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Bermuda's History from 1952 to 1999

Significant news events in the final half of the 20th century

By Keith Archibald Forbes (see About Us) exclusively for Bermuda Online

When referring to this web file, use "bermuda-online.org/history1952-1999.htm" as your Subject

1952-1999

• 1952. On the death of her father King George VI from cancer, Queen Elizabeth (see right) was enthroned.
• 1952. Last visit to Bermuda of the Canadian Ladyboats "Lady Nelson" and "Lady Rodney." They were sold to an Egyptian shipping company.
• 1952. Bumping over the old barge bridge became a thing of the past in late 1952 when Kindley AFB's new Long Bird Bridge, built by the US Military, was officially opened. (Technically, at that time, it was part of what had been since 1941 the leased Kindley Air Force Base of the US Army Air Corps, later the USAF). 
• 1952. December 6. Cubana's "Estrella de Oriente" DC-4 registration CU-T397 from Madrid crashed in Bermuda on its way to Havana, shortly after leaving Bermuda. Many died, including Capt. René Ayala, who commanded the aircraft. A dramatic rescue operation was mounted from Kindley AFB Bermuda to save the passengers of the stricken Cubana Airlines aircraft which took off from the Civil Air Terminal but crashed into the waters of Castle Harbour at the end of the runway at about 4.30 pm. Bermuda had been well prepared for such a rescue operation, due to the previous establishment at Kindley Air Force Base of crash boats imported and operated especially for such an emergency. Two US servicemen on board the 35-foot crash boat that went out to rescue the aircraft's passengers heard faint screams coming from the dark, oil-slicked water. They leapt overboard without lifelines or preservers, in an attempt to rescue the passengers. But despite their heroic efforts, and those of others, in rescuing four people, the balance of the passengers and crew of the stricken aircraft - some thirty seven people in all - perished from wounds incurred in the crash.
• 1953. First of three visits, first and second secret, when John F. Kennedy came to Bermuda, at the age of 36 and about to become a Senator. He stayed at Eventide (now Kennedy House, after the late President) on Burnt House Hill. It was then owned by his friend, wealthy American Oliver Newbury. He fell off his moped on that hill. He was invited Mr. Brooks, a school friend of Mr. Kennedy who was also friendly with Mr. Newbury.
• 1953. June 2. Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in Westminster Abbey, London. Bermuda sent a delegation.
• 1953. Edwin McDavid, the black President of the State Council and Minister of State for British Guiana, arrived in Bermuda by accident. The BOAC aircraft carrying him (and his wife) to London to be knighted by the Queen had to make an unscheduled atop in Bermuda, owing to engine trouble. As Bermuda's Inn Keepers Act of 1930 did not allow Jews or Negroes or Catholics to enter a white hotel or  guesthouse, only at the black Imperial Hotel, they were not allowed entry at the St. George Hotel, like other passengers. Instead, they spent the night sleeping on benches in the airport lounge. The same thing had happened a little earlier to the black Speaker of the Barbados House of Assembly, bound for London for the same reason, who also went from Barbados via Bermuda.
• 1953. The Shell Co. of Bermuda purchased a site on East Broadway for the purpose of constructing a modern service station. Holmes, Williams and Purvey (HWP) immediately started negotiating with a view to being appointed as Managers, and with the completion of the station early in 1953 were informed they had been successful. It began HWP's partnership with Shell.
• 1953. Members of the Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps had their photograph taken (see below) while at Dockyard, with Seeward S. Toddings, Chairman of the Defence Board, present.

  

  Bermuda Volunteer Rifle Corps (BVRC), Bermuda's then segregated (white) unit of the local armed forces, at Dockyard with Defence Board Chairman Seward S. Toddings. Photo kindly loaned by his step-daughter Cindy Olden specifically for this Bermuda Online web file as a historical photo.

• 1953. On November 23, only five months after her glittering Coronation in London, with the world-wide publicity it generated, Bermuda received its first visit - a 24-hour stay - from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, daughter of Britain's and Bermuda's last ever King-Emperor, George VI. Bermuda was her first stop on her Coronation tour of the Commonwealth. It was also the first occasion that a reigning British monarch had ever visited Britain's oldest colony. With her on her British Overseas Airways Corporation Constellation named Canopus was her Greek-born Consort, His Royal Highness Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. When she left, it was to the sound of a bagpipe played by Tommy Aitchison, official piper to the Caledonian Society.

Royal Visit November 1953. Photos kindly loaned this author by Cindy Olden (nee Farnsworth), step-daughter of S. A. Toddings, MCP, who is shown greeting the Her Majesty the Queen and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. They were accompanied by Bermuda's Governor and his aide-de-camp. To the far right are members of the Bermuda Government.

• 1953. December 4. Bermuda hosted her first Summit Conference when United States President Dwight D. Eisenhower met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and French Premier Joseph Laniel.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill greeting President Eisenhower at  the USA's Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda. Also shown are the Consul-General of the USA in Bermuda and the commander of Kindley Air Force Base. Photo kindly loaned the author by Cindy Olden (nee Farnsworth), step-daughter of S. A. Toddings, MCP, then chairman of the Bermuda Defence Forces.

 Prime Minister Churchill and his party, including Anthony Eden (later, a Prime Minister himself) inspecting the Bermuda Militia Artillery (top photo) and Bermuda Rifles (BVRC - bottom photo) on Front Street. Photos kindly loaned this author by Cindy Olden (nee Farnsworth), step-daughter of S. A. Toddings, MCP, (shown in top photo between the corporal and Anthony Eden), then chairman of the Bermuda Defence Forces.

• 1954. Bermuda Audubon Society formed in response to marsh dumping.
• 1954. A Coy Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI) landed in Bermuda for their 1-year stay, from the troopship Empire Clyde.  It was reported in the Mid Ocean News, then owned by SS Toddings, Chairman of the Defence Board. It was the last permanent British Army unit in the Bermuda Garrison based at Prospect Camp. See British Army in Bermuda.

• 1954. Ground was broken for the Cold War listening post at the U.S. Naval Facility, Bermuda, atop Tudor Hill, Southampton Parish. Over a year of work by Navy Seabees and Western Electric Company was done before the Facility was commissioned June 1, 1955.
• 1954. Furness Bermuda issued this poster of its New York to Bermuda service.

• 1955. Lieutenant General Sir John (Dane) Woodall (1897 to 1985) became Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda until 1960. In his service biography he was listed as having joined the Royal Artillery 1915 ; World War I 1915-1918; Gallipoli 1915 ; Staff Capt, Royal Artillery, Salonika and Black Sea 1918-1919; Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, Black Sea 1919 ; Staff Capt, Turkey 1919-1922; Deputy Assistant Adjutant General, Turkey 1922-1924; Instructor in Gunnery, Northern Command 1927-1929; Staff Officer, Royal Artillery, Western Command 1932-1934; Brigade Major, Royal Artillery, Malaya 1934-1936; Instructor, RAF Staff College, 1938 ; World War II 1939-1945; General Staff Officer Grade 1, General Headquarters, British Expeditionary Force (BEF) 1939-1940; Brig, General Staff 1940-1943; Regimental Commander, Royal Artillery 1943 ; Senior Air Staff Officer, Army Co-operation Command, RAF 1943-1944; Deputy Director of Staff Duties, War Office 1944-1946; Director of Manpower, War Office 1946-1949; Vice Adjutant General to the Forces 1949-1952; General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland 1952-1955; retired 1955.
• 1955. Princess Margaret visited Bermuda.

• 1955. March 8. New York newspapers carried a story of how the Furness Bermuda Line offered the olive branch a day earlier to the 300 seamen, who walked off the luxury liner Queen of Bermuda the previous Saturday, stranding 560 Bermuda-bound vacationers. It had just released the following poster.

• 1955. A Coy Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI), who arrived in Bermuda in 1954, paraded for HRH Princess Margaret in Hamilton

  

  HRH Princess Margaret inspecting an Honour Guard at Prospect Garrison, Devonshire, during her 1955 visit to Bermuda. It was formed by "A" Company, 1 Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI). She was escorted by Commanding Officer, Major J. A. Marsh, DSO and Garrison Commander Brigadier J. A. M Rice-Evans.

Members of the DCLI  also paraded at Albouy's Point, in front of the moored cruise ship Queen of Bermuda

• 1955. June 1. The Cold War listening post at the U.S. Naval Facility, Bermuda, atop Tudor Fill, Southampton Parish was officially opened, after a year of work by Navy Seabees and Western Electric Company of USA. Circling USN aircraft dropped sonar buoys to locate Soviet submarines heading for Cuba or the east coast of the USA. The buoys were a communications hub in the readiness to launch a nuclear response. 
• 1955. June, James Mathews, stationed in Bermuda with the United States Air Force at Kindley Air Force Base until June 1958, was one of the five technicians who set up and operated the Kindley AFB TV station, ZBK-TV, Bermuda's first. They loaded it at the factory in Michigan City, Indiana, trucked it and then flew it to Bermuda via Dover AFB.  
• 1955. For several years from this one, the 59th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron (Hurricane Hunters) were based in Bermuda, at the USAF's Kindley Air Force Base.
• Death of Dr. Edgar Fitzgerald Gordon, the man who had organized the Bermuda Workers Association in the 1940's as the forerunner of the Bermuda Industrial Union. Many of Bermuda 's blacks wept at his graveside. That they had a better future was in very large part due to his tireless efforts on their behalf over more than two decades.
• 1955. On July 4, Independence Day, American servicemen and their families and friends in Bermuda had a special reason to celebrate. ZBK-TV from Kindley, Bermuda's first television station (no longer in existence) signaled a new era of communications. The audience was officially limited to television receivers in on-base quarters and barracks. But a number of Bermudian families who had equipped themselves with TV sets in hopes of 'catching' the programming were not disappointed in their investment. The signal could be picked up easily in St. George's, Tucker's Town and a few isolated spots even as far away as Harrington Sound, in the vicinity of Flatts. Locals acquired a TV set and could easily receive from their hill-top vantage point the TV signal from Kindley - and periodically invited their neighbors and friends around to watch the American shows, then only in black-and-white, of course. Originally, it had been intended to provide Island-wide TV service and the Bermuda Government had given its permission. But it was discovered that it would not be possible, because the TV footage was then provided by the American TV networks, agencies and unions for transmitting to military forces and their dependents only, not for civilian audiences. TV for the US Navy at Southampton and for all of civilian Bermuda took longer to materialize. American TV engineers who arrived at Kindley were faced with the highly technical problem of trying to restrict transmission to the base area. The USA military audience in Bermuda was exceedingly small, limited to television receivers in on-base quarters and barracks. One of the reasons behind the decision to allow TV to the American military was the fact that the 1,500-plus American service families felt they should not be 'deprived' of TV simply because they were residing in Bermuda, when US bases elsewhere in the world all had TV.  The station was one of the last arrivals in Armed Forces Radio and Television Service outlets installed at American military bases overseas.

• 1955. August 14. Death in Kenya of Lieutenant Colonel ("Tupper")  Brooke-Smith, King's Shropshire Light Infantry, when on active service against the Mau Mau in Kenya. 1955. A year of tragedy for a family with strong Bermuda connections. He served as GSO-2 (Adjutant) of the Prospect Garrison in Bermuda from 1949-1952. He was the son-in-law of the late Helen Arnell and brother-in-law of local naval and postal history historian and author Dr. Jack Arnell. He was accidentally shot and killed in 1955 by his own troops in a forest near Nairobi, Kenya, during the Mau Mau uprising. His unit had been posted to Kenya after serving in Bermuda. Brooke Smith’s researches in Bermuda led to the erection and inscriptions of the military monuments at the Prospect Garrison burial ground and the installation at the Prospect Officer’s Mess – later, the Police Club – of a plaque recording briefly what principal British Army units had been based in Bermuda. In 1949, according to an account posted by his brother-in-law Jack Arnell, see below, another account says 1950), then-Major  Brooke-Smith was posted to Bermuda as GSO II to the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bermuda. He previously served at Buckingham Palace, London. He was in Bermuda as a staff officer (not in any way attached to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry posted there later). He had been commissioned into the KSLI on 30th January 1936. He was appointed temporary Lt Col on 28th June 1945 but reverted to his substantive rank of Major shortly afterwards. In Bermuda, he married a Bermudian, Joyce Arnell, the daughter of Mrs. Helen Arnell. (His brother-in-law was the late author and historian Jack Arnell). He relinquished his appointment in Bermuda in 1952 and returned to 1 KSLI. He took over command of the Battalion in Kenya. In 1956 he accidentally walked into an ambush that had been set on a track to lure the Mau Mau. He was shot in error by a Bren gunner member of his own unit and died instantly. It was recorded as a tragic accident. He was buried in a civilian cemetery in Nairobi, Kenya instead of being brought back to the UK for burial. His name is shown, belatedly, on the War Memorial at Bishop Sutton, Shropshire and in 2007 was included on the National Armed Forces Memorial in Staffordshire. One son,  Bruce A. Brooke-Smith, lives in Threeburrows, Blackwater, Truro, Cornwall. There was also a daughter, Philippa, who died some years ago.
• 1955. The American "Crunch and Des" TV Series was filmed in Bermuda.
• August 1956. "Time Out For Teenagers”  was a weekly live television program that aired on ZBK-TV, Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda, until August 1957. Host of the program - a presenter in British BBC and Bermuda terminology - was Lee (Tedford) Grantham.  He was joined from time to time as assistant hosts by persons including Barbara Best, John Dudney, Judy Gaddy, Patricia "Trish" McLaughlin, Tucker McClane, Tommy Newkirk, Ellen Ray, Brian Stephenson,  John Stith and Jackie Tightman. Lee was the elder son of Major Dick F. Tedford USAF, from the USA, stationed at Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda from June 1955 to August 1958 with his family including much younger son Scott. The show was produced mostly by Mary Jane Tedford, wife of Major Tedford and mother of Lee and Scott. Lee also wrote to this author: "I began a radio program on ZBM-2 daily, playing top forty music and went on to have daily and weekly music programs on ZBM-1 as well. They were historic years in the history of Broadcasting in Bermuda and those of us fortunate to be a part of that page in Broadcast history." Lee and since written the website Bermuda and Beyond describing his experiences then, as a highlight of his life - and since then.
• 1955. December 22/23. Hamilton Hotel was destroyed by fire. It was built in 1851, during the term of Mayor Henry James Tucker, the cornerstone of the original Hamilton Hotel was built. On completion in 1852 it had 36 rooms. It was the first hotel in Bermuda and pioneered Bermuda's fledgling tourist industry. It was extended and modernized at the beginning of the 20th century. It stood where the City Hall Car Park is now located. It was a landmark in Hamilton for over a century, by then no longer a hotel but headquarters for many Government Departments and sundry agencies. In one of the most spectacular fires ever witnessed in Bermuda , on the night of December 22/23, it was totally destroyed. It had been Bermuda 's first major hotel and had been funded by the Corporation of Hamilton, after pressure from the mercantile community of the mid-19th century to provide a decent hostelry for tourists. Its construction was marked with initial enthusiasm, then considerable diffidence until the original pioneer of steamship services to Bermuda, Samuel Cunard, had forced the issue by withdrawing his ships from the Bermuda run in protest against the lack of a suitable facility for the clients on board his ships. Over its century of establishment, the Hamilton Hotel was added to on a number of occasions. And it had welcomed many distinguished visitors, plus the crews of Bermuda 's famous cruise-ships of the Furness-Withy Line and the thousands of passengers who had disembarked from those ships. The shell of the hotel was too far gone from the fire to warrant reconstruction. Instead, it was decided by the Corporation of Hamilton that the site would be earmarked for a brand-new City Hall.

Hamilton Hotel begin in 1851, finished in 1852, destroyed by fire 1955

• 1956. The Technical Institute opened as a replacement for the Dockyard Apprentice Training Scheme. It was the first non-segregated school supported by Government. It was a forerunner of the Bermuda College.
• 1956. George Sousa was the first Bermudian of Portuguese descent to star in local FA  cup soccer. He captained Bermuda from 1956-1959.
• 1956. The movie "Bermuda Affair" was filmed in Bermuda. It starred Kim Hunter, Gary Merrill and Ron Randell and was filmed mostly at Darrell's Island during the latter's short-lived time as a movie studio after it closed as a base for flying boats aircraft.
• 1956. Spithead House in Warwick Parish was lived in by British actor, playwright and composer of popular music Sir Noël Peirce Coward (born 16 December 1899, died 26 March 1973) who later went to live in Jamaica.
• 1957. March 26. Big Two Conference in Bermuda between Prime Minister Harold McMillan and US President Dwight Eisenhower. 

