Various American Indian tribes have inhabited Florida for at least 14,000 years. In 1513, Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León became the first known European to make landfall, calling the region La Florida (land of flowers) ([la floˈɾiða]). Florida subsequently became the first area in the continental U.S. to be permanently settled by Europeans, with the settlement of St. Augustine, founded in 1565, being the oldest continuously inhabited city. Florida was a Spanish territory frequently attacked and coveted by Great Britain before Spain ceded it to the U.S. in 1819 in exchange for resolving the border dispute along the Sabine River in Spanish Texas. 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.
Weather map of the storm after becoming an extratropical cyclone off the coast of the Eastern United States
The 1925 Florida tropical storm was the deadliest tropical cyclone to impact the United States that did not become a hurricane. The fourth and final storm of the season, it formed as a tropical depression on November 27 near the Yucatán Peninsula, the system initially tracked southeastward before turning north as it gradually intensified. After skirting western Cuba on November 30, the storm reached peak winds of 65 mph (105 km/h) before striking central Florida on December 1. Within hours, the system transitioned into an extratropical cyclone and emerged into the Atlantic Ocean. The system moved onshore once more on December 2 in North Carolina before turning east, away from the United States. On December 5, the system is presumed to have dissipated offshore.
Throughout the system's existence, it was responsible for 73 fatalities, most of which resulted from offshore incidents. The worst loss of life took place off East Coast, where the 30 crewmen of the American SS Cotopaxi drowned. Property damage amounted to $3 million, $1 million of which was in Jacksonville. (Full article...)
... that Homestead, Florida, radio station WOIR was credited with saving the lives of hundreds of farmworkers in a labor camp before the arrival of Hurricane Andrew?
Image 3Juan 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 28A 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)
Image 30Timucua Indians at a column erected by the French in 1562 (from History of Florida)
Image 31Snow 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)
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