We celebrate our Independence annually in a 'public and notorious manner..'" says the Honorable Sir Peter Anderson, Secretary General of the Conch Republic. The Conch Republic is more familiarly known as the Florida Keys... but most people just know it as Key West.

What, you haven't heard that Key West seceded from the Union in 1982? It's true... well, sort of. In early spring of that year, the US Border Patrol erected a blockade on US Highway 1 at Florida City in an effort to keep out illegal immigrants.

'Conchs,' or Key West locals, reacted indignantly to this. They saw the act as treating them as non-citizens, and so responded just as you'd expect from an island of merry pranksters.

On April 23rd of 1982 then-mayor Dennis Wardlow read a proclamation of secession, broke a loaf of stale Cuban bread over the head of a 'US Navy' sailor, and then surrendered to the US Admiral in charge of the Key West naval base and demanded $1 billion in foreign aid to rebuild the Republic!

The United States Government, in an act typically short-sighted, failed to acknowledge the secession. This act, or lack of an act, led Conch natives to declare their sovereignty by right of International Law, or something to that effect.

Whatever the case, for nineteen years Key West has celebrated its Independence in high style.