Various Native American groups have inhabited Florida for at least 14,000 years. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first documented European to make landfall in the region and named it La Florida (Spanish for "land of flowers"; [la floˈɾiða]), giving the territory its present name. Spain subsequently incorporated Florida into the Spanish Empire in the early 16th century. In 1565, it founded St. Augustine, the oldest continuously inhabited European-established settlement in the continental United States. The region was frequently coveted and attacked by Great Britain throughout the 18th century. Britain briefly gained control of Florida in 1763, but Spain recovered it in 1783 following the British defeat in the American Revolutionary War. Florida remained under Spanish rule until it was ceded to the United States in 1821, in exchange for U.S. recognition of Spanish sovereignty in Texas and the resolution of the border dispute along the Sabine River. Florida was admitted as the 27th state on March 3, 1845, and was the principal location of the Seminole Wars (1816–1858), the longest and most extensive of the American Indian Wars. The state seceded from the Union on January 10, 1861, becoming one of the seven original Confederate States, and was readmitted to the Union after the Civil War on June 25, 1868.
... that employees of a Florida TV station joked that their studio building would survive "as long as the termites don't stop holding hands"?
... that the legacy of American pianist Ella Scoble Opperman has been said to continue "to entertain and draw attention to Tallahassee" decades after her death?
... that a man who fatally shot a Florida woman waving a gun at him from her front yard after a road-rage incident was not charged in connection with her death?
Image 13Snow is very uncommon in Florida, but has occurred in every major Florida city at least once; snow does fall very occasionally in North Florida (from Geography of Florida)
Image 17Juan Ponce de León was one of the first Europeans to set foot in the current United States; he led the first European expedition to Florida, which he named. (from History of Florida)
Image 18A 1527 map by Vesconte Maggiolo showing the east coast of North America with "Tera Florida" at the top and "Lavoradore" at the bottom. (from History of Florida)
Gregor MacGregor (24 December 1786 – 4 December 1845) was a Scottish soldier, adventurer, and con man who attempted from 1821 to 1837 to draw British and French investors and settlers to "Poyais", a fictional Central American territory that he claimed to rule as "Cazique". Hundreds invested their savings in supposed Poyaisian government bonds and land certificates, while about 250 emigrated to MacGregor's invented country in 1822–23 to find only an untouched jungle; more than half of them died. Seen as a contributory factor to the "Panic of 1825", MacGregor's Poyais scheme has been called one of the most brazen confidence tricks in history.
From the Clan Gregor, MacGregor was an officer in the British Army from 1803 to 1810; he served in the Peninsular War. He joined the republican side in the Venezuelan War of Independence in 1812, quickly became a general and, over the next four years, operated against the Spanish on behalf of both Venezuela and its neighbour New Granada. His successes included a difficult month-long fighting retreat through northern Venezuela in 1816. He captured Amelia Island in 1817 under a mandate from revolutionary agents to conquer Spanish Florida, and there proclaimed a short-lived "Republic of the Floridas". He then oversaw two calamitous operations in New Granada during 1819 that each ended with his abandoning British volunteer troops under his command. (Full article...)
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![Image 9A Cuban sandwich is a variation of a ham and cheese sandwich that originated among the Cuban workers in the cigar factories in Key West, Florida[1][2]](/wiki/File:Key_West_Cuban_mix.jpg)
