(NEW YORK) — When President Obama told ABC News on Wednesday that he has not ruled out visiting Cuba in the future, it opened the doors for the first presidential visit to the island nation since 1928.
The last American president to visit Cuba while in office was Calvin Coolidge, who traveled there in January 1928.
The world was a different place.
The Holland Tunnel opened only two months earlier under the Hudson River, linking New Jersey with New York City, and the first air-conditioned office building opened in San Antonio.
Coolidge traveled to Cuba to address the Sixth Annual International Conference of American States in Havana on Jan. 16, 1928. Coolidge and his wife met with Cuban President, Gerardo Machado, who was in office from 1925 to 1933 until he was forced into exile.
Cuba was the only foreign country Coolidge visited while in the White House. At the time, Benito Mussolini ruled Italy. Two months before Coolidge's visit to Cuba, Leon Trotsky was expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in control. About a month after that, Iraq had gained independence from Britain.
Coolidge rode a presidential rail car without air-conditioning to Key West, then boarded the U.S.S. Texas battleship for the overnight trip to Havana, 100 miles away.
"The thirty-two-hour trip down to the tip of Florida was decorous and dull," Saturday Evening Post reporter Beverly Smith Jr. recalled in a 1958 article, "To Cuba With Cal." "Cal was granting no press conferences."
After the boat arrived in Havana, "The crowds were tremendous and enthusiastic," Smith wrote. "They cheered themselves hoarse for Presidente Coolidge. They pushed close to his car, blowing kisses and throwing flowers. Cal, seemingly touched by this unaccustomed Latin warmth, showed more animation than usual. He bowed, he smiled, he took off his silk hat."
In his speech, Coolidge said, "Thirty years ago Cuba ranked as a foreign possession, torn by revolution and devastated by hostile forces. Such government as existed rested on military force. Today Cuba is her own sovereign. Her people are independent, free, and prosperous, peaceful, and enjoying the advantages of self-government."
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