President Eisenhower being greeted by British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan on arrival at Kindley Air Force Base, Bermuda

Also present were Canadian Prime Minister Louis St. Laurent for two days of talks and other British Commonwealth officials. The latter group , with Bermuda's Governor Lt. Gen Sir John Woodall, the Mayor of Hamilton the Wor. E. R. Williams, and Officer Commanding British Troops in Bermuda, Brigadier B. E. Luard. reviewed the island's militia in Hamilton. There were two ships moored prominently alongside Hamilton Harbour that day. One was the Royal Navy frigate HMS Bigbury Bay while the other was the cruise ship Queen of Bermuda.  Photo shows British and Canadian Prime Ministers and officials including Captain Ross Winter, MCP, Commandant of of the Bermuda Reserve Constabulary (BRC) reviewing the BRC in Hamilton. Behind them is the cruise ship Queen of Bermuda. Behind Louis St. Laurent is S. S. Toddings, MCP, Chairman of the Defence Board. Photo kindly loaned by his step-daughter Cindy Farnsworth Toddings. Ed Kelly photo.

• 1957-59, Cliff Morris was in the US Navy in Bermuda, based at the Annex in Southampton, pulling duty at the secret Tudor Hill submarine and surface ship detection facility. He also hosted a radio program on ZBM-2 that was sponsored by the Navy
• 1957.  May 16 to 28. The Bermuda Tattoo included the U.S. Marine Band from Washington D.C. It was Bermuda's second such event and held at the British Army's Prospect Garrison parade ground (which later became the National Stadium). The Bermuda Government budgeted £12.935 for it, on a motion passed by the House of Assembly at the request of Mr. S. S. Toddings, MCP, Chairman of the Defence Board. The object was to show the British flag in Bermuda and to provide valuable training and interest for the Local Forces. The Dominion of Canada agreed to assist, by supplying one Naval and four military units and to transport to and from Bermuda at no cost to the colony. Feeding and housing were Bermuda's responsibility.
• 1957. USAF Thunderbirds visited Bermuda for the first time. The team's pilots were: Maj. Robby Robinson - leader, Captains Bill Bartley and Doug Brenner on the wings, Lt. Bill Pogue - slot, Capt. Bob McIntosh - spare, and Capt. Sam Johnson - solo. 
• 1957. The old (and original) Watford Island Bridge that lasted for 54 years was rebuilt, with this replacement to last a mere 23 years.
• 1957. July 29. The Public Library (later, the Bermuda National Library) was transferred to a new extension to the original Par-la-Ville building, in premises owned by the Corporation of Hamilton, where it is today in part, except that the Archives and Youth Library are no longer there. Also as a tenant in the Building, the Bermuda Historical Society moved to this building from East Broadway.
• 1957. Juanita Furbert (Guishard) became the first black nurse at KEMH, Bermuda.
• 1957. The Jamestown Exposition celebrated the 350th anniversary of Jamestown.
• 1957. At Darrell's Island, Bermuda, the black and white and color 5-star film The Admirable Crichton, a comedy, was made. The story, from the well-known book, is of an aristocrat and his family who are shipwrecked. Directed by Lewis Gilbert and 94 minutes long, it was produced by Ian Dalrymple and  written by J.M. Barrie (play), Lewis Gilbert (adaptation), Vernon Harris (screenplay). It starred Kenneth More, Diane Cilento, Cecil Parker, Sally Ann Howes, Martita Hunt, Jack Watling, Peter Graves, Gerald Harper, Mercy Haystead, Miranda Connell and Miles Malleson. Music was by Douglas Gamley and Richard Addinsell (waltzes).
• 1958. On New Year's Day, Harvey Conover, successful businessman and renowned yachtsman, sailed with his family into the Bermuda Triangle and was never heard from again.
• 1958. On January 13, the first local television program went on the air in Bermuda. It was ZBM-TV. Lee L. Tedford (see note in 1955) wrote" I worked with former members of the BBC (from London), CBC (Canadian Broadcasting), ABC and the Bermuda Broadcasting company's Radio Centre staff. Quinton Edness, now retired, still very much alive, was a leading local light (and later became a prominent Cabinet Minister). Non-Bermudian staff at the time (nowadays they must by law all be Bermudian or married to one) included Walt Staskow, Canadian, ZBM overall station manager.  Other Canadians, formerly of the CBC, were Jack Dodge, Dick Varney and Ken Ludwig. The chief engineer of the TV operation was on loan from the BBC. The prime-time director was Holmes from ABC in New York. Other Americans included Cliff Morris (also in the US military in Bermuda, who joined ZBM-2 after his US Navy tour of duty), Ed Hinson, Jay Lloyd and Jack Dodge (now living in Florida) from the US Bermuda bases but  I believe I was the only American doing any on-air announcing. I also wrote a column about TV for the Kindley "Skyliner" for a while.  I attended Whitney Institute, where I met Tim Olander. We played basketball together on the Kindley Hawks."
• 1958. Eagle Airways first arrived in Bermuda. (See more details in Bermuda Aviation).

Eagle Airways at Civil Air Terminal

• 1958. 6th April. HMS Bermuda - see http://www.hmsgangestoterror.org/HMSBermuda.htm - arrived, on its first visit. Built on the Clyde in Scotland in 1939, it saw distinguished service in World War 2. HMS Bermuda (No. 8) was built by John Brown & Company at Clydebank, laid down in November 1938 and commissioned on August 21, 1942. Originally, the ship had 12 six-inch guns, anti-aircraft pieces and six torpedo tubes. During the war, she served in the Mediterranean, the North Atlantic and Arctic and finally in the Pacific theatre. In later years, the vessel was a part of NATO, but was taken out of service in 1962. Some silver objects given to HMS Bermuda by the island are now at the Bermuda Maritime Museum. She visited Bermuda 3 times: 1958, Jul 1959, and Feb 1962.

