Barack Obama arrived in Cuba on Sunday afternoon for a historic visit after taking the three-hour flight that has eluded his predecessors for the past 88 years.
Stepping off Air Force One in Havana alongside his wife Michelle and daughters Sasha and Malia, Mr Obama began a three-day trip that the president hopes will help loosen the grip of the Cuban regime on the country’s economy and on its politics.
“Back in 1928, President Coolidge came on a battleship and it took him three days to get here,” Mr Obama later told US diplomatic staff in Havana, referring to the last presidential visit to the island only 90 miles off the Florida coast. “It only took me three hours.”