Obama Makes Historic Visit to Cuba

Outgoing postcard US-3917425 to Taiwan shows the Southernmost Point Buoy in Key West, Florida. On the buoy, it claims "90 miles to Cuba" although Cuba is actually 94 statute or 81 nautical miles due south at its closest point. Nonetheless, none of the US Presidents had visited Cuba since President Calvin Coolidge's visit in 1928.

Barack Obama made history as the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in Cuba in 88 years, ending decades of hostility between the two countries and marking an historic moment of reconciliation.

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Some US business leaders and entrepreneurs, such as Ursula Burns, CEO of Xerox, Brian Chesky, president and founder of Air BnB/PAGE, Daniel Schulman, CEO of PayPal, Ken Siegel, general counsel, Starwood, and Arne Sorenson, president and CEO of Marriott, were aboard Air Force One with Obamas to attend the entrepreneurship event in Havana.

Sending Money to Cuba is now possible from a Western Union sign seen on March 8, 2016

As USPS resumed mail service to Cuba on March 17, 2016,  it was the first time in more than 50 years for the people in the US to be able to send direct mail to the island nation. Hopefully, we will see some official PostCrossing postcards from Cuba soon.

President Obama's letter was among the first batch of direct mails to Cuba

USPS Employees were servicing Obama's letter with a special postmark

Sand Island Lighthouse, Alabama

Postcard US-1987845 to Minnesota, USA shows the Sand Island Lighthouse located at the southernmost point of the state of Alabama, 3 miles or 5 kilometers offshore near Dauphin Island, at the mouth of Mobile Bay, Alabama. The 131-foot or 40-meter tall Italianate style lighthouse opened in 1838 to replace an earlier lighthouse destroyed by Confederate John W. Glenn on February 23, 1863 during the Civil War. Due to erosion and hurricane damages, it is on the Lighthouse Digest Doomsday List as one of the most endangered lighthouses in the country.

The lighthouse is one of the five Gulf Coast lighthouses featured on postage stamps and a stamped postcard book with pre-printed 28-cent postage issued by USPS in 2009.

Earlier on today, the 86th Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr., Selma, a historical film based on the Selma to Montgomery, Alabama voting rights marches led by James Bevel, Hosea Williams, Martin Luther King, Jr. and John Lewis in 1965, was nominated for Best Picture and Best Original Song for the 87th Oscar Awards. However, as Selma's director Ava DuVernay was not recognized for her powerful work directing the film, it reinforced the perception that the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, made up of predominately white, older men, is still falling behind in recognizing diversity. Today’s nominations see absence of black actors/filmmakers and female filmmakers nominated for directing or screenplay. The controversy becomes evident as the Twitter hashtag #OscarSoWhite is trending right now.

Southernmost Point in USA

Postcard US-1777075 from Florida shows the Southernmost point, a painted concrete buoy at the corner of South Street and Whitehead Street in Key West. Established by the city to mark one of the extreme points of the United States in 1983, it is one of the most visited and photographed attractions in Key West, Florida.

However, according to Wikipedia, the buoy was actually an old sewer junction that was dug up in the area and found too heavy and too large to move. Also, the official southernmost point in the contiguous United States is Ballast Key, a privately owned island south and west of Key West, which prohibits unauthorized visitors. On the Key West island, its true southernmost point, 270 m or 900 ft farther south to the buoy, is located on the Truman Annex property, a U.S. Navy installation inaccessible to the public. The southernmost part of Key West Island accessible to the public is located at Fort Zachary Taylor Historic State Park, 150 m or 500 ft farther south than the buoy. In addition, the claim on the buoy stating "90 miles to Cuba" is a rounded number, since Cuba, at its closest point is 94 statute miles or 81 nautical miles due south.

In the news today, a South Florida judge declares state's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. Although the ruling only applies to Monroe County, the most LGBT-friendly county that covers Key West, and expects an appeal, it highlights the ban violates the 14th Amendment of the U.S. constitution, which guarantees equal protection under the law.