When Juan Ponce de León arrived in what's now Florida in 1513, he met Indians whose ancestors had harvested the waters, roamed the hills, and waded the swamps of Florida for at least twelve centuries. Little remains of these early wanderers except artifacts and mounds of discarded oyster shells. The Apalachees roamed the western regions, the Timucuas spread from Tampa Bay, and the Calusas roamed the southern swamplands.

Ponce de León came to America looking for a legendary fountain of youth that he had heard about from the Indians on the island of Puerto Rico. He landed near present-day Saint Augustine and claimed the land for Spain. He and other Spanish explorers had also heard tales of great caches of gold just waiting to be taken. Unfortunately, Ponce de León never did find his fountain of youth, but he did name the new land La Florida in honor of Spain's Festival of Flowers, Pascua Florida, or the “feast of flowers.”

After exploring Florida's eastern coast, he returned again in 1521 to set up a colony on the southwestern side of the peninsula. The Calusa Indians fiercely defended their territory, wounding Ponce de León with a poison arrow, sending him scurrying for Cuba where he died of his wounds. Following his accounts of the new land, fellow explorer Hernando de Soto explored around Tampa Bay before dying of fever. In 1559, Tristán de Luna tried to set up a colony on Pensacola Bay, but hurricanes and hardships put an end to it two years later. Undaunted, the Spanish king sent Pedro Menéndez de Avilés to Florida in 1565. After arriving on the northeast coast and establishing what would become the first permanent settlement in America, he went on to establish forts and missions to convert the Indians to Christianity. Since the Spanish had a hold on Florida, the English headed north to found their colonies.

English colonists from what's now Georgia began harassing the Spanish colony in the early eighteenth century, eventually destroying it. At around the same time, the French captured Pensacola in 1719. England's hold grew stronger as Spain's grew weaker. Finally, in 1763, following the devastating Seven Years War, Spain traded Florida for Cuba, which the British had captured, thus ending her dreams of riches.

The British divided Florida into East and West, with capitals at Saint Augustine and Pensacola. Though they promised colonists land grants, they couldn't follow through on much else because the Revolutionary War in the northern colonies had begun. Though East and West Florida remained loyal to the British, Spain once again won the two territories after the war, offering generous land grants both to potential Spanish colonists and those from America. And slaves escaping from the American colonies found a safe haven in Florida.

By the late eighteenth century, most of Florida's original tribes had been killed or scattered, victims of European exploration, raids, and wars, but as the eighteenth century progressed, more Creek Indians from Georgia moved in to fill the void. They called themselves Seminoles, from the Creek word siminoli, meaning wanderers or exiles. Andrew Jackson invaded northern Florida in 1814 supposedly to squelch an Indian uprising in what was then Alabama, but his actual mission was to roust the British troops from Pensacola. Instead, he attacked Indian settlements, which started the First Seminole War.

After the war began, Spain decided to sell Florida to the United States in 1821. Andrew Jackson became the first territorial governor over united East and West Florida, governing from the new capital, Tallahassee.

Just like their brothers and sisters across the country, Florida's Indians struggled hopelessly to hold onto their homeland. Settlers pressured Jackson to remove the Indians to territory set aside for them west of the Mississippi. When Andrew Jackson became president in 1835, he declared the Second Seminole War. But he underestimated the Seminole's resolve to fight for what was theirs. Seven years and 1,500 lives later, Jackson declared a victory and sent the surviving Seminoles to the Indian Territory. But several hundred escaped into the Everglades to live and hide in the swamp. Their descendants, 500 Miccosukees and 1,500 Seminoles, live there today.

Florida became a state in 1845. Most of its people lived in the northern part of the state, growing cotton, sweet potatoes, and rice on large plantations. Soon after the Civil War broke out, Florida joined the Confederacy. Spared from any major battles, it was able to recover faster than other southern states. Georgia farmers, later known as “crackers,” immigrated into northern Florida to work on farms.

Southern Florida dozed in the sun until millionaires Henry Flagler and Henry B. Plant built railroads down each coast in the 1880s. These brought not only visitors to luxury seaside resorts catering to the well-heeled that each built, but also thousands of workers to build them. Not accessible to the rest of the country, southern Florida opened up to new industries such as cigar-making, sponge-fishing, and citrus-growing. Immigrants, eager to work in the new industries, began to arrive by the boatload. Greek sponge-fishermen settled in Tarpon Springs. Cuban cigar-makers first settled in Key West, then later moved north to Ybor City in Tampa. Scots joined them soon after.

Additional rich farmland opened up as workers drained swamps. Real estate boomed. Then it fell in 1926. Violent hurricanes, the Great Depression, and the Mediterranean fruit fