Hop aboard the Florida "way-back" machine to visit rousing eras of wooly mammoths, Native Americans, brave conquistadores, pirates, pioneers, geniuses, millionaires, astronauts and heroes.
10,000-8,000 B.C. Move over mastodons and gigantic armadillos, humans
are afoot, heading from what is now Georgia to Florida.
8000 B.C.-1500 A.D. Tribes from the Caribbean and Mexico join migrants
from the north to settle, fish, trade and worship the sun.
1513 He came, he saw he left. Juan Ponce de Leon makes the first European
landfall somewhere in the vicinity of St. Augustine, claiming La Florida for Spain.
1516-1542 More Spanish explorers come to see what all the excitement
is about. Ponce de Leon returns, this time to the West Coast where natives greet
him with poisoned arrows.
1559 He came, he saw. . . he tried to stay. Tristan de Luna establishes
Floridas first settlement at todays Pensacola Beach. Starvation ensues and de
Luna departs.
1564 Frenchman Rene de Laudoniere comes, sees. . . and stays, also in
the vicinity of St. Augustine at a settlement known as Fort Caroline. This makes
the Spanish very nervous.
1565 He came, he fought, he stayed. Spain sends Pedro Menendez de Aviles
to rid Florida of the French. He establishes the town of St. Augustine, Americas
first permanent European settlement.
1600-1700 Spain is on a mission to "educate" (convert to Catholicism)
Floridas native people. Its priests build more than 30 missions along the northeast
coast and westward near Tallahassee and St. Marks.
1698-1723 Spain sets up camp in Pensacola, which later gets ping-ponged
from Spain to France, back to Spain, back to France, back to Spain.
1738 Fort Mose, the nations first black community, is established near St. Augustine in time to defend it against the British.
1763 At the end of the Seven Years War, England gives Cuba to Spain in exchange for St. Augustine, whose citizens pack up for Cuba.
1776-80 Florida, now British, supports the Motherland during the American Revolution, providing a safe haven for thousands of Tories.
1783 St. Augustine is again swapped, ending up once more in Spanish hands.
1785-1795 Spain relinquishes St. Augustine and Pensacola to England.
1803 The United States of America claims West Florida and its capital Pensacola as part of the Louisiana Purchase.
1813 England is not so keen on giving up Pensacola and General Andrew Jackson arrives to drive the British out.
1818 Jacksons actions spark the first of two skirmishes with the Seminole Indians.
1821-1823 Jackson becomes Floridas provisional governor when the U.S. purchases Florida and its capital St. Augustine from Spain. Tallahassee becomes the new capital.
1830-1840 Boom! Floridas first flush of settlers arrives by steamboat and the population grows from 15,000 to 34,000.
1835-1842 Seminole Wars, the sequel.
1845 Its official: Florida becomes the 27th state with 66,500 people.
1861-1865 Its official: Florida becomes a non-state when it secedes from the Union. Florida provisions Confederate troops with salt, beef and bacon during the Civil War.
1878 Tourism dawns at Silver Springs when Hullam Jones glues a window to the bottom of a rowboat and invents the glass-bottom boat.
1883-85 Florida gets railroaded. Henry Plant lays tracks on the West Coast, Henry Flagler on the East Coast. Along with the railroads sprout luxury hotels and a new era for Florida travel.
1887 Eatonville becomes the first incorporated municipality in America governed by its own African-American population.
1898 Florida prepares for the Spanish-American War with forts and army camps.
1904-1912 Flagler rides the rails to the end of the line, extending his tracks the 156 miles from Miami to Key West.
1908 Jacksonville becomes Floridas Hollywood, where producers make early movies years ahead of Hollywood, actually.
1928 Transportation makes another forward lurch with the opening of the Tamiami Trail from Tampa to Miami.
1946 Jackie Robinson scores a homerun for his people in Daytona Beach as the first African-American to join an all-white team.
1947 Score one for Mother Nature: President Truman dedicates Everglades National Park.
1959 Fidel Castros assumption of power results in the first influx of Cuban immigrants to Florida.
1961 Transportation looks skyward as Cape Canaveral sends its first manned vessel into space.
1971 The mouse is loose. Walt Disney World opens outside Orlando.
1980 Nearly 125,000 more Cuban immigrants arrive in the Mariel boatlift.
1982 President Reagan signs the Miccosukee Constitution, making Miccosukee Indian territory independent from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
1984 Florida returns to the rails: Miami debuts its $1 billion Metro rail system.
2000 Score one more for Mother Nature: President Clinton authorizes a massive project to restore the fragile eco-system of the Everglades, which have existed and nourished life since the beginning of time in Florida.
- By Chelle Koster Walton
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