Nyad says she was 8 years old when she first dreamed about the possibility of swimming across the Straits of Florida.

CNN: August 20, 2012 -- Updated 1157 GMT (1957 HKT)

Nyad's first attempt to cross the Straits of Florida was in 1978, when rocky seas left her battered, delirious and less than halfway toward her goal.

CNN: August 20, 2012 -- Updated 1157 GMT (1957 HKT)

Rumors of fish weighing up to 6 pounds more than the current world record (22.3 pounds) have drifted with the no-trade winds across the Straits of Florida.

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Rita continued to strengthen as its eye passed through the narrow Straits of Florida between Key West and Cuba and into the warm, open waters of the Gulf of Mexico.

CNN: With Rita strengthening, Galveston orders evacuation

Congress passed the measure after the Cuban military shot down two U.S. civilian planes over the Straits of Florida on February 24, killing four members of the Cuban-American exile group, Brothers to the Rescue.

CNN: Helms-Burton measure tightens sanctions

Sunk just off Key West , an island in the Straits of Florida, in 2009, the Vandenberg is the second-largest artificial reef in the world, attracting a diverse range of marine animals and plant life.

CNN: March 7, 2013 -- Updated 1201 GMT (2001 HKT)

The case cuts against what had been a growing understanding between Cubans living on either side of the Florida Straits.

ECONOMIST: Cuba

Over the past century, thousands of Cubans have died attempting to cross the Florida Straits in makeshift boats and rafts.

BBC: Cuba lifts travel restrictions

But federal prosecutors argued the men also had tried to infiltrate U.S. military installations and had provided information that led to the 1996 downing of two planes from the group Brothers to the Rescue, which searched for boats stranded in the Florida Straits.

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