Today in History: December 5

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NASSAU, BAHAMAS – On this day in Bahamian history, in 1803, while sailing from Georgia to Nassau, the American ship, “Lilly” was shipwrecked off great Abaco Island.

A year later, on the same day, the English ship “Morne Fortunee” was shipwrecked and lost off the coast of Crooked Island.

On December 5, 1861, the first out bond blockade runner from the Confederate states of America arrived in New Providence.

The ship left Charleston, South Carolina and arrived at Nassau with 144 bales of cotton. The trip between Charleston and Nassau took a first-class steamer approximately 48 hours to complete, taking another three days to unload and load again and to re-coal.

The blockade running era lasted from 1861 to the end of the United States civil war in 1865 and revived the local economy.

Then in 1933, the 21st amendment of the U.S. Constitution was ratified, ending the “noble experiment” of alcohol prohibition.

2013 saw the death of South African nationalist and statesman Nelson Mandela, who helped end the country’s apartheid system of racial segregation and ushered in a peaceful transition to majority rule. He was 95.

And finally, in 2017 the international Olympic committee banned Russia from the 2018 Winter Games in South Korea, after uncovering a Russian state-sponsored doping program.