference histories. Where sources give different numbers, the episode says so.
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