Kindly sent and copyrighted by http://www.hmsgangestoterror.org/HMSBermuda.htm

• 1958. Bermuda Properties Ltd. purchased the Castle Harbour Hotel from the Bermuda Development Company Ltd.
• 1958. Off Bermuda, the wreck of the 1609 ship "Sea Venture" was discovered by Edmund Downing from Virginia, a direct descendant of George Yeardley who had been the captain of soldiers on the original voyage and later went to Virginia.
• 1958. Colonial Insurance Company was founded, developed from The Gibbons Company car dealership, as they thought they might as well insure the cars they sold.
• 1958. July 7. W. L Tucker, MCP for Devonshire, proposed in Bermuda's House of Assembly that the voting system be changed,  to enfranchise more Bermudians in accordance with the 1945 Parliamentary Act that had not yet been implemented.
• 1958. Eight black legislators, Collingwood Burch, Russel Levi Pearman, W. L. Tucker, Hilton G. Hill, E. T. Richards, Walter Robinson, Arnold Francis and Dr. the Hon. Eustace Cann, formed a delegation to meet Alan Lennox-Boyd, Secretary of State for the Colonies, during his visit to Bermuda. 
• 1958. Watford Bridge was rebuilt to provide fishing and pleasure boats a shorter trip to and from the West End. 
• 1958 The movie "Adventures of the Sea Hawk" TV Series was made in Bermuda.
• 1958. The Adult Education School began, in Hamilton.
• 1959. March. There was a potentially serious incident involving an aircraft. The pilot of a USAF F-100 fighter aircraft ejected from his plane after his engines flamed out. But he landed in the Atlantic, only 40 miles from Bermuda. A helicopter from Kindley scooped him out.
• 1959. Bermuda earned some free publicity with an event that occured in London. The prestigious Odeon, in Leicester Square, long the flagship of the Rank Organization's chain of movie theaters nationwide in Britain, featured the world premiere of the film "The Admirable Crichton."  The famous British actor Kenneth More, who had portrayed so magnificently the war-time exploits of legless hero Group Captain Douglas Bader, RAF - and the lead in countless other movies - was the star of the hilarious comedy. He and Lewis Gilbert had been, respectively, the star and director of Reach for the Sky, before they journeyed to Bermuda to film The Admirable Crichton. Also playing parts in the movie were the well-known British character actor Cecil Parker and the actresses Diane Cilento (who later became the wife of the film-star Sean Connery) and Sally Ann Howes.
• 1959. In Portsmouth, England, Bermuda celebrated the 350th anniversary of its founding in 1609.
• 1959. March. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for a 2-day visit relating to the 350th anniversary.
• 1959. In Bermuda, a black people's boycott resulted in abolition of segregation in Bermuda hotels and theaters and restaurants. It was organized by "A Progressive Group" to coincide with the 350^th anniversary of the founding of Bermuda. Most Bermudians, black and white, recognized the 1959 Theatre Boycott for exactly what it was, a turning point in Bermudian affairs, a genuine watershed event, an exercise in selfless heroism. It ignited flares which erupted spectacularly and illuminated the whole shoddy scene that was segregated Bermuda. It stripped naked at last to the public  the everyday indignities, injustices and inequities upon which Bermudian society was then built. It exposed as both preposterous and pernicious the myth this was a racially harmonious little society, a myth perpetuated by those responsible for marketing the image of a cheery, genteel Bermuda to well-heeled vacationers. The boycott organized by the Progressive Group entirely discredited the advertising-driven lies believed by wealthy Americans and also a fair few Bermudians, not all of them white that this was an island where blacks not only knew their place but would do nothing to jeopardize it by engaging in any radical tomfoolery. It also demonstrated the foundations of the racial caste system in Bermuda. It was the beginning of the end of segregated theatres and restaurants and hotels. Not just blacks were victims, Catholics too in some case. Until then, segregation in public places had been a sop to visiting Easterners who, at the time, were only used to encountering blacks in restaurants if they happened to be serving in them. Other miscarriages of justice had occured in everything from housing to education to social mobility. Racial boundaries circumscribed the lives and opportunities of blacks from cradle to grave and caused considerably more distress than seating arrangements in cinemas. But in the 1950s, the cinema was still the primary source of public entertainment. Thousands of Bermudians and visitors went to the movies every week. The segregated seating, blacks downstairs, white upstairs, vividly literalized old social divisions. So the cinemas became not only the most highly visible target for the Progressive Group's action, a boycott also provided an opportunity for blacks to demonstrate their growing economic clout by disrupting the revenues of a largely white-owned concern. It was a rigidly hierarchical society and while whites may have been the dominant racial group, not all whites were in dominant positions. Far from it. Most were marginalized and filled low-status, low-skilled service positions, disadvantaged in their own way if not actually discriminated against. Interestingly, the USA had already seen major changes for the betterment of blacks. World War 2 and the major role played in the liberation of Europe by black soldiers from the modern slavery of the Nazis had forced black and white Americans alike to contemplate the proscriptions on freedom at home. The emergence of an educated, articulate and increasingly prosperous black middle class during the post-war boom made it increasingly difficult to avoid change. In 1948 President Harry Truman integrated the US armed forces. In 1957 President Eisenhower sent Federal troops into Arkansas to enforce the integration of public schools. The modern Civil Rights era was underway. Yet Bermuda had remained stubbornly resistant to change. The Theatre Boycott ended segregation in public places in a matter of days. More importantly for the island's long-term well-being, it also prompted a decade-long debate on the future direction and character of Bermuda. Members of a generation of forward-looking, liberal-minded whites emerged along with some older power brokers who, for pragmatic rather than idealistic reasons, recognized the old order had to be dismantled. Partnering with the Progressive Group and its supporters, they went on to introduce in trial-and-error but largely peaceful fashion a social system that more broadly conformed to the hopes and expectations of the majority of Bermudians. The Theatre Boycott was the catalyst for profound and irreversible change in the racial power dynamics in this community. It also prompted a radical reorganization of Bermuda's political system and economic pecking order.
• 1959. Members of the St. Mary's Church Guild with a passion for flowers and gardening sought to further their interest by applying for membership in the Garden Club of Bermuda. Their applications were not accepted, presumably because they were all 'coloured' women.  The Warwick ladies decided they would form their own club. The name 'Hibiscus' was chosen because of the popular flower that adds its beauty to hedges and roadside foliage especially in the spring and summer. The first meeting was at the residence of Mrs. Ruth Simons at Cedar Hill. The 11 people present were Mrs. Simons, who was elected president, Miss Julia Lightbourn and Mesdames Ruth Wainwright, Edna Conyers, Laura Bean, Mildred Smith, Faith Steed, Victor Scott, Horace Davis and Louise Wilson. Also at that meeting was Reginald Ming, Government's first Heritage officer, who according to an excerpt from the minutes of the meeting gave the ladies helpful suggestions and promised to use his office to get them affiliated with an outstanding club in England. At that inaugural meeting Mrs. Simons served her guests cake and champagne. Tea and cake was served at their regular monthly meetings. The Hibiscus Club is not restricted to growing hibiscus, but is interested in all types of plants and vegetation and all forms of floricultures, gardening and landscaping.
• 1959. A longshoreman's strike in Bermuda crippled imports.
• 1960. The black people of Bermuda, by then the majority and with significant involvement in commerce, campaigned for universal adult suffrage, initially denied them. Dr. Roosevelt Browne was the father of the Committee for Universal Adult Suffrage was formed for the purpose.
• 1960. February 11. City Hall, in the heart of Hamilton, opened on this day, was designed by Bermudian architect Will Onions, best remembered for domestic residences. In addition to housing the Corporation of Hamilton, it became the home of the City Hall Theatre, the Bermuda Society of Arts and Bermuda National Gallery. 
• 1960. Prince Andrew was born, the third youngest of four children of the Queen and Prince Philip.
• 1960. Construction of the NASA tracking station was completed, after work began on it in 1959. The NASA station, now deserted but still with its signs, is at the end of Mercury Road on Cooper's  Island, on the southeast tip of the former base, (adjacent to what is now Clearwater Park). Many airmen and locals were employed to help complete the construction on time. Bermuda became part of the NASA worldwide tracking network and initially it's primary responsibility was computer monitoring and along with Cape Canaveral could abort a mission on the downrange before going into orbit. The Atlantic Ocean abort landing area was between Bermuda and the Canary Islands. The seven Mercury astronauts, Shepherd, Grisssom, Glenn, Carpenter, Cooper, Slayton and Schirra were frequent visitors to NASA Bermuda in 1960 & 1961.
• 1961. Because of the vision of Sir Gilbert Cooper, a former Mayor of Hamilton, the Bermuda Society of Arts found a permanent home in City Hall, Hamilton.
• 1961. January. In Ottawa, the Cabinet Defence Committee approved the establishment of a High Frequency Direction Finding (HFDF) installation in Bermuda. This was as a direct result of the continued Canadian presence in Bermuda. This decision was noted by the Canadian Cabinet at a meeting in February 1961. 
• 1961. US President John F. Kennedy and Prime Minister Harold McMillan conferred in Bermuda.
• 1961.  The USA and and the United Kingdom formally agreed to open a US Space Tracking station in Bermuda. March NASA opened its Cooper's Island base. It cost the USA $5 million to build. For fiscal and diplomatic reasons, local workers were used as much as possible to build the station, and NASA employed 60 contractors and 20 Bermudians to operate it. Located on a 77-acre rock-coral shelf just off of Saint David's Island on the northern shores, the main station was an eastward extension of Kindley Air Force Base and managed by the US Air Force. Its use dated back to a World War II agreement between President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill. A smaller site was in Town Hill on the main island. I It was part of the NASA Spaceflight Tracking and Data Network at more than 24 locations across five continents. It was used for 37 years as a tracking and communications facility for various space programmes, including the Mercury and Apollo missions and space shuttle flights because of its key geographical position in relation to launch trajectories for space vehicles blasting off from Cape Canaveral in Florida. The NASA Bermuda station manager was Bill Way, who helped set it up and played a key role in space exploration by tracking shuttle missions. His team's job included monitoring shuttles every 90 minutes as they came around the earth, and receiving scientific data transmitted by units left on the moon following lunar missions. Arriving in Bermuda from California with childhood sweetheart Margie and deciding never to leave, Mr. Way had seven children, two of whom died in tragic circumstances. He had a lifelong interest in science and engineering. He was involved in Apollo programmes. When they were little he would tell his children the stories about them and the children would get to meet the astronauts. He was also well-known on the local tennis circuit for his dedication to the Bermuda Lawn Tennis Association. Bermuda was one of NASA's first stations built on foreign soil and was also one of the most critical. With the exception of Cape Canaveral, it was the most complex and important of the 15 Mercury Space Flight Network (MSFN) ground stations. The Mercury Atlas flight path was almost directly over the island, which enabled a brief but essential 25-second window to track and make decisions about its status as it ascended into orbit. The vital determination to abort or continue a flight was known as "Go/No Go". During the launch of an Atlas rocket- an Air Force Intercontinental Ballistic Missile used to launch the Mercury astronauts and the NASA's early large satellites, a decision to continue or abort had to be made in only a 30- to 120-second window after the rocket's main engine had cut off. The failure rate of the Atlas booster in those early days was very high - about 50 percent - so aborted missions were common. The Bermuda station was established to keep an eye on every Cape Canaveral launch and the first critical phases of the flight downrange, making it a key station during the launch phase of any mission. The control centre at Bermuda provided reliable communications and controls in the event that it became necessary to make abort decisions. Many mathematical and trajectory experts believed such a "short arc" solution would be impossible, but data analysis, some of it generated by the Bermuda tracking station, determined that, even with such a small timeframe, a spacecraft could be turned around and its retrorockets fired so that it could reenter in the Atlantic recovery area before reaching its point of impact on the African coast. During Project Mercury, NASA's first man-in-space programme, the network was not well-centralized and communication was done by sometimes-unreliable teletype, so flight controllers were dispatched to most of the primary tracking stations in order to maintain immediate contact with the spacecraft from the ground. Astronauts also acted as capsule communicators (known as Capcoms) at various sites. Donald K. (Deke) Slayton, head of Flight Crew Operations at Houston's Manned Spacecraft Center, was said to have assigned astronauts to Bermuda (as well as sites in Hawaii, California, and Australia) as Capcoms to give them some much-needed rest and relaxation in beautiful places. Later, in 1963, to prepare for sending astronauts into space, an ocean floor cable capable of carrying 2,000 bits-per-second of digital information was laid to connect the new station on Bermuda with Cape Canaveral. This link continued to serve the Bermuda Station well into the Space Shuttle era. The Bermuda station was overhauled in preparation for the lunar landing programme. As it had been on Mercury and Gemini, Bermuda would be an essential station immediately after launch. As the first station to electronically see the rocket, operators could observe most of the second and third stage burns at high elevation angles. Bermuda monitored the ascent of the Saturn V into orbit and provided the critical "Go/No Go" data to Mission Control for flight continuation or a decision to abort the mission. In March 1965, a request was submitted for a $1.6 million consolidation and upgrade to the MSFN facility on Bermuda so it could meet the combined requirements for projects Gemini and Apollo. All of the various telemetry facilities scattered around in pre-fabricated metal structures and trailers on Town Hill and Cooper's Island were to be consolidated. The original facilities also were corroded by years of sea salt and moisture. An air conditioned, 1,100-square meter Operations Building was built and a 300-square meter Generator Building housed the diesel generator. Next to the USB antenna, a small building contained the hydro-mechanical equipment that pointed the massive antenna. Concrete foundations were dug for the dish and the collimation tower. Extensive cabling was installed, and a microwave terminal was relocated. 30 percent more maintenance and administration staff was added as well as 26 additional technicians as the site was ramped up to support Gemini and Apollo missions. When the Cooper's Island upgrade was completed, NASA dismantled the Town Hill telemetry site. Shuttle flights on easterly trajectories went all the way into orbit on their backs. In November 1997, Columbia, the Shuttle program's 88th flight, was the first to roll the entire stack from its usual belly-up to a belly-down position in a 40-second maneuver six minutes after liftoff. Known as a Roll-to-Heads-Up (RTHU) maneuver, it's performed prior to main engine cutoff so that communication with the contemporary space-based Tracking and Data Relay Satellite System (TDRSS) can be established some two and a half minutes sooner. Such a maneuver previously had been used only if Mission Control declared an emergency landing due to a failed main engine or the loss of cabin pressure during the crew's ascent into orbit. This innovation meant that the Bermuda station was no longer necessary for the success of NASA launches. The decision to close the site was ultimately a financial one, as it saved NASA $5 million a year; coincidently the same amount required to build the station in 1961. With Bermuda closed, Merritt Island/Ponce de Leon became the only source of tracking data for the first seven minutes of each Space Shuttle launch. The phase-out of the Bermuda station in 1997 signaled the end of the era of the worldwide network of spaceflight tracking stations. Bermuda had supported every human spaceflight that NASA had flown, making the critical "Go/No-Go" call on 118 missions.
• 1961. Universal, but not equal, suffrage was achieved. It was not equal because landowners receive a plus vote.
• 1961. The enactment of the Restaurant Act in Bermuda created parity between black and white diners.
• 1961. November 29. Enos the NASA chimp splashed down in the North Atlantic not far from Bermuda, after having been partly trained here. He pioneered the space launches from the USA. Enos was considered the most intelligent of all of the trained chimps, which is why he was chosen for the mission. Unlike Ham,  his elder "brother." Enos was not cuddly and friendly. He fought mightily against the veterinarians and operant conditioning, and was quick to bite so he was kept on tethers when not in training. While he was highly skilled at his tasks when he did them, early on he might complete his tasks only to turn on his trainers as soon as he was done. Enos was once locked in a metal box for a week, living in his own waste, in an effort to break him. It worked. Enos' mission was to attempt three orbits of the Earth for the Mercury-Atlas 2 mission. About five hours before the November 29, 1961 launch, the specially constructed primate couch in which Enos was secured was inserted in the spacecraft. He was relaxed during countdown, and all of his bodily functions were normal. Then, a series of delays began, leading some in the control center to joke that Enos was sabotaging the mission because he had talked to Ham and did not want to go into space. When the rocket was finally launched, Enos fared well, withstanding a peak of 6.8 g's during booster-engine acceleration and 7.6 g's with the rush of the sustainer engine. The Atlas rocket delivered 367,000 pounds of thrust, nearly five times what human astronauts Shepard and Grissom had experienced; Enos was unfazed. At his press conference in Washington, President Kennedy got a round of laughter when he said, "This chimpanzee who is flying in space took off at 10:08. He reports that everything is perfect and working well." During the second orbit, the lever for the motor skills test malfunctioned and Enos was shocked rather than rewarded for each correct answer. Nevertheless, he kept pulling the levers, continuing to perform his required operations as he was trained to do, despite the repeated shocks. His suit overheated and the automatic attitude controls malfunctioned, so the capsule repeatedly rolled forty-five degrees before the thrusters would correct it. Luckily for Enos, given his shocking predicament, mission control decided to end his flight. Three hours and 21 minutes after liftoff - 181 minutes of which he was weightless - Enos re-entered the Earth's atmosphere and landed in the Atlantic, south of Bermuda. Enos and his spacecraft were hauled aboard the Stormes an hour and 15 minutes after landing. Engineers scrutinizing the capsule found that it had held up well. So had Enos, though he'd ripped through the belly panel of his restraint suit, removing or damaging most of the biomedical sensors from his body, including those that were inserted under his skin. He also ripped out a urinary catheter while he waited in the capsule for pick-up. But once aboard the Stormes, he ate two oranges and two apples, his first fresh food since he'd been placed on a low-residue pellet diet. The destroyer dropped the chimpanzee astronaut at the Kindley Air Force Base hospital in Bermuda. The chimp was walked in the corridors and appeared to be in good shape apart from mysteriously high blood pressure, which Woolf speculates arose from Enos stuffing down his rage at his two years of mistreatment at the hands of humans. But, at least for a brief time, Enos was hailed as a hero by NASA and the press. His composure at a press conference surprised reporters. Unlike Ham, Enos was unperturbed by the noise and flashing bulbs, perhaps because of all he'd already endured. On December 1, Enos was sent from Bermuda to Cape Canaveral for another round of physicals, and a week later he departed for his home station at Holloman, set for retirement. Thanks to Enos, mission managers concluded that a human could withstand space travel. An astronaut riding in the MA-5 spacecraft could have made the necessary corrections in flight to complete the three-orbit mission normally. On the date of Enos' flight, it was announced that Lt. Col. John Glenn would make the first manned orbital mission on February 20, 1962. Glenn orbited the earth in the Friendship 7 and became a huge celebrity. In his speech to Congress, he said he was humbled when the president's daughter, Caroline Kennedy, met him and her first question was "Where's the monkey?"
• 1962. In January and again in August, Princess Margaret visited Bermuda.
• 1962. Unrestricted access to Britain by Bermudians came to an end with the passage through the British House of Parliament at Westminster of the Commonwealth Immigration Act. It aroused quite a lot of anti-British feeling among some locals - as it does even today. But it is not always known and appreciated that long before that legislation came into effect, Bermuda had been controlling, quite rigidly, with legislation of its own, the importation of British and other citizens.
• 1962. A second local commercial radio station organization, Capital Broadcasting Company Limited, using the call letters ZFB, began operating at 910 kHz AM. 
• 1962. FM broadcasting was introduced in Bermuda, with commercial radio stations ZBM-FM on 89.1 MHz and in 1971, ZFB-FM at 94.9 MHz.
• 1962. Some years after the British Army left Bermuda, the lands at Montpelier were planted as an arboretum.
• 1962. April. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for a brief visit.
• 1962. First forward planning, with the Dwyer Report and its "The Next 20 years." 
• 1962. George Sousa was the first Bermudian of Portuguese descent to become present of a local golf club, the Belmont.
• 1962. Bermuda's first successful professional black artist, Charles Lloyd Tucker, painted the cruise ship "Queen of Bermuda" in watercolor, sepia and ink.
• 1962. ZFB began broadcasting in Bermuda.
• 1962. The Bermuda Ballet Association was formed by Madame Patricia Gray, MBE with the support of Madame Ana Roje.
• 1962. Fame Magazine began publication.
• 1963. January 1. the Royal Canadian Navy signed a lease to obtain 11 acres of land at Daniel's Head, Sandy's Parish to build a Canadian Naval Radio Station for communications and anti-submarine purposes. It lasted until 1993. It was the only Canadian military base established on non-Canadian soil in the Western Hemisphere. The original lease was for 21 years at a cost of £6000 per annum. It was the beginning of the Canadian Forces Station (CFS) Bermuda. Negotiations had been ongoing for a considerable length of time for a Memo of Understanding on the formal Visiting Forces Agreement between the Bermudian and Canadian governments to finalize the Resolution of Property Acquisition. and Provision of Services and Utilities to support the proposed station. It too was finally signed in January 1963. Delays had been encountered because of Bermudian demands of right of way and defining the status of the Canadian Forces residing on the Island. Canadian demands for Duty Free privileges were reinforced by the US and British Forces status but still had to be ratified by the Home Government in London. On April 24, 1963, the advance party, sans dependants, arrived on site, commanded by Lt (N) Michael A. Ruymer, comprising CPO W.R. Harkness, LS C.A. MacDonald and Leading Storesman Tom Key. They began the task of finding, accounting for and storing the first-fitting material which was pre-shipped and stored in the Bermuda Crown Lands warehouse at Ireland Island. A Communications Technician was later sent to augment the station for the duration of the cryptographic installation phase. All station personnel were rationed and quartered at the US Naval Operations Base, by then known as the US Naval Annex, approximately 3 miles away. Canadian personnel were still not receiving Foreign Service Pay nor duty-free privileges because the Memo of Understanding still had not been approved by the Government in London. The personnel were also not allowed to have their dependants with them. (The ratification of the Visiting Forces Agreement in March 1964 made living in Bermuda a whole lot easier).
• 1963. 10th February. The Progressive Labour Party was formed by Wilfred Allen, Edward DeJean, Hugh Richardson,  Walter Robinson, Dilton Cann, Austin Wilson and Peter Smith. Its purpose was to form a political party to either take over the government of Bermuda or directly address inequities in Bermuda which included its colonial relationship with Britain. In May, it contested its first General Election, with six of its nine candidates elected. They were Arnold Francis; Dorothy Thompson; Russell Dismont; Walter Robinson; Lois Browne-Evans (first elected black woman member of the Bermuda Parliament and a first-generation Bermudian with West Indian roots and Cecil Clarke. 
• 1963. The sites of Forts Victoria and Albert in St. George's were given over to a hotel concession and the adjacent military lands to the west became a golf course.
• 1963. In Bermuda, universal adult suffrage was declared, at the age of 25. The PLUS vote, for landowners, was abolished.
• 1963. Emperor Haillie Selassie of Ethiopia visited Bermuda, with his granddaughter, Princess Ruth Desta. Greeting him at the Civil Air Terminal were Sir Edward Richards, Colonel J. C. Astwood, Sir James Pearman, W. W. Davidson, Sir John Summerfield, American Consul General George Renchard, Sir John Cox, Acting Colonial Secretary Edward Smith, Chief Justice Sir Myles Abbott, Bishop Armstrong, Governor General Sir Julian Gascoigne and Lady Gascoigne.
• 1963. Modern, high-speed, land-based P-3 Orion aircraft replaced the seaplanes at the US Naval Operating Station, Bermuda.
• 1963. Casemates Prison was established at the former Royal Navy Casemates Barracks in Bermuda. 
• 1963. August 9. Hurricane Arlene a direct-hit, winds to 90 mph, much damage to vegetation. She dad been threatening the Island for almost a week before she came ashore. In her wake she left hundreds of boats, homes and vast areas of vegetation destroyed or damaged. It was the first time in a decade that a hurricane had not veered its course away from the Island.
• 1963. November. The US Coast Guard detachment in Bermuda transferred from the U.S. Naval Station to Kindley because greater range could be gotten from its HU-16 Albatross aircraft by land takeoffs rather than water takeoffs.
• 1964. The Bermuda Cement Company was given a lease by the Bermuda Government to build a cement silo at the Dockyard. (The lease lasted for 43 years). 
• 1964. The term "Bermuda Triangle" was first popularized, thanks to an article that appeared in Argosy Magazine by Vincent Gaddis.
• 1964. Prince Edward was born, the youngest child of the Queen and Prince Philip.
• 1964. In April, Her Royal Highness the Queen Mother visited Bermuda.
• 1964. August. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for a brief visit.
• 1964. November. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for another brief visit.
• 1964. The United Bermuda Party was formed.
• 1964. Central Planning Authority formed.
• 1964. Keep Bermuda Beautiful founded.
• 1964. Bermuda Sun weekly newspaper was founded.

• 1964. World premiere debut of this classic movie (see below) by Bermudian Arthur Rankin. It became the longest-running Christmas holiday special in world television history. The classic has entertained millions of families since then, with the world-renowned musical score from Johnny Marks and the voice talent of legendary performer Burl Ives (Sam the Snowman). It recounts the tale of a shy, young reindeer whose Christmas spirit is dampened because his shiny red nose made him the laughing stock of all Christmas town. Frustrated by their inability to fit in, Rudolph and his friend Hermey, the Elf who wants to be a dentist, set out on their own. However, they soon find themselves pursued by the Abominable Snowmonster. They flee to the island of Misfit Toys in the Arctic wilderness where Yukon Cornelius, a prospector they meet along the way, comes to their rescue. Returning to Christmastown, they learn that bad weather may cause Christmas to be canceled. But Rudolph's headlight--his illuminated nose--saves Christmas by serving as a beacon to guide Santa's sleigh.

Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer TV classic 1964

• 1965. February 2, the BELCO strike occured, with many repercussions. The local military and Bermuda Reserve Constabulary were embodied. The Bermuda Industrial Union was the main cause. It claimed management would go to any lengths not to recognize the rights of workers. Four persons were jailed, one found not guilty, several were made redundant, 14 were fined.
• 1965. The Bermuda Regiment was formed by the amalgamation of the white Bermuda Rifles and the black Bermuda Militia. 
• 1965. November 23. Princess Margaret and Lord Snowdon arrived in Bermuda on a British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) VC-10 jet, for a 6-hour whirlwind visit. They came after a vacation in the USA, while en route back to London. It was the Princess's second visit in 10 years, this time mostly to present the Colours of the newly-formed and de-segregated Bermuda Regiment at the National Stadium, Devonshire. 8,000 Bermudians and residents watched. She was given a diamond and platinum brooch, in the colours of the regiment. She and Lord Snowdon also toured the city of Hamilton where they were greeted by mayor Gilbert Cooper and met artist Bill Harrington who created the oil painting of the city given to them in honour of their visit. At Dellwood School, prefects observed Mr. A. E. Nicholl, chairman of the school's board, planting a prize hibiscus to commemorate the visit to Bermuda of the princess. Also present were head boy John Adams and head girl Mary Young.

