Florida timeline
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Juan Ponce De Leon Lands In Florida
After 1492 European exploration of the Americas revolutionized how the Old and New Worlds perceived themselves. One of the first major contacts, in... Read more
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The Spanish Crown Grants Juan Ponce De Leon The Title Military Governor of Bimini And Florida
On September 27, 1514, the Spanish crown granted explorer Juan Ponce de Leon the title Military Governor of Bimini (an island in the Bahamas) and... Read more
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Panfilo De Narvaez Arrives In Florida
Narváez was subsequently appointed adelantado (governor) of Florida by Charles V. He sailed from Sanlúcar de Barrameda on June 17, 1527 with a... Read more
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Hernando De Soto Arrives In Florida
In May 1539, de Soto landed nine ships with over 620 men and 220 surviving horses at at present day Shaw's Point, in Bradenton, FL. He named it... Read more
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Battle of Alligator Bridge
In the spring of 1778 an invasion of British East Florida was organized by Georgia Governor John Houstoun and Continental Army General Robert Howe.... Read more
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Battle of Pensacola
On April 28, siege operations finally got underway. By May 1 they had emplaced a battery of cannons overlooking the Queen's Redoubt, and begun... Read more
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Florida is the 27th State Admitted to the Union
The Territory of East and West Florida was established March 3, 1821. With it came Peter W. Gautier Jr., appointed first U.S. Marshal for the... Read more
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Florida Secedes From The Union
On January 10, 1861, delegates to the Florida Convention in Tallahassee voted to secede from the United States of America. The following month,... Read more
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Battle of Santa Rosa Island - Confederate Forces Attempt to Capture Fort Pickens
The Battle of Santa Rosa Island (October 9, 1861) was an unsuccessful Confederate attempt to take Union held Fort Pickens on Santa Rosa Island,... Read more
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Battle of Tampa - Lieutenant A.J. Drake Demands Confederate Surrender
The Battle of Tampa was a minor engagement of the American Civil War fought June 30 – July 1, 1862, between the United States Navy and a... Read more
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Battle of Saint John's Bluff
Other Names: None Location: Duval County Campaign: Expedition to St. John’ s Bluff (1862) Date(s): October 1-3, 1862 Principal... Read more
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Battle of Fort Brooke
Other Names: None Location: Tampa Campaign: Expedition to Hillsborough River (1863) Date(s): October 16-18, 1863 Principal Commanders:... Read more
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Battle of Olustee - Union Fails to Take Florida
Description: In February 1864, the commander of the Department of the South, Maj. Gen. Quincy A. Gillmore, launched an expedition into Florida to... Read more
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Battle of Gainesville
The Battle of Gainesville was fought on August 17, 1864, as part of the Florida Expedition of the American Background Gainesville, site of a... Read more
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Battle of Marianna
The Battle of Marianna was a small but significant engagement on September 27, 1864, in the panhandle of Florida during the American Civil War. The... Read more
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Battle of Fort Myers
The Battle of Fort Myers was fought on February 25, 1865, in Lee County, Florida during the last months of the American Civil War. This small... Read more
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Battle of Natural Bridge
Other Names: None Location: Leon County Campaign: Operations near St. Marks, Florida (1865) Date(s): March 6, 1865 Principal... Read more
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Overseas Railway Linking The Florida Keys To The Mainland Is Completed
On January 22, 1912, the nearly twenty thousand residents of the city of Key West, Florida, located on a small island some 128 miles south of the... Read more
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Ernest Hemingway Moves To Key West
The new Hemingways heard of Key West from Ernest’s friend John Dos Passos, and the two stopped at the tiny Florida island on their way back from... Read more
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National Airlines Flight 16 Lands in Water
National Airlines Flight 16 was a domestic (U.S.), scheduled passenger flight from Miami, Florida, to Lakeland, Florida, that crashed on 5 October... Read more
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Cubana de Aviación Flight 493 Crashes into a US Navy Beechcraft SNB-1 Kansan
Cubana de Aviación Flight 493, registration CU-T188, was a Douglas DC-4 en route from Miami, Florida, United States, to Havana, Cuba, on April 25,... Read more
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Hurricane Betsy
On August 27th, reconnaissance aircraft found a tropical depression east of the Leeward Islands. By late in the day the system strengthened into a... Read more
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Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 Crash
At 23:41:40 Miami approach contacted the flight and granted the crew's request to turn around by clearing him for a left turn heading 180 degrees.... Read more
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NASA Launches Voyager 2
The Voyager 2 spacecraft is an unmanned interplanetary space probe launched on August 20, 1977. Both the Voyager 2 and the Voyager 1 space probes... Read more
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MV Summit Venture collides with Sunshine Skyway Bridge
The southbound span of the original bridge (built in 1969) was destroyed at 7:33 a.m. on May 9, 1980, when the freighter MV Summit Venture collided... Read more