Princess Margaret presented the Colours to the newly-formed Bermuda Regiment. Photo kindly loaned the author by Cindy Farnsworth Toddings, step-daughter of S. A. Toddings, MCP, then chairman of the Bermuda Defence Forces, shown front left. From center, going right, are Governor Lord Martonmere, Princess Margaret, Lady Martonmere, the Earl of Snowdon, Ruth Tucker, Cynthia Toddings.

• 1965. Mrs. Ruth Seaton James became the Registrar General. This made her the first black and woman to head a government department.
• 1965. Howard Academy had government funding withdrawn and was closed. Government also withdrew funding for racially segregated schools.
• 1965. First Development and Planning Act for "orderly and progressive development of land and to preserve and improve the amenities thereof..." 
• 1965. October 3. Pope Paul VI stopped off briefly in Bermuda on his way to address the UN General Assembly in New York.
• 1966. Strike action was taken by the BIU against Bermuda Electric Light Company Limited over union representation. It resulted in unprecedented civil disorder. A State of Emergency was called. There were riots, strikes, malicious damage and Molotov Cocktails thrown. Some policeman were badly injured.
• 1966. A Constitutional Conference was held in the UK to ponder Bermuda's Constitution.
• 1966. Qantas, the Australian airline, opened another around-the-world route. This was named the Fiesta route and was from Sydney to London via Tahiti, Mexico City, and Bermuda.
• 1966. Pompano Beach Club opened as the Island's first fishing club that allowed visitors using the fishing lodge to go out for a spot of deep sea fishing and return to enjoy their freshly caught fish in the club's small dining room. Over the years the club grew with additional buildings and by the early 1960s it had developed into a small hotel. Tom Lamb Jr. and his wife Jean were co-founders, bought it outright in 1957 and ran the business until the early 1980s when Mr. Lamb passed away. The couple's daughter Aimee and her soon-to-be husband David Southworth took over in 1982 and were joined four years later by the youngest of the Lamb sons, Larry. Since 1989 Larry and his older brother Tom Lamb III have been the joint management team. The continuity maintained by having one family run the resort and the loyalty of long-serving staff and repeat-visit guests have been the greatest strengths of the hotel, which has since expanded. 
• 1966. When Ruth James was appointed Registrar General, she became the first black woman to head a Bermuda Government Department.
• 1966. The Queen of Bermuda cruise ship made her final weekly call at Bermuda. She had more luxury about her than many transatlantic liners. The service was impeccable and the food top-notch. She was also an immaculate ship. She was first class in every way. She was very, very popular on the 6-day cruise run between New York and Bermuda. In fact, the Bermuda run was a 'gold mine' for her British owners. The 22,500-ton Queen of Bermuda was one of the great liners of the 1930's. She was completed in 1933 at the Vickers-Armstrong Yard at Barrow-in-Furness and, together with her near-sister, Monarch of Bermuda of 1931, added great luxury to the Bermuda cruise trade. Along with splendid public rooms, a large main restaurant, an indoor pool and spa-cious sports and sunning decks, she boasted a great novelty for that era: every cabin had a private bathroom. The fares in the 1930's began at $50, the ideal honeymoon cruise or, as their owners, Furness Bermuda Line dubbed them, the honeymoon ships.. They sailed in regular tandem up to that fateful summer of 1939 when war started in Europe and they were called to more urgent, far less glamorous duties. In August 1939 she went to war. The 19-knot vessel survived the war, returned to the Bermuda run in February 1949 and sailed on it until, when deep into maritime old age, she was sold for scrap in Scotland in late 1966
• 1967. April 27. Bermuda Floral Pageant. The 17th annual, since the first postwar Pageant was staged in 1950.

1967 Bermuda Floral Pageant

• 1967. The Ocean Monarch, sister ship to the Queen of Bermuda but built much later, in 1951, left the Bermuda-New York route. She was sold to Bulgaria and renamed Varna.
• 1967. After the departures of the Queen of Bermuda and Ocean Monarch, the Cunard Line took over the Bermuda Government New York-Bermuda contract for a few years with its Franconia, and the Greek Line joined in with its similarly-sized Olympia.
• 1967. In London, the UK Parliament approved Bermuda's new Constitution.
• 1967. The Hotel Keepers’ Protection Act became law.
• 1967. December 2. Five crewmembers died and others survived a terrible ordeal with the yacht Ramona ran aground at North Rock. Four of the dead were St. Lucians.
• 1968. Lois Browne-Evans was Bermuda's first female barrister, Bermuda's first female Attorney General, and the first woman to become Opposition Leader in a British Commonwealth country when she became leader of the PLP. She served as leader until 1972 and again from 1976 to 1985.
• 1968. March. Princess Margaret visited Bermuda.
• 1968. The Clayhouse Inn became a prime nightspot on the Island, attracting visitors from overseas and revellers from across Bermuda. It hosted an array of international and local talent under the management of concert promoter Choy Aming. Jazz musicians, drag queens, dancers, singers, DJs and other entertainers played to the crowds, while the venue also proved a launching pad for many local bands. It also played for laughs, hosting 'Not the Um Um' shows, and was an assembly point for Mr. Aming's colorful carnival dancers in the Bermuda Day parades. In January 2002 however, fire broke out in the apartments above, signaling the demise of the popular nightspot. Seven people including a two-year-old baby girl had to be rescued by firefighters from their balconies.
• 1968. Riots in April. A State of Emergency was called. Black Beret Cadre-led waves on insurrection and rioting followed, that lasted until 1972. They led to an investigation of the underlying causes by a Commission chaired by the Rt. Hon. Sir Hugh Wooding.
• 1968 Wooding Commission Report. Appointed by the UK. The Governor declared a state of emergency and a Royal Navy frigate was sent to the Island to maintain the peace. The Commission highlighted that many of the black youths involved were resentful of the predominantly white and expatriate Police force which, many felt, picked on young black men. The underlying causes of the violence were deemed to be racial conflict; limited scope for employment of black Bermudians in a ‘white economy’; the artificiality of the Bermudian society with its emphasis on holiday living and easy money; the heavy dependency upon alcohol and the increasing prevalence of drug use. Although in the years prior to 1968, a series of progressive laws were swiftly introduced, undoing centuries of enforced racism, with racial segregation dismantled, universal suffrage finally gained and a move made to integrate all of Bermuda’s schools,  the commission concluded that for many young blacks the changes were too few and were taking too long to really make a difference in Bermuda’s divided society. A frustrated population of young blacks were set to blaze in anger with even the smallest spark of racial injustice, the commission concluded. Those behind the 1968 riots were almost exclusively teenagers, the commissioners wrote. Racial tensions emanated from the deep historical divides between the races. The Wooding Commission “found that virtually everything in Bermudian society was viewed in racial terms”. Race defined all facets of society: relationships between the Police and blacks, the banning of “black” publications, the disputes between political parties and the attitudes of all Bermudians. The Wooding Commission saw a need for a “a new and true understanding, a deep conviction of the essentiality of building a single community, providing common opportunities for all and an unyielding commitment to promoting the democratic values of equality and fraternity in a society that is free in every respect”. The commission put forward a long list of suggestions for the UBP Government of the day to achieve this objective, including: Bermudianisation of local schools, by reducing the proportion of expatriate teachers (which, at that time, had reached 40 percent ). “Government,” the commissioners wrote, “should give urgent attention to the long neglected need for low-cost housing.” The Police Service, which formed a major concern for the commissioners, needed an extensive overhaul to make it more useful in meeting the needs of the society. Court Street, the commissioners wrote, needed a recreational centre for the area youth. “Effective control of the premises should remain with youths of the area,” the commissioners wrote, though Government should advise on its management and fund it.
• 1968. May 21. USS Scorpion, a Skipjack-class nuclear submarine, sank in the Bermuda region, 500 miles southwest of the Azores.
• 1968. May 22. An historic General Election took place, the first under full universal adult suffrage and the first under a party system. A total of 107 candidates contested 40 seats in the House of Assembly. The United Bermuda Party (UBP) had 39 candidates, the Progressive Labour Party (PLP) 38, the Bermuda Democratic Party (BDP) fielded 21, and there were nine Independents. The UBP won thirty seats and the PLP won ten. Sir Henry Tucker, leader of the UBP, was appointed Bermuda's first Government Leader.

• 1968. June 7. Bermuda took its historic step into responsible government at midnight when the nearly 300 -year-old unwritten constitution came to an end, and the new written constitution was brought into force. The constitution, the result of a lengthy debate in London, meant a Bermuda controlled more completely by Bermudians. The functions of Government once the responsibility of a series of Boards, were taken over by an Executive Council of 12 ministers (now known as the Cabinet) who were responsible directly to the local House of Assembly and not to the Governor. 

• 1968. The Bermuda Government and United Kingdom Government negotiated an entrustment deal that allowed Bermuda's leaders to negotiate with other countries on certain matters without asking for permission from Britain on every occasion. It became a working symbol of Bermuda's senior status with the government of the United Kingdom and a mechanism that helped Bermuda take its place as a responsible member of the international community. It was an essential tool of modern Bermuda. Intrinsic to the exercise of the general entrustment is the trust the United Kingdom has in Bermuda to negotiate arrangements that ultimately require its signature. The papers show that Bermuda was given power to: Negotiate and conclude trade agreements with other countries; Arrange or allow visits of up to 30 days for trade or commercial purposes by representatives or residents of Bermuda to any other country;

• Negotiate and conclude agreements of purely local concern with any independent member of the Commonwealth or the US or such other authorities that the Bermuda Government may request and the UK Government approve; Negotiate and conclude agreements for technical assistance or of a cultural or scientific nature with any independent member of the Commonwealth or the US or such other authorities that the Bermuda Government may request and the UK Government approve; and Negotiate and conclude agreements with other countries, whether bilateral or multilateral, relating to emigration from Bermuda to those countries and to emigrant labour schemes. The agreement says it is necessary for the Bermuda Government to inform the UK of any such negotiations and keep it informed of progress

• 1968. Department of Planning, DAB, established.

• 1988. October. Bermuda Regiment soldiers went on their first overseas exercise. A 28-man group spent four weeks in Jamaica with 'A' Company of the York and Lancaster Regiment, part of the British regular army, who were there for an introduction to jungle training. The training time was spent working in the rough terrain presented by the thickly forested hills around Berriedale, in Portland. The soldiers lived in a tented camp at Folly Point, just outside Port Antonio, where, during the rainy season in an area that receives more than 100 inches of rain a year, the tented camp soon became a muddy swamp where it was said that only strong discipline and a stronger sense of humor kept the soldiers going. Of this pioneering group of men on the exercise, known by the British Army as Exercise Sane, three went on to make Bermuda Regimental and Bermuda national history; and one went on to high rank in the Church. Lieutenant Eugene Raynor became the first black Commanding Officer of the Bermuda Regiment from1980 to 1984; Private Alvin Daniels became Captain Alvin Daniels and later the first Bermudian Aide-de-Camp to a Governor from 1973 to 1975, and Sergeant Larry Burchall became the first Bermudian Regimental Sergeant Major from 1978 to 1980. Going on to high rank in the Church was Corporal Calvin 'Skippy' Ball now Bishop Calvin J P Ball, Church of God (Washington State). Coming from Bermuda and working with the platoon was Company Sergeant Major Alan 'Boopsie' Burrows, a Bermuda Regiment pacesetter and trail-breaker in his own right and British Warrant Officer John Selby who today is a red-jacketed pensioner at Royal Chelsea Hospital, but who in October 1968 was on attachment to the Bermuda Regiment as the its Regimental Sergeant Major. Other Bermuda Regiment members in Jamaica were Gerald Bean, Edward Burchall, Allan Caines, Oliver K Darrell, John Deshields, Harold Dowling, Dennis Hassell, Glenn Ingham, J Looby, David Patterson, David Rowntree, Russell Seymour, Averylon Simons, William Todd, Peter Wilson, Creswell Williams.

• 1969. When man walked on the moon for the first time, the NASA station on Cooper's Island, Bermuda, played a key role.
• 1969. A group of scientists released a colony of gibbons on Hall's Island in Harrington Sound (and followed up on their progress in 1973). The scientists were studying the way the apes swing through trees and also monitored whether they were at play or rest via radios strapped to their backs.
• 1969. The Canadian Naval Radio Station Bermuda was officially changed in name to Canadian Forces Station Bermuda. It was one of the first Canadian stations to be manned by the "new-look" unified Canadian Forces Personnel.
  1969. Bermuda National Trust founded.
• 1969. Bermuda's first Black Power conference was held.
• 1969. Race Relations Act was enacted.
• 1969 October.  For a United Press International Conference in Bermuda, delegates included US Attorney General John Mitchell, Governor of New York Nelson Rockefeller, Walter Cronkite. They arrived at Kindley and were met by USAF personnel. Britain sent British Ambassador to the USA, Mr. John Freeman.
• 1970. March. Princess Margaret visited Bermuda.
• 1970. Prince Charles visited Bermuda, to open the 350th session of Parliament.
• 1970. Easter Sunday night. There was extensive restoration done after a mysterious fire, by an arsonist.
• 1970. Race Relations Council was appointed.
• 1970. The Heydon Trust chapel in Sandys Parish was converted to its present prayerful status, from a modest but picturesque 19th century farm laborer's cottage that appears to have been built much earlier.
• 1970. October. Racial riots resulted in countless acts of arson, strikes and malicious damage. A State of Emergency was called.
• 1970. Bermuda's first decimal currency, in dollars and cents, replaced the old British-style currency and the Bermuda dollar was pegged to the US dollar, at par.
• 1970. The United States Air Force handed over its base at Kindley Air Force Base to the US Navy. It became the US Naval Air Station, Bermuda
• 1970. Captain Horace Gibbons was the first Bermudian to become director of the Bermuda Regiment Band.
• 1971. Senator Edward  Kennedy began one of his most significant connection to Bermuda with his relationship with former United Bermuda Party MP John Stubbs. Sen. Kennedy recruited Dr. Stubbs, a surgeon who was familiar with both the UK and US health systems, to spearhead a fact-finding tour of Britain on behalf of the Senate Health subcommittee, which was looking to drastically improve healthcare in the States. The pair struck up a friendship which lasted many years.

Senator Edward Kennedy with Dr. John and Mrs. Stubbs

• 1971. Sir Edward (ET) Trenton Richards became the first Black leader of the UBP and Bermuda's first Premier.
• 1971. The year began with a major social development - integration in all Bermuda's public schools. From that moment on, there were no longer any 'black' or white schools, but premises infused with the Technicolor of real people. Unfortunately for Bermuda and its artistic community, however, one singularly talented man did not live long enough to savor the winds of change. Venerated Bermudian artist Charles Lloyd Tucker died suddenly in January, after suffering a massive heart attack. Bermudians black and white expressed their sorrow to his widow, Theresa.
• 1971. Flagship Cruises took over the Bermuda Government New York-Bermuda contract from the Cunard Line  with its Franconia, and the Greek Line with its similarly-sized Olympia and replaced them with the purpose-built specifically for Bermuda Sea Venture and Island Venture for the route. When these two ships were sold to Princess Cruises in 1974, the Sea Venture became the Pacific Princess, better known as the "Love Boat."
• 1971 to 1984. Champion racehorse breeder John Silvertand (who died in 2007) began to live in Bermuda and married a Bermudian with whom he had two daughters. He was the breeder of Afleet Alex who almost managed to win the fabled Triple Crown in 2005. The horse was third in the first leg – the Kentucky Derby – but won both the second and third legs, the Preakness and Belmont Stakes.
• 1971. Bermuda Building Code began, with application and planning regulations.
• 1971. A study on the Bermuda environment by Dr. Idwell Hughes showed significant loss of arable land.
• 1971. Freeman Fox study on highway and public transportation.
• 1972. Fisheries Act extended Bermuda's jurisdiction to 12 miles and required statistics on each species of fish caught commercially. It required commercial fishermen to be licensed.
• 1972. The Bermuda College was established by the amalgamation of the Sixth Form Centre, Technical Institute and Hotel College. 
• 1972. September 9. Assassination in Bermuda at his home, Bleak House, Devonshire, of Police Commissioner George Duckett, 45 years old, from England - in a planned and premeditated cold blooded murder, after disabling a security light outside the Commissioner's kitchen door – luring him outside and directly into the line of fire. His wife and daughter were intended to be victims too, but his wife escaped by car to call the police. His daughter Marcia was shot at five times, with one shot hitting her, but not seriously. A State of Emergency was called and Scotland Yard detectives were summoned. Confessed murderer Erskine Durrant (Buck) Burrows also attempted to slaughter Duckett's family when he began to spray bullets through the kitchen window, as the declassified Scotland Yard murder log of the investigation has revealed. Burrows fired one shot into the Commissioner's back with his small caliber .22 revolver – a shot that tore through both of Duckett's lungs, his heart and aorta. Duckett managed to stumble back into his house and close the door behind him before collapsing and dying, hemorrhaging blood from his mouth and his nose. Scotland Yard Detective Chief Superintendent William Wright noted the above in his first full report on the Duckett killing, submitted to then Bermuda Police Commissioner L.M. (Nobby) Clark on February 11, 1973. "From the direction of two of the bullets, which struck a metal tray during flight, it would appear as though the assassin was either trying to hit Mr. Duckett again as he lay on the floor or else was firing at Mrs. Duckett, who was at her husband's side. "The remaining three bullets, however, were deliberately fired in the direction of Mrs. Duckett and her daughter Marcia as they stood in the archway of the kitchen whilst she was attempting to telephone for assistance. Two of the bullets struck the wood paneling whilst the third one struck Marcia in the chest." It was later discovered the killer had cut the telephone wires leading to the house as well as disabling the Police radio in the Commissioner's official car parked outside Bleak House. Detective Chief Superintendent Wright and fellow Scotland Yard murder investigator Detective Sergeant Basil Haddrell arrived in Bermuda on September 11 and worked with the Bermuda Police on the Duckett killing and a series of subsequent violent crimes that rocked Bermuda's placidity in the early 1970s. In the shocking and bizarre resolution to the Commissioner's murder, Police Headquarters' trusty and one-time Duckett confidante Erskine (Buck) Burrows was arrested and charged with killing the Commissioner in 1973 following a politically-motivated murder and robbery spree that left five people dead including then Governor Sir Richard Sharples. Burrows had frequently worked as a handyman for the Commissioner at Bleak House, knew his habits and the lay-out of the house and property. Following the murder, Burrows had actually been detailed by newly-appointed Commissioner Clark to clean up the blood-stained Bleak House kitchen where Duckett died. Burrrows also attended the Commissioner's September 14 burial at the Military Cemetery in Prospect which overlooks Bleak House. Veteran officers remember him standing by the Police Vault for some 20 minutes, head bowed, paying his respects to the man he murdered. Members of the small militant wing of the Black Beret Cadre (BBC), revolutionaries inspired by the Black Power movement in the US, had met and recruited Burrows when he spent a short stint at the old Casemates prison in the early 1970s for a series of break-ins he almost certainly did not commit. It is believed Burrows' hatred for the rogue police officers who had beaten a false confession out of him for the break-ins resulted in him drifting into the Cadre's orbit. The Cadre's extremists recognized Burrows' value to them as a spy and agent provocateur at Police Headquarters once he was released from prison – Duckett, aware Burrows had likely been framed, had offered him his position back. Later, the Cadre focused his anti-authoritarian rage and moulded him into a once-removed assassin using indoctrination techniques that were standard in counter-culture para-military cells at the time (for instance, playing on Burrows' ego by always referring to him as "Commander-in-Chief of all Anti-Colonial Forces in Bermuda"). Burrows' grief over the Duckett killing (he considered the Commissioner a friend and something of a father figure) is believed to have led to his conversion to Christianity following his arrest. He provided a written confession to prosecutors during his Supreme Court trial for killing the Police Commissioner in 1975. "I, Erskine Durrant Burrows, being of sound mind and body, wish to reveal and make known the following truths," he wrote. "First of all, I wish to reveal the truth that I, Erskine Durrant Burrows, was the person who shot and killed Mr. George Duckett at his home Bleak House on the night as stated by the prosecution. I shot him in the back. I am also the person who fired other bullets through the kitchen window, one of which wounded his daughter, Marcia Duckett. I wish to state again that what I have written and revealed is all true: it is the truth. I wish to reveal also that I cut the telephone wires beforehand. I also cut the wires to Mr. Duckett's car radio beforehand. I came on foot and left on foot. I was alone. No one else was with me. Finally I wish to reveal that I have made all the revelations of my own free will. No one has forced or pressured me into doing so. I also add my signature willingly and of my own free will. Signed: Erskine Durrant Burrows." He also admitted his role in the March 1973 murders of Governor Sir Richard Sharples and his Aide-De-Camp Captain Hugh Sayers and was convicted of murdering supermarket executives Victor Rego and Mark Doe during the armed robbery of the Shopping Centre on Victoria Street in April, 1973. At the time of his arrest Burrows was described by then-Governor Sir Edwin Leather as "this tragic young man", saying he and, to a lesser degree, career criminal Larry Tacklyn (tried for collaborating with Burrows in the Government House and Supermarket killings) were puppets manipulated by hard-core elements within the militant Black Beret Cadre. "What I am convinced happened is that, at that moment of time, and probably quite accidentally, the small ring of BBC leaders still meeting together . . . suddenly realized that fate had put a new weapon in their hands in the form of these easily impressed and not very bright young criminals," said Sir Edwin. "They played on them, influenced them, almost certainly inspired some of the violent acts that followed and very probably planned them." 
• 1972. A Bermuda Regiment Volunteer Reserves team erected a Bailey Bridge on the Causeway in double quick time to ease traffic snarl-ups while essential maintenance work took place on Longbird Bridge. 30 members of the Volunteer Reserve unit took just two days to complete the bridge-building task which had been expected to take much longer. In October, 1972, Major Brendan Hollis was reported as saying: "The Royal Engineers judged it would take 60 men five days to complete the bridge; we have done it with 30 men in two days." Lt. Col. Michael Darling, commanding officer of the Bermuda Regiment at the time, said: "The enthusiasm of these men was really terrific. They were none of them youngsters, but they proved their worth today." 
• 1972-74, when the Southampton Princess was built as Bermuda's biggest hotel, almost 100% of the construction materials came from Canada.
• 1973. February 15. Opening date of large new hotel in St. George's, the Holiday Inn (later, Loews's Inn, later Club Med). It had a sad history and was finally demolished in 2008 in hope of having a new hotel. Present in 1973 were personalities including the Premier, Minister of Tourism and MCPs including Sir Dudley Spurling.

Holiday Inn, Bermuda, opened February 15, 1973

• 1973. Prince Charles arrived without pomp and ceremony as a Sub Lieutenant aboard HMS Minerva. He stayed for 4 days and attended a number of social functions but is main duties were on the warship.
• 1973. City of Hamilton Plan.
• 1973. Double assassination in Bermuda, on March 10, of Bermuda Governor Sir Richard Sharples and his aide Captain Hugh Sayers, at Government House while walking a dog. They were buried in the graveyard at St. Peter's Church in St. George's. A State of Emergency was called and Scotland Yard detectives were summoned. Later, the killer was tried and executed. The execution caused mass riots, strikes, malicious damage and injuries to policemen. (Much later, the family came to live in Bermuda, for UK tax avoidance purposes).
• 1973. Old Devonshire Church was damaged by an explosion on Easter Sunday.
• 1973. November. Hamilton's container dock # 8, and an extension of container dock # 7, were officially opened. 
• 1973. November. The Bermuda Government gave a tentative go-ahead for plans to create a national lottery and asked the Lottery Committee to draw up details. The Committee's report indicated strong support from residents and visitors. The Committee planned to use the money raised by the Lottery to finance a major sports complex, possibly at Shelly Bay, and other recreational facilities. But this never came to anything. 
• 1974. Princess Cruises bought Flagship Cruises Bermuda Government New York-Bermuda contract and the latter's purpose-built specifically for Bermuda Sea Venture and Island Venture. The Sea Venture became the Pacific Princess, better known as the "Love Boat."
• 1974. February. A US Navy tug freed the grain ship "Mount Julie" from a reef in Bermuda's main shipping channel.
• 1974. Sir Henry Vesey voiced his views on international insurance expansion in Bermuda. For the first 35 years of its existence, the Bermuda insurance market pinned its colors to the property and catastrophe sector. But when Bermuda began to move beyond the captive market it had pioneered in the 1960s, one of the early questions it faced was whether to admit life, and annuity business. A hard decision, rather than a vague policy ruling, was required from the Bermuda government when the Harvard University medical malpractice program applied to operate its captive business from Bermuda. Sir Henry Vesey, who had been chairman of the Bermuda Trade Development Board in 1969, famously said: "What we want to avoid is overexpansion," and Harvard was duly turned down. The program went to the Cayman Islands and led to that jurisdiction becoming, over the years, Bermuda's only meaningful offshore competitor in the insurance industry.

• 1974. "The Bermuda Triangle" first became a household term, through the publication of The Bermuda Triangle book by Charles Berlitz. Bermuda gave its name to this mysterious stretch of water largely as a result of the still unexplained disappearances of ships and planes both military and civilian including the airliners Star Tiger and Star Ariel in 1948 and 1949. It is said that when Miami, one of its other points, was asked if it wanted the Miami Triangle, it promptly and pointedly said no. When Puerto Rico, another point, was asked, it too immediately declined . When Bermuda was approached it did not reply, so got the name by default.

• 1974. The Legislative Council approved regulations allowing American civilians employed at the US bases in Bermuda to have the same on-base customs privileges as members of US Armed Forces.
• 1974. The USA and Bermuda established the first commercial pre-clearance agreement whereby passengers leaving Bermuda by air for the USA could be pre-cleared in Bermuda by US Immigration and Customs authorities, instead of having to line up for a long time on arrival in the USA, as do Europeans and others.

• 1974. The Bermuda College began.

• 1974. Development and Planning Act had far wider visions than the 1965 Act.
• 1974. Which Way Bermuda? Exhibition at City Hall. 
• 1974. Second Bermuda Development Plan, with 53% zoned as an Environmental Conservation area with reserves for future development.
• 1975. Meals on Wheels began in Bermuda and has been delivering healthy meals to the elderly and the infirm since then.
• 1975. Fred McMurray starred in the movie Beyond the Bermuda Triangle, a made-for-television drama. A retired businessman's obsession with the mysteries of the Bermuda Triangle increased when his lover and her friends become its next victims.
• 1975: March. Margery Wade, 34, was sexually assaulted inside her Hamilton apartment and killed with a blow to the head from a wooden plank. Her body was found on March 5, still inside the apartment on Laffan Street. Miss Wade was a schoolteacher from England who taught at the Berkeley Institute.
• 1975. Decline in grouper and snapper catch noted.
• 1975. February 16. Second visit to Bermuda (first was in 1953) of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Edinburgh. She was greeted by Governor Sir Edwin Leather. One of the events she attended was the Speaker's Dinner (which this author also attended), hosted by the Hon. Sir Dudley Spurling.
• 1975. October. Princess Margaret visited Bermuda twice, once on a private visit a week earlier.. One of her functions was to attend the 10th anniversary dinner at the Elbow Beach Surf Club of the Bermuda Regiment.
• 1975. The United Bermuda Party Black Caucus was formed.
• 1976. July 3. Third visit to Bermuda (first was in 1953, second in 1975) of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and Duke of Edinburgh. This time, it was purely a 4.5 hour stopover.

• 1976. In London,  an internal Scotland Yard memorandum was prepared for the Commissioner of London's Metropolitan Police summarizing his Murder Squad's involvement in the politically-motivated assassinations and associated crimes of violence that shook Bermuda in 1972/73. It read as follows: Following the murder of (Police Commissioner George) Duckett on September 9, 1972, the (acting) Governor and Commander-In-Chief of Bermuda (Ian Kinnear) requested the assistance of officers from the Murder Squad, New Scotland Yard. In consequence Detective Chief Superintendent William Wright and Detective Chief Inspector Basil Haddrell (then Detective Sergeant First Class) travelled to Bermuda to lead the investigations. These officers were still engaged in their investigations when on March 10, 1973 the (recently arrived) Governor and Commander-in-Chief Sir Richard Sharples and his Aide-de-Camp Captain Hugh Sayers were murdered in Government House, Bermuda. As there was a definite link between these murders and that of Commissioner of Police Mr. Duckett, Mr. Wright and Detective Chief Inspector Haddrell were deputed to lead the investigations into all three murders. To assist them a further 11 officers were sent from New Scotland Yard (at various times). During the course of the ensuing investigations, two further murders were perpetrated on April 6, 1973 when Mr. Victor Rego and Mr. Mark Doe were found shot at their supermarket in Victoria Street, Hamilton, Bermuda. The hands and feet of both victims had been tied by rope prior to their murders and a total of $21,000 stolen from the premises. At this stage it was clear all five murders were closely linked and, in some cases, the same weapon had been used. Investigations clearly indicated the murders were perpetrated by members of an illegal and militant black organisation known as the "Black Beret Cadre". This group was affiliated to the "Black Panther Organisation" of the USA and their aims were to end British colonialism in Bermuda and to seize control and power from the white population by removing High Officials from office by any means possible. The earlier activities of the organisation proving futile, they resorted to murder. A "Death List" was published within the organisation bearing the names of nine Senior Officials to be removed, including the Commissioner of Police and the Governor and Commander-in-Chief. Whilst Mr. Rego and Mr. Doe were not included on the "Death List", enquiries revealed they were murdered in the course of a "Fund Raising Mission" conducted by members of the Black Beret Cadre. The object of the mission was to take money from members of the white population for use in the purchase of arms and ammunition by which they might further their cause. Following the series of murders, members of the Black Beret Cadre organisation perpetrated further serious offences, including one attempted murder (of a black Bermudian taxi driver), two armed robberies, one attempted armed robbery and five incidents where revolvers and shotguns were fired at the windows of occupied buildings. Three of these shooting incidents were directed at residences occupied by members of the white community and two at the headquarters complex of the Bermuda Police, the first at the office occupied by the Murder Squad Investigation Team when five rounds from a .38 revolver were fired at the office windows and one other when a shotgun and revolver were fired at the windows of the Single Men's Quarters. Fortunately no person was injured by these acts of terrorism but the possibility of further attacks occurring and proving fatal could not be ignored. It became clear that the Black Beret Cadre had infiltrated members into Police Headquarters, and so were aware of the offices and accommodation used by the Murder Squad team. In consequence, firearms were made available to Metropolitan Police Officers (serving in Bermuda) to carry at their discretion. The mental and physical stresses experienced in dealing with acts of terrorism in a foreign land added to the strain of investigating five murders at one time were enormous, and the eventual success of these enquiries must present a true reflection of the courage, character and ability of the officers concerned. As a result of extensive enquiries, evidence was adduced to prove Erskine Durrant Burrows was one of the persons responsible for the two armed robberies and the five shooting incidents previously mentioned. At the time of his arrest, Burrows was employed as a janitor at Police Headquarters, Bermuda and was so able to communicate valuable information of police activities to his co-conspirators in the Black Beret Cadre. He was arrested on October 19, 1973 and was eventually convicted of all charges, receiving a total sentence of 25 years imprisonment. Whilst at this stage it was also apparent Erskine Durrant Burrows and another Cadre member, Larry Winfield Tacklyn, were responsible for the five murders under investigation, insufficient evidence was available to justify their prosecution for same. The murder enquiries continued and gradually more evidence was adduced. Following the results of the Coroners Inquests held in 1975, a Voluntary Bill of Indictment was granted indicting Burrows on five counts of murder and Tacklyn on four counts of murder (he was not charged in connection with the Police Commissioner's assassination). Both defendants were arraigned at the Supreme Court of Bermuda and three trials ensued. At the conclusion of the trials, Burrows was found "Guilty" on all five counts of murder and Tacklyn "Guilty" on two counts of murder (he was acquitted of participating in the Government House killings). Much of the success resulting from these difficult, dangerous, arduous and protracted investigations directly emanated from the thorough and exhaustive efforts of the Metropolitan Police personnel during the initial stages. The importance of correct documentation and thorough investigating was highlighted during the trials some four years (after the various crimes were committed), and their expertise and training of the local members of the Murder Team proved invaluable throughout the duration of the investigation. In fear of reprisals, virtually no public support was afforded the investigators but, despite this, the officers refused to be intimidated or diverted from their duty, and continued to work in a most professional and admirable manner. Bermuda's current transformation from political terrorism to peace and tranquility must be a reflection of the efficiency and ability of these officers.

• 1976. Two men, Borrows and Tacklyn, after being found guilty of the assassinations of the Police Commissioner, Governor and his ADC, were sentenced to death.
• 1976. Fame Magazine ceased publication.
• 1976. Boxer Clarence Hill won a bronze Olympic medal for Bermuda, the first of any Olympic medal.
• 1976. August. Sean O'Connell swam solo round-the-island for the Bermuda Physically Handicapped Association (BPHA) and raised thousands of dollars for it.
• 1977. February. Sir John (Jack) Sharpe, who had earlier replaced Sir Edward Richards as leader of the United Bermuda Party, was popular with the electorate but was eventually forced to quit after pressure from his own party members. Seven members of his Government, including members of the Black Caucus, resigned and accused him of bringing the party to a state of "political bankruptcy."
• 1977. First Bermuda chapter of  Ikebana International, the Japanese art of flower arranging, was formed by Kitten Ellison.
• 1977. The Shelly Bay Plaza at Shelly Bay in Hamilton Parish fell victim to an arsonist and was burned to the ground but within a year was rebuilt and back in operation. 
• 1977. June 17. The mystery thriller action adventure movie "The Deep" by Peter Benchley (who also wrote "Jaws") was released. Robert Shaw sang the praises of Bermuda-bottled and blended rum. Set in Bermuda, it also starred Jacqueline Bissett; Nick Nolte; Louis Gossett Jr; Eli Wallach; Dick Anthony Williams; Earl Maynard; Bob Minor; Bermudian Teddy Tucker; Robert Tessier and Lee McClain. A pair of young vacationers on a romantic stay in Bermuda are involved in a dangerous conflict with treasure hunters when they discover a way into a deadly wreck, a WW2 freighter, in Bermuda waters. Near it, they find an ampule of morphine, one of tens of thousands still aboard the wrecked ship. Their discovery leads them to a Haitian drug dealer, Cloche (Louis Gossett), and an old treasure hunter, Romer Treece (Robert Shaw). With Cloche in pursuit, Gail, David and Treece try to recover the sunken treasure.

• 1977. Possible political independence for Bermuda from the UK was first reviewed comprehensively in a Green Paper, followed by a White Paper stating Government's view Bermuda was not yet ready.
• 1977. July 23. Bermuda II was a Bilateral Air Transport Agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and the United States signed as a renegotiation of the original 1946 Bermuda agreement. It came about after, in July 1976, Edmund Dell, the then new UK Secretary of State for Trade, renounced the original Bermuda air services agreement of 1946 and initiated bilateral negotiations with his US counterparts on a new air services agreement, which resulted in the Bermuda II treaty of 1977.
• 1977. December 1-4. Mass demonstrations protested the sentences of death imposed and thousands of Bermudians petitioned to stop them. The Government, in a last-minute session of the Court of Appeals dismissed the final appeal on behalf of the two men on the night of December and refused to have a last-minute debate on capital punishment. As the two condemned men walked from their cell at Casemates to a holding cell beside the newly constructed gallows the prison went wild. Waiting in a tiny execution chamber was the visiting British hangman and his assistant from Trinidad, since Bermuda had no executioners. The two were old friends: they had performed the same task often enough in the Caribbean. At 4 a.m. on the morning of Friday, December 2, 1977 Burrows, self-styled 'former Commander in Chief of all anti-colonialist forces in the Islands of Bermuda' was hanged. Tacklyn went to meet the hangmen at 4.40 a.m. Some miles away a rumor was rumbling, the hangman was a guest on the top floor of the Southampton Princess. This prompted a hotel worker to jump on an elevator and douse the top floor's carpets with gasoline. Fire swept through the Southampton Princess and three tourists staying there were trapped and killed by the flames.  Revenge race riots erupted from the hanging of Buck Burrows and Larry Tacklyn at Casemates Prison. Burrows was convicted of the murders of the former Governor and his ADC in 1973, Police Commissioner Duckett in 1972 and of the Shopping Centre robbery and murder. Tacklyn was hung for the deaths of two Shopping Centre persons. A prolonged State of Emergency was declared, police stations were attacked, many police injuries occured and publicity overseas for Bermuda was frightful. Five hundred youths took over the Court Street Area, setting fire to the Gosling’s Warehouse and attacking shops in the area. Petrol bombs were thrown throughout the Island and Police responded with tear gas. Millions of dollars in malicious damage was caused by the rioters. The Bermuda Regiment was called up. For the second time, the Governor was forced to declare a state of emergency and request British military assistance. The frustrations of hundreds and anger with Bermuda's perceived racial inequalities were vented. Hundreds of black men aged 16-60 took to the streets within minutes. White people walking on Court Street were attacked and badly injured by the angry mobs. The crowd smashed windows at the Supreme Court and House of Assembly, overturned cars and set fires. Parliament and Victoria streets were a sea of glass after the crowd marched through smashing everything in its way. Molotov cocktails were flying. There was a glow from all the buildings and people running around in masks. Some of the businesses targeted and set alight were Bristol Cellars and Bermuda Air Conditioning. n the course of the day, Gosling Brothers warehouse, Piggly Wiggly supermarket in Shelly Bay and Sunshine Company were gutted. At the Transport Control Department a bus was rammed into the building. On Sunday, December 4 a squad of 250 British troops arrived, some from the jungles of Belize, with orders to shoot to kill, and the streets of Hamilton were finally quiet. British Governors of Bermuda were advised to stop having aides from overseas and instead to have local ones. It is how the tradition started in the Bermuda Regiment. Burrows and Tacklyn were the last to receive the death penalty in Bermuda.
• 1977. Sargasso Seafoods projects began.
• 1977. The concept of visiting not one but two Bermuda ports first started with the Cunard Princess cruise ship.
• 1978. A commission headed by Lord Pitt of Hampstead, known as the Pitt Commission Report, was ordered by the UK and convened to look into the December 1977 civil disturbance. It was released after the five-person bipartisan team interviewed scores of people over a six-week period before going abroad for two weeks to write the report. Members included Alex Scott and the late Irving Pearman. It recommended a raft of policies aimed at improving opportunities. It wrote that while the hangings of Tacklyn and Burrows were the immediate cause of the riots, there were many underlying issues which were "tangled together and derive much of their influence from the way they interact." It outlined issues within Bermuda and made recommendations on how to improve society and the economy for the benefit of all Bermudians. The Progressive Labour Party took on a dynamic role as the Opposition in giving many young people a political voice. Many involved in the riots, said “we needed to shake up the Government”. With many black Bermudians perceiving unequal opportunities, they felt that “rioting, though regrettable, can be a legitimate mode of protest”. The commissioners wrote: “Civil disorder in Bermuda during the last 13 years has functioned as a kind of extra-parliamentary political action.” A crisis in national identity was hitting the core of Bermuda’s black male, the commissioners wrote. Whereas his father viewed growing up in a small society and viewed himself as a subject of King George V, “a young black man today grows up in an international society oriented towards North America; his political conceptions are influenced by racial identifications in the United States, Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) and elsewhere.” Bermuda’s economic advances, the commissioners wrote, contributed to weaknesses in a young black man’s sense of identity. Expectations of educational performance were nourished that many young people could not meet. This was more “acute for black males than for white males or for females”, they wrote. “It can easily cause young men to feel that in others’ eyes they are failures, with the result that they seek other ways of shaping a sense of identity that will salvage their self-respect.” In 1977, the commissioners quoted the Bermuda Association of Social Workers on so-called disadvantaged youth: "their experience needs to be legitimated. They don’t see themselves as a problem. They say ‘We want you to recognize us for what we are, as as Bermudians.” Young black males, the commissioners said, were struggling with an identity “partially from the absence of a feeling of belonging to a distinctive national unit and partly a relative lack of success in what is now a very competitive society”. In their report on the disturbances of 1977, the Pitt Commission recommended that Bermuda seek Independence. National, or more specifically racial, unity would be attained only with a sovereign Bermuda, they said. Additionally, the Pitt Commission suggested that Bermuda introduce a more equitable tax system, which, if necessary, may include an income tax. “There is also an urgent need for programmes aimed at increasing the spread of Bermuda’s wealth,” the commission said. In the family, the commission said that several Bermudians that “discipline in the family and society has declined drastically dramatically in recent years.” They called for more fathers and male role models to become involved in the lives of young men. “Boys have no image or sense of direction when going to school. It is really a complete moral decay for young men in Bermuda unless the parents and few dedicated teachers are able to give them a sense of perspective,” a witness told the commission. “Lacking job motivation and experiencing job-related frustration, some male Bermudians, particularly young black males,” they wrote, may vent their frustrations through “anti-social behavior”. It concluded that the Island's parliamentary process did not properly represent Bermuda's citizens. It added that Bermuda needed to ensure that economic prosperity did not hinder society and cause sectors to loose a sense of identity. It found found that the underlying causes lay in the inequality of opportunity between the races. There is a strong belief that there is inequality of economic opportunities, concentration of economic power in Front Street, lack of support for small black businesses and lack of job training, lack of low income accommodation, decline in discipline, the single parent households, deficiencies in social welfare programmes and education and criminal justice systems. We devote more attention to the contributory causes than to the immediate causes because the latter are relatively simple, and so long as the sense of frustration was acute, a variety of factors could have served to precipitate disorder. We are led to emphasise with underlying popular impatience with what is seen as insufficiently equal opportunity. The identification of race with privilege sharpens this feeling but does not create it. The disturbances happened to be directed against the present Government but in the future disappointment with a different government could be expressed in a similar fashion." The importance of plans relating to child development and of their being supplemented by a programme of compulsory education for children of primary school age. The provision of a second chance to obtain a qualification. The importance of sharing the wealth and opportunities provided by Bermudas two main businesses: tourism and international business; we hope that the propose investigation of monopolies will extend to all forms of economic activity and will not be limited to the retail trade. The importance of substantially reducing immigration and assisting the promotion of Bermudians. We repeat our belief that in the long run it will prove essential to regulate the transmission of inherited wealth. Economic progress has also contributed to these weaknesses in the sense of identity, for it has nourished expectations of educational performance that many young people cannot meet. Bermudians should not set standards for themselves that are so high that they produce a class of casualties.
• 1978-1994. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh had a few brief stopovers in Bermuda en route to other destinations.
• 1978. On Boxing Day, the 528 foot ship Mari Boeing ran aground on Bermuda's reefs. Damage caused to the reef was huge, over 100 acres, and can still be seen.
• 1978. In February, the first traffic lights in Hamilton, Bermuda were switched on.
• 1978. Chuck Feeney came to Bermuda, as the founder of the Bermuda-based General Atlantic Group and Atlantic Philanthropies charitable institute, reported to be one of the wealthiest people in the world. A New Jersey native, he needed to be a resident on the island for a year. With the help of local banker Cummings Zuill he bought a large villa and that summer moved his entire family here.
• 1978. January 27. The made-for-'TV movie Bermuda Depths was first telecast. It was smash hit in the USA. It starred Burl Ives, Leigh McCloskey, Carl Weathers and Connie Selleca. The plot gets under way when scientists arrive in the Bermuda Triangle to investigate underwater disturbances. This activity seems to be tied in with reported sightings of the ghost of a drowned girl. Pursuing their investigation, the scientists run afoul of a giant sea turtle. The film was a rare live-action effort from the Canadian cartoon firm of Rankin-Bass. 
• 1979. A Constitutional Conference was held at Warwick Camp attended by the UBP, PLP and Foreign & Commonwealth Office officials.
• 1979. Miss Bermuda, Gina Swainson, won the Miss World contest in London. 
• 1979. In March, Piggly Wiggly Limited was purchased from Fernance Perry by Mr. Alvin Ferreira who at the time owned the Modern Mart grocery store on the South Shore Road in Paget and a number of cycle rental companies. In 1981, the name of the four stores were changed to the MarketPlace stores while Modern Mart continued to trade under it's own name. In September of 1987 the company further expanded with the acquisition of the A-1 Grocery Stores, the A-1 in Paget and the A-1 in Smith's. In August 1993, Mr. Alvin Ferreira unfortunately passed away at the age of 50, His wife Pamela took over ownership of the group of companies, which have continued to grow. 
• 1980. In February, the ship Arcadian Victory ran aground on Bermuda's reefs. 
• 1980. June 11. Former Beatle John Lennon arrived in Bermuda from Rhode Island aboard his 43-foot yacht Megan Jaye after a remarkable journey during which he steered it to safety amid a tropical storm. He kept a log of the voyage. It represented an important moment in Lennon's life.  It marked an end of the former Beatle's 10-year writing block and led to his final solo album, Double Fantasy. Lennon, whose father and grandfather were sailors, had always dreamed of making an Atlantic crossing. When a visit to an oracle in South Africa suggested that the safest voyage would be in a south-westerly direction, Lennon decided to charter the 44ft schooner Megan Jaye and make for Bermuda. Just hours after leaving Newport, Rhode Island, the vessel found itself in the middle of a ferocious tropical storm and, one by one, members of the crew fell ill. At one point during the five-day trip Lennon took charge of the yacht after the other crew members fell ill, and famously took the helm during a tempestuous storm. When the final crew member, the ship's cook, also succumbed, Lennon lashed himself to the wheel and steered the vessel to safety. Upon landing in Bermuda eight days later, he described how he had regained his courage 15 minutes into the tempest and began reciting old sea-shanties recalled from his childhood. He likened the cathartic experience to performing on stage. "At first you panic, and then you're ready to throw up your guts but once you get out there and start doing your stuff you forget your fears and you get high on your performance," he said. The musician later recounted in an interview: “So there I was at the wheel. The wind and sea lashing out at me, wave after wave. At first I was terrified, but Capt’n Hank was at my side, so I felt relatively safe, ‘cause I knew he wouldn’t let me do anything stupid. But after a while he (Capt’n Hank) wasn’t feeling too well and he retreated to the cabin below. “Once I accepted the reality of the situation something greater than me took over and all of a sudden I lost my fear. I actually began to enjoy the experience, and I started to sing and shout old sea shanties in the face of the storm, screaming at the thundering sky." Freed from his writer's block by the experience, he stayed in Bermuda for two months, rented a home at Knapton Hill and later in Fairylands and was joined by his 3 year old son Sean. began writing songs for and completed his final album Double Fantasy just weeks before his murder in December 1980. He found inspiration for the title after coming across Double Fantasy freesia in the Botanical Gardens. (The log, on which Lennon wrote the words "Dear Megan, there is no place like no where" includes a doodle of him sporting a beard and was sold for more than £20,000 in London in 2006).
• 1980. Bermudian film and television producer Arthur Rankin Jr. cast Jack Palance in a 1980 made-for-TV film shot entirely on location in Bermuda. Palance specialized in playing villains during his five-decade Hollywood career which began in the early 1950s with Attila the Hun. He spent several weeks in Bermuda cast against type as the hero in Mr. Rankin's made-for-television movie The Ivory Ape. It was written and produced by Mr. Rankin and aired on prime time on the ABC television network. The film featured such local performers as Grace Rawlins, Charles Jeffers, Marlene B. Landy, Jane Bainbridge, John Lough and George Rushe in supporting roles. Palance starred in the film as Bermuda-based big game hunter Marc Kazarian. The plot focuses on a hunt for a rare albino gorilla, recently captured in Africa, which escapes from a freighter bound for New York that's forced to dock on the island during a storm. In a nod to the classic Empire State Building climax of 1931's King Kong, the albino ape is finally tracked to the steeple of Holy Trinity Church, Harrington Sound. The gorilla is killed by a trigger-happy Bermudian before Palance's Kazarian character - who has turned his back on his former career as a hunter can save the animal, a female which has just given birth.
• 1980. The Human Rights Act came into effect in Bermuda, for Bermudians. It does not give the same Human Rights to non-Bermudians, unlike other Human Rights Acts overseas.
• 1980. The National Dance Foundation of Bermuda was founded. A registered charity, it was dedicated to the development of exceptional local dancers and choreographers. The performing arm is the National Dance Theatre of Bermuda.
• 1980. Concerns for loss of open space cause widespread environmental activism. 
• 1980. Steep decline in group and snapper fish cause concern.
• 1980. Environment Conservation plans and areas began.
• 1980. Fisheries Act amendment restricts entry into commercial fishing.
• 1980. Decline in reef fish from pots becomes evident.
• 1980. In the summer in Bermuda, the late John Lennon wrote the songs of his last solo album "Double Fantasy." (He died on December 8, 1980 and there was a huge rush locally for all his songs and recordings).
• 1980. December. Butler Francis Fitzsimmons, 62, was let go after 16 years service at Government House and faced eviction from the cottage he enjoyed there.
• 1981. East Broadway Local Plan.
• 1981. Bermuda's first General Strike. Non-medical staff at KEMH strike and other workers joined in sympathy.
• 1981. DeFontes Broadcasting Company began as the St. George's Broadcasting Company Limited, another commercial radio station. It operated initially as an AM facility on 1450 kHz using the call sign VSB-1. Later, the same company introduced further AM facilities at 1160 and 1280 - and the FM Mix 106.1 facilities heard now.
• 1981. Penny Bean became the first black Commissioner of Police.
• 1981-83. Island-wide open space and arable land survey.
• 1982. Moratorium on sub-division of land.
• 1982. The present - and third - Watford Bridge was built, minus the Island. It claimed to be one of the most successful tributes to the use of galvanising in civil engineering and was supposed to have a design life of 120 years.

• 1982. The West End Development Corporation (Wedco) was established to manage and development more than 214 acres of land belonging to Government, including Watford Island, Boaz Island and Ireland Islands North and South, the small islands forming the Crawl off Ireland South and the North and South basins and breakwaters, and comprising 1.6 percent of Bermuda's land mass. It is the Island's only self-sustaining quango in that it receives no Government funding but its 2007 annual report warned that it is at a "crossroads" and in need of a significant injection of cash if future development projects in the West End are to go ahead. 

• 1982. On February 16,  His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, Prince Charles, eldest son of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and his bride, Diana, Princess of Wales, stopped off in Bermuda in their royal aircraft as part of their honeymoon trip to the Eleutheran Islands of the Bahamas. They were escorted around the original capital of St. George's by the Premier, the Hon. John W. Swan and the Acting Governor. The tour was arranged by the Special Branch of the Bermuda Police Force, after a special request from Prince Charles. Due to their high profile, the Royal visitors had several unobtrusive Special Branch members guarding them. To mark the Royal Wedding, the Bermuda Monetary Authority issued its seventh commemorative coin set, the "Royal Wedding, Prince of Wale and Lady Diana Spencer" issue, comprising a $250 piece in 690 pie fort, 790 proof and 217 uncirculated pieces; and a $1 coin in 16,296 proof and 65,004 copper-nickel pieces.

• 1982. Ben and Jerry - the famous American ice-cream makers - visited Bermuda to launch Bailey's Ice Cream.
• 1983. Bermuda's Historic Articles (Export Control) Act 1983 was enacted.
• 1983. In January, the huge oil tanker Tifoso ran aground on Bermuda's reefs. She was nearly empty.
• 1883. Second-biggest lobster ever caught in Bermuda weighed 15 lbs and had an arm span of five feet eight and a half inches.
• 1983. In September, the 595-foot grain carrier Sealuck ran aground on Bermuda's reefs.
• 1983. In November, the fully-laden supertanker Aquila Azteca, nearly 1,000 feet in length, ran aground on Bermuda's reefs. A major disaster was narrowly averted.
• 1983. Third Bermuda Development Plan. 39% of Bermuda carries some form of open space or environmental protection zoning. Development areas are more site-specific and first residential standards apply.
• 1983. Desalinization plant arrives. Regulation of water lens begins.
• 1983. Plans are developed for regulated development of Somerset Village, Pitts Bay and Rosemont Avenue, Flatt's Village and Blue Hole Hill.
• 1983. Housing Action program is issued in response to housing shortage.
• 1984. Local Plan for City of Hamilton.
• 1984. April 1984. At its headquarter building in Devonshire Parish, Cable & Wireless built a huge satellite dish, with satellite technology the forefront of communications at the time. It enabled C&W to communicate via 200 other facilities around the world.
• 1984. West End Development Plan.
• 1984. Later one of the more popular wrecks in Bermuda, The Hermes, a 265-foot former US Navy freighter, built in 1943, was deliberately scuttled off Warwick Long Bay.
• 1984. In October, the Desmond Hale Fountain statue of Admiral Sir George Somers in St. George's, Bermuda,  was officially unveiled by Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret.
• 1984. At Dockyard, in the Old Cooperage building - building # 28 - (originally built by the Royal Navy in 1831 for navy storage), the Bermuda Arts Centre was formally opened by Her Royal Highness Princess Margaret.  It is the creative workshop of local (Bermudian and resident foreign) artisans and artists, open 7 days a week. It was established in 1983 by the West End Development Corporation, a Bermuda Government quango, when Christopher Astwood, then WEDCO chairman, was keen to include the arts in the redevelopment of the Dockyard area. Workshops are also offered both artists and visitors, to upgrade skills and introduce new techniques. Crafts and handicrafts are also included.
• 1985. Fisheries Amendment restricts pot fishing and limits size of pots.
• 1985. May 15. Sinking at Bermuda of the Hermes. She was built in Pennsylvania in 1943 and operated by the U.S. Navy, the 165 feet long and 254 tons, she was bound for the Cape Verde Islands when she experienced engine trouble near Bermuda. Hermes was eventually abandoned by her crew because repairs were estimated to cost more than the ship was worth. After an anticipated sale did not materialize, the Bermuda government awarded the ship to the Bermuda Divers Association for creation of an artificial reef. The vessel was thoroughly cleaned and made dive safe prior to her final voyage. She lies one mile offshore at Horseshoe Bay, upright in 80 feet of water with her mast pointing toward the surface. Divers can examine her engines, galley, cargo hold, pilothouse, deck winch and propeller.
• 1986. January. A British Airways Concorde flew from London to Bermuda for the first time, after having been in service since 1976. The flight took just 53 minutes to cover the same distance the Cavalier flying boat did in 1936 over 20 hours.
• 1986. Development Applications Board established.
• 1986. Bermuda National Parks Act set aside 74 protected areas for the use and enjoyment of present and future generations and established a commission to oversea its management. Total area was 710 acres or 5 percent of Bermuda.
• 1986. Professor Richard Gould of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, along with Earth watch and the Bermuda Maritime Museum, began a three year project that researched the HMS Vixen wreck in Bermuda waters. A gunboat, she displaced 1,230 tons and was built by Lungley Shipyard, Deptford, England, in 1864, and launched in 1867. According to Professor Gould of Brown, she was the first twin-screwed vessel of the Royal Navy. Vixen's iron hull was completely clad in teak wood. This design was made in an effort to overcome problems that iron hulled ships were having with marine organisms. The teak also produced extra drag on the ship, therefore, resulting in the Vixen being the slowest ironclad vessel in the Royal Navy. Another very interesting aspect of this ship is that she was built with a ram type bow. Her heavily supported bow protruded forward almost nine feet under the water line. Unfortunately, after sea trials, the Vixen and her sister ship, Viper, were considered too slow as well as un-seaworthy. They were withdrawn from service in 1887 and towed to Bermuda in 1888 as coast defense ships. By1895, Vixen had been allocated as a floating dormitory to house Dockyard laborers. In 1896,after removal of her engines and machinery, she was scuttled to block a narrow channel off Daniel's Head. This scuttling was done to prevent possible attacks by torpedo boats on Dockyard.
• 1986. October 6. Sinking of Soviet submarine K-219 600 miles from Bermuda, reason for which may never be known. The Yankee-class ballistic missile vessel, laden with 16 nuclear warheads and 200 tons of radioactive plutonium, plunged 18,000 feet beneath the waves after an explosion on board, in one of its missile tubes, three days earlier. The Soviet Union claimed at the time that the explosion and a subsequent fire – which killed four crew members – was due to a collision with a US submarine. But the US Navy categorically denied that and the submarine’s captain, Igor Britanov, later told an interviewer: “There was no collision.” No one alive knows exactly what occurred onboard the 10,000 ton, 425ft long submarine, which had 113 men onboard. A book published in 1997, Hostile Waters, hinted at a collision between the American submarine USS Augusta and K-219 over her missile compartment as the cause of the explosion. Author Peter Huchthausen, a former US Navy officer and ex-naval attaché, also detailed the bravery of the Russian crew, from Capt. Britanov, who he said refused to comply with orders to keep his men onboard the ship before it sank, to Sergei Preminin, the 21-year-old engineer seaman who lost his life after manually shutting down the submarine’s reactors and averting a potentially huge disaster. Three others died on board and many more of the crew suffered permanent injury. Preminin received a posthumous award in his home country for his bravery and was named a Hero of the Russian Federation in 1997.

• 1986. The NASA Challenger shuttle disaster which claimed the lives of seven astronauts when it blew up shortly after take-off, was watched with sadness in Bermuda by the manager and staff at the NASA Tracking Station, Cooper's Island.. Mr. Way and his colleagues had been at the NASA station waiting for the spacecraft to 'come over the hill' only to witness what they initially thought was the rocket boosters coming off early. They later realised it was in fact an explosion.

• 1987. Tynes Bay incinerator plan begins.
• 1987.Pembroke Dump Plan was published. It showed a wide-sweeping public park of trails, playgrounds and an amphitheatre. The plan was painstakingly put together by a group of Harvard University landscape architects who visited Bermuda, consulted with the neighbourhoods and publicly displayed their work for input. On the first page of the 30-plus-page document the authors wrote: "Pembroke Dump, currently an eyesore and a nuisance in the heart of Bermuda's most densely populated residential area, has the potential to become a delightful and attractive parkland." The opening of the Tynes Bay Incinerator was supposed to eliminate the need for the Pembroke Dump, paving the way for the new park. But sometime between the opening of Tynes Bay and groundbreaking on the park, someone decided the former landfill should be used to handle horticultural waste. The Pembroke Marsh Redevelopment Committee, formed in 1983, facilitated the work of the Harvard group in 1985 and 1986. By November 1989, Cabinet officially approved a $10m plan to build the park. But it was never done.
• 1987. April. The Bermuda Craft Market opened in the Cooperage building in Dockyard as a retail venue specifically designed to showcase locally-made crafts such as cedar work and jewellery. The ambience was that of a rustic marketplace, with wooden barrels and other bric-a-brac dotted among the merchandise displays. Artists and artisans were on hand to sell their goods, and some also demonstrated their craft. Ideally located to catch the tourist trade, the Centre was also popular with resident shoppers in search of locally made goods. It was run entirely as a co-operative, with each crafter renting their their stall, and thrived.
• 1987. Probably due to publicity from Professor Gould's activity in 1986, an official Vixen postage stamp was issued, and the site was classified as a protected wreck. This means that nothing can be removed from the wreck, and a permit is needed to explore the Vixen while on SCUBA although no permit is needed to snorkel the site. Today, the Vixen is a popular site for glass bottom boats. Her bow protrudes above the water line, and her hull is almost completely intact.
• 1987. Hurricane Emily hit Bermuda and caused widespread damage.
• 1988-1992. Sir Desmond Langley became Governor of Bermuda. His family were wife Lady (Flick) Joan Langley, son Harry, daughter Charlotte and grandchildren, Oliver and Edward. Born in London in 1930, Sir Desmond was the son of the late Colonel Henry Langley, OBE and he was educated at Eton and the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst. He was commissioned into the Life Guards in 1949. He had a distinguished army career that took him to Germany, Aden, Egypt, Cyprus, Malaya, as well as Northern Ireland. He served as an Assistant Secretary in the Chiefs of Staff Secretariat in the Ministry of Defence from 1971 to 1972 and in 1979 he became Brigadier General Staff in Headquarters United Kingdom Land Forces. He is a 1978 graduate of the Royal College of Defence Studies and commanded the Life Guards from 1969 to 1971, the Household Cavalry, from 1972 to 1975, Fourth Guards Armoured Brigade from 1976 to 1977 and the London District and the Household Division from 1979 to 1983. His last military appointment was Administrator of Sovereign Base Areas and Commander of the British Forces Cyprus. He retired in 1986 with the rank of Major General. He was made an MBE in 1967 and a KCVO in 1983.
• 1988. Bermuda 2000 Exhibition reveals public's deep concern for the environment.
• 1988. Bermuda and USA sign the US-Bermuda tax treaty in Washington DC, shortly after Premier Sir John Swan met with President Ronald Reagan. It began the international business boom for Bermuda that continues to this day. It was signed because of the presence of the 1968 entrustment deal between Bermuda and the United Kingdom. It was an arrangement hugely favorable to Bermuda. Provisions included that return for very small concessions, all US corporations that wanted to hold their conventions in Bermuda had their expenses born by American taxpayers.
• 1989. Sharp decline in reef fish noted.
• 1989. March. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for a brief visit.
• 1989. On June 1. US Airways began US-Bermuda air service
• 1989. South African Thabo Mbeki, then in exile in Tanzania (later President) visited Bermuda  for secret talks with South African political opponents.
• 1989. Hurricane Emily causes widespread damage to homes, utilities, boats and vegetation.
• 1990. Fish pot ban.
• 1989. March. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for a brief visit.
• 1990. Princess Margaret opened the new Cruise Ship Terminal on the North Arm of Dockyard, Ireland Island.
• 1990. US President George Bush and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher conferred in Bermuda.

Bush-Thatcher visit 1990

• 1990. Clarence (Nicky) Saunders won Bermuda's first gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in New Zealand.
• 1990. Lieutenant Commander Ian Stranack, Royal Navy, wrote the book "The Andrew and the Onions." It described the history up to that time of the Royal Navy in Bermuda, once Bermuda's biggest employer.

• 1990. One prominent visitor at a Ziggy Marley concert at BAA in Bermuda in 1990 was US Senator Edward Kennedy of MA. He was one of many  VIPs to have sampled the house drink at the Swizzle Inn in Bailey's Bay as one of the attractions of a Bermuda visit. He would go sailing in Bermuda's waters. In the 1960s his former wife Joan was college queen at Horseshoe Bay.

• 1990. The Motor Insurers’ Fund was set up at the initiative of local insurance companies who agreed with the Bermuda Government to establish a method of compensation for people injured by uninsured drivers or untraced drivers in “hit and run” cases. All drivers who buy motor insurance in Bermuda pay a surcharge of $5 per bike and $10 per car. However, the maximum payout the fund can make is $250,000.
• 1990. November 13. US Secretary of State James Baker and Canada's External Affairs Minister Joe Clark met in Bermuda to discuss deployment of Canadian troops to the Persian Gulf.
• 1990. In December, leading British born, American naturalized humorist Sir Bob Hope was in Bermuda with his wife and entourage. He came to film his NBC television 1990 Christmas Special on the NBC network. He made many perceptive jokes about Bermuda. He, his wife Dolores, actresses Loni Anderson and Dixie Carter, associates and production crew occupied forty rooms at the Belmont Manor Hotel (now closed) during their five day stay.
• 1991. January. At Fort Cunningham, Paget Island, St. George's Parish, an archeological expedition headed by Professor Richard Gould of Brown University discovered a quantity of  British Army cannon, including  5 huge Rifled Muzzle Loaders (RMLs), weighing over 38 tons each.
• 1991. December. Austrian financier and billionaire Wolfgang Flottl, who has a number of exempted companies in Bermuda,  bought Castle Point in Tucker's Town, one of Bermuda's most luxurious properties, 8 acres surrounded by water on three sides. He acquired it from American Dr. Henry Clay Frick
• 1991. March. Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, arrived by himself for a brief visit.
• 1991. Second arable land survey.
• 1991. June. Michael Jackson, singer and entertainer, visited Bermuda by private jet. He paid a much publicized visit to the Island with child actor Macaulay Culkin and another friend, staying for several nights at the Hamilton Princess Hotel. Places they visited included  Jack 'n' Jill's Toy Shop where they stocked up on a great quantity of squirt guns, water balloons and other toys. When word got out that both Michael Jackson and Macaulay Culkin were staying at the hotel, fans and guests began to gather under Michael's sixth floor penthouse window. That was when the three began playfully lobbing water balloons off the balcony at the people standing below. In a thoughtful gesture, when he checked out of The Fairmont Hamilton Princess,  Jackson asked staff there to assist him in donating all the toys he had bought at Jack 'n' Jill's to one of our local children's charities.

June 1991 - Michael Jackson leaving Bermuda

• 1991. November. Bermudian musician Lance Hayward died in New York, after a long fight with cancer. His obituary was published in The New York Times.
• 1991. US President George Bush and British Prime Minister John Major conferred in Bermuda.
• 1992. In Bermuda, the Sea Venture's contents from 1609 were recovered and fully documented.
• 1992. March 15. The Bermuda National Gallery (BNG) opened to much acclaim and soon settled in at City Hall. Jay Bluck’s passion for art and the establishment of the BNG as a national art museum was key. As a member of the steering committee, it was his drive which led to John Kaufmann’s concept for a gallery in the east wing of City Hall becoming reality. The original spur that set the wheels in motion for a National Gallery was the donation to the people of Bermuda of what is now known as The Watlington Collection. In his will, the late Hereward Watlington specified that his gift was predicated on the paintings being housed in a proper gallery with world-class storage facilities, including climate, light and temperature control, and which would also make possible the exhibition of valuable works of art from international galleries of similar quality. Built by Cooper & Gardner, the museum has five exhibition spaces, one of which, the Ondaatje Wing, opened on April 16, 1992 — one month and one day after the BNG, thanks to a successful appeal for an “angel” to finance the conversion, which came in the form of (now Sir) Christopher Ondaatje, who has subsequently opened other gallery spaces in his name in London and Toronto. Mrs. Gorham, who has been on the steering committee since 1986, became a full-time staffer in 1991. Chris Wineinger was hired as the first administrator, to oversee the Gallery’s capital campaign. From inception, volunteers have been an invaluable, and indeed the more than 100 of their ranks are an indispensable part of the Gallery’s function. From inception the BNG, has striven to fulfill its original mission, which is to promote, benefit and advance the visual arts in Bermuda through the creation of a collection of significant artworks, both from Bermuda and worldwide, as well as creating a facility in which such works can be cared for, researched and interpreted for the public.
• 1992. Decision taken to restructure public school system — including the building of a new senior secondary “mega school” at Prospect on the site of the old Devonshire Academy.
• 1992. Bermuda Plan promotes open space conservation in a high quality environment.
• 1992. April. German visitor and teacher Antje Herkommer, 27, was raped and strangled in April by a prisoner on unsupervised work release.
• 1993. The Canadian Forces Station Bermuda ended. (It began in 1963).
• 1993. June. Premier Sir John Swan met US president Bill Clinton in the White House.
• 1993. Scottish composer Iain Hamilton wrote the work "The Bermudas." It premiered on 7th November at the Anglican Cathedral.
• 1993. The Register of Bermudians came into effect. To create the Register officials used that year’s Parliamentary Registry. So if you weren’t a registered voter in 1993, or were born after 1993, or your name changed after marriage post-1993, then your name will not be on the Register of Bermudians.
• 1993. RG Magazine began publishing.
• 1993. Mid-March. The special research submarine "Alvin" conducted certification and engineering dives off Bermuda. Two subsequent dives for the Royal Ontario Museum and the Bermuda Zoological Society sought to catalog biodiversity and biota zonation on the flanks of the island pedestal and nearby seamounts. Also completed was a seismic studies cruise to the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, but mechanical/electrical problems with Alvin’s new pressure-tolerant motor controllers resulted in a radically shortened dive program. Repairs were effected during a maintenance period in Bermuda in April, after which the sub successfully completed three dive series back at the ridge, including work at a newly-discovered vent field south of the Azores. One of those who visited Bermuda for the events and broadcast news events  was CBS anchor Walter Cronkite.
• 1994. Internet (Bermuda) Ltd offered the first public Internet service in Bermuda.
• 1994. January. Plan for $55 million, 200,000-square-foot school at Prospect  (see 1992) unveiled by UBP Education Minister Clarence Terceira.
• 1994. March. The Queen and Duke of Edinburgh again visited Bermuda, on a major 2 day tour.
• 1994. The Commission for Unity and Racial Equality (CURE) Act came into force.

• 1994. English Bermuda-based nurse raped by two men. The evidence showed the woman was picked up by men on motorcycles and attacked on a dark and secluded road. "She was saying take me home and I took it to mean, she wanted sex," one defendant said. The other one said "she wasn't fighting hard enough ...she didn't do enough to stop us." An "acquittal option instruction" was presented by the judge to the jury, which took an hour with its not-guilty verdict.

• 1994. Brian Simmons, 29, was murdered, found at Pembroke Dump on October 9 with his throat slashed. The discovery was made near his Curving Avenue home.

• 1994. Incinerator at Tynes Bay opens.
• 1994. Casemates Prison in Bermuda, opened in 1963 from the former Casemates Barracks, was closed for good.
• 1995. The Bermuda II air agreement was revised yet again. Although Bermuda II was much less restrictive than the original Bermuda agreement it replaced, it was still widely regarded as a highly restrictive agreement that contrasts with the principle of "Open skies" against the background of continuing liberalisation of the legal framework governing the air transport industry in various parts of the world. Broadly speaking, only a combined four airlines from the US and UK are allowed to operate flights between London Heathrow and the US. The two British carriers are currently British Airways and Virgin Atlantic. The American carriers were American Airlines and United Airlines. The US also approved Continental to fly to London Heathrow but the British do not recognize this route authority and, consequently, this service is not in operation. However, the British have not obstructed Continental's codeshare agreement with Virgin Atlantic, which places Continental flight numbers in addition to its own on some Heathrow flights. Air India, El Al, Iran Air and Kuwait Airways were permitted to continue exercising their so-called "fifth freedom" traffic rights from Heathrow to JFK, which they had already enjoyed under the original Bermuda agreement. (Both El Al and Iran Air no longer exercise these rights. The former has decided that it makes better economic sense for it to fly non-stop between Tel Aviv and New York. The latter's US traffic rights were withdrawn in the aftermath of the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis.) Similarly, Air New Zealand was allowed to continue using its fifth freedom rights between London and Los Angeles.
• 1995. Colin Coxall, 55, of the UK was appointed Police Commissioner. He was charged with the task of overhauling the Bermuda Police Service amid spiraling crime. The former Commissioner, whose appointment led to the then PLP Opposition launching a petition in a bid to block him getting the job, boasted an impressive CV on arrival in Bermuda. The law graduate had been Acting Commissioner of City of London Police. Before then senior roles included Deputy Chief Constable of Thames Valley Police, former head of Scotland Yard drugs squad and advising the Home Secretary on drugs policy. When he touched down in Bermuda, Mr. Coxall set about root and branch reform of what sources said was a service in an “appalling state, from top to bottom”. Manpower, training, forensics, intelligence gathering, promotions, complaint handling and press relations, the condition of buildings, and reservist training all came under the spotlight as crime and drug-related offences continued to rise. He was appointed after a recommendation by Her Majesty’s Inspector of Dependent Territories Police Forces Lionel Grundy in 1994. That report was never made public, but it is understood it contained damning criticism of the way the force was run. Mr. Coxall’s urgent review of the force saw 120 changes highlighted. And the former Commissioner gave himself three years to carry them out. One source compared the task of reforming and running the 500-man force at the same time as like operating a sea tanker “while trying to mend the engine at same time.” Never accepted in some circles because he was non-Bermudian and occupying one of the Island’s most important posts, he did not complete his three-year tenure. Despite almost slashing crime in half and serving time on dealers before training his sights on major suppliers, he quit in 1997 – five months before his contract was up – amid a blaze of controversy triggered by the major drugs clampdown, Operation Cleansweep. Already unpopular with the PLP, he ruffled feathers with the ruling UBP when a Cabinet Minister’s name emerged during Cleansweep investigations, although no action was taken through lack of evidence. Criticised by some for what they perceived as not getting on with senior officers and for failing to promote enough black officers, he has never returned to the Island.

• 1995. March. After years of only part-time Royal Navy activity in Bermuda following the closure of the Royal Navy Dockyard in Bermuda generations earlier, the senior Royal Navy officer in Bermuda became officially known as Senior Naval Officer West Indies and (NATO) Island Commander, Bermuda. The great western Atlantic station of the Royal Navy, of which Bermuda had been the central base from 1795, was closed forever, given the nature of modern warfare and the supremacy of the military forces of the United States of America in that ocean. HMS Malabar closed, ending an association of 285 years with Bermuda. It was so-called from the successor, built in Bermuda, of a Royal Navy ship built from teak in India. All Royal Navy personnel in Bermuda left.

• 1995. The US Naval Air Base and US Naval Annex also closed after press attention from Sam Donaldson of ABC News. They could no longer be justified after the end of the Cold War. They were closed at the same time as many other US military bases in the USA and beyond. The Bermuda Government took possession of all former military bases. 
• 1995. A referendum on the issue of independence for Bermuda was held and defeated by a 75 percent margin. But the PLP instructed its members to boycott the referendum. After the result, long-term Premier Sir John Swan, who strongly supported the pro-Independence platform, resigned after having been outvoted.
• 4th December 1995. The Bermuda Government issued a series of postage stamps on Military Bases formerly in Bermuda.

• 1996. March. Premier David Saul met Mr. Clinton in the Oval Office. The visit was arranged to discuss issues related to the closure of the US military bases in Bermuda in 1995, among other things.

• 1996. May 24. Clearwater Beach and Park, Cooper's Island, off St. David's Island, now a 36 acre public park site,  was re-opened to the public after 54 years as a US military reserve. It has pebbles in places, unlike most other Bermuda beaches. There are also nature trails, playground equipment and views of some outer islands reserved for wildlife. 

Clearwater Beach

• 1996. The Bermuda Land Development Corporation (BLDC) came into being as a limited company tasked with developing and managing the former base lands at Southside, Morgan's Point, Daniel's Head and Tudor Hill. It has responsibility for more than 720 acres: five percent of the Island's land mass. BLDC's goal is to become financially self-sufficient.

• 1996. The Rt. Rev. Ewen Ratteray became Bishop of Bermuda. He had begin his religious journey began with his baptism by Bishop Arthur Heber Browne. As a teenager he came under the influence of Canon William Manning, who encouraged him to become a server. He promptly joined a group of servers that included former Hamilton Mayor, Lawson Mapp, Martin Brewer, Walter Carlington and Henry Ming. It was in the Cathedral that  he was confirmed at the age of 16. Due to the influence of the Canon, who later became a Bishop in South Africa, he went away to Codrington College in Barbados to study for the priesthood. After many years working in the North of England, he returned to Bermuda as Rector of Pembroke in 1980. In 1994 he became Archdeacon of Bermuda in the Cathedral, and two years later was consecrated as the Bishop of the Diocese by the Archbishop of Canterbury. 
• 1996. July 3. Canadian tourist Rebecca Middleton, 17 years old,  was brutally stabbed and cut 35 times, beaten, tortured, raped, sodomized and murdered at Ferry Reach  in Bermuda. Dr. Keith Cunningham and Dr. James Johnston completed an autopsy. Both discovered anal and vaginal trauma, along with some 35 cuts, five of which were fatal. It was the worst, most brutal and savage murder ever committed on a woman anywhere in the world. News of it was flashed around the world. A notoriously botched murder case. Her presumed killers were controversially absolved of murder.  The original police investigation was criticized as horribly inadequate and prosecution decisions were condemned as inept when one man was allowed to plead guilty to a lesser charge and the other was acquitted on a questionable ruling by the trial judge. There have been far too many such rulings in Bermuda on despicable offenses against women.   

• 1996. Summer. 35-year-old Billy Way, son of NASA Tracking Station on Cooper's Island manager Mr. Way, Bermuda's number one tennis player who won a bronze medal in the 1993 CAC Games in Mexico, was hit by a taxi as he crossed one of Manhattan's busiest roads, Madison Avenue and died. Billy's old university friend John F. Kennedy Jr. attended the funeral. That came 16 years after Mr. Way's daughter Kathleen died aged 20 from injuries received in a car crash in Somerset.  

• 1996. The 100th anniversary of the formation of the Bermuda Militia Artillery (now amalgamated into the Bermuda Regiment) was celebrated.
• 1997. Pamela Felicity Gordon, MP, daughter of late Dr. E. F. Gordon, became the first female Premier of Bermuda after the resignation of Dr. David Saul. 
• 1997. May 15. Sunk on purpose off Bermuda was the Xing Da, the one-time Chinese illegal immigrant smuggling ship. The 221 feet long Xing Da was carrying Chinese immigrants to be smuggled into the United States. There were 83 Chinese nationals some as young as 14, none older than mid-30s.  Crewed by suspected members of the Chinese mafia known as the Triad, it had arranged to meet a smaller ship 145 miles off Bermuda for the immigrants to be transferred and taken into the United States. They had paid $20,000 to $40,000 each to the Triad's smuggling ring to escape their homeland. Instead, what they found was the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Marines. US Immigration and Naturalization (INS), as well as Coast Guard, knew about the Xing Da's activities even before she left port in China in June 1996. Smuggling was nothing new to the Xing Da. Going back as far as the Vietnam War, she smuggled everything from contraband to weapons for the North Vietnamese Army. The Xing Da was the 11th Chinese vessel to be intercepted with this form of cargo in course of five years. Towed into Bermuda while still under guard on October 8, 1996, the Xing Da's passengers were off-loaded and transferred to the US Marine base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for extradition back to their homeland. Those involved in the smuggling operation were arrested. After being towed into Bermuda, broken down beyond repair and destined for a water grave, the Bermudan Government negotiated for possession of this ship. The Xing Da was towed past the seaward edge of Bermuda's northwest facing barrier reef and sent to the bottom where she was successfully placed on the ocean bed below 104 feet of water. Other than the removal of trash, fuel, waste and all her bulkhead doors, the Xing Da was left fully intact with all superstructure, deck machinery and booms as they were when she was captured. She went  to her watery grave 105 feet down off Eastern Blue Cut, about six miles off Dockyard.
• 1997. An embargo on imported milk was introduced through the 1997 Importation of Milk (Prohibition) Act 1997 while the UBP was in power.
• 1997. October. The Bermuda Equestrian Centre, or National Equestrian Centre as it is sometimes called, was established, about 1.5 miles into Vesey Street, off Middle Road. It was Bermuda's first-ever Special Development Order.
• 1997. South African former President F. W de Klerk visited and laid a wreath at the Boer War cemetery.
• 1997. September. CedarBridge Academy at Prospect, planned since 1992, opens with, according to the Wachiira Report, “significant functional and construction problems.”
• 1997. The Code of Practice for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Promotion of Equality of Opportunity in Employment was produced.
• 1997. The Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute was opened, with exhibits including those of the history of underwater exploration, marine life at different depths and Bermuda's shipwrecks. Underwater crafts, including Charles William Beebe's bathysphere, are on display. One room houses a superb seashell collection.
• 1998. In November, the Progressive Labor Party won the General Election in Bermuda under the premiership of The Honorable Ms. Jennifer M Smith, JP, MP. She became the first black elected woman Premier of Bermuda. After 35 years, the United Bermuda Party, then under Pamela Gordon, was defeated. Stanley Lowe, PLP, JP, MP became first black Speaker of the House of Assembly.
• 1999. Open Spaces forums.
• 1999. February. Destination Villages, Sandys, was created via  the second-ever Special Development Order (SDO). Destination Villages of the USA opened the $13.5 million Daniel's Head Village cottage tent resort, with 135 units. It was owned by Americans Stanley Selengut and Lew Geyser. (But it since closed and reopened under a new name, Nine Beaches, also with new owners.  There are many beaches, one public, 9 hotel owned, hence the name).
• 1999. February. Berkeley Institute, Pembroke, was another SDO.
• 1999. April Elbow Beach Club Belmont Property, Warwick was yet another SDO.
• 1999. Bermuda Biological Station Ground Water study and Bio Diversity study, Aquarium.
• 1999. Parliamentarian Terry Lister, then Minister of Development and Opportunity, after making a visit to the Pentagon outside Washington DC, described the US officials he had spoken to as "people who kill for a living." He added there was no moral leadership in the USA.
• 1999. The Commission for Unity and Racial Equality Act 1994 was amended to allow CURE to collect specific data for the monitoring process.
• 1999. September. Arizona-based consultants Comgate Telemanagement completed a report for the Ministry of Health on Bermuda's 38 towers that transmit cellular, microwave and satellite signals. It identified those not in compliance with FCC levels for workers and the general public.
• 1999. December. The death penalty was abolished in Bermuda.
• 1999: November. Glen Wolffe, 43, was found dead in his Heathcote Hill, Sandy's, home on November 17. His body is thought to have been lying for several days before the crime was uncovered. Days later Police raided Studio 55 on Reid Street during an event known as Gay Night. Mr. Wolffe was openly homosexual. Revelers in the club believe Police were looking for a murderer when they came inside, but no arrests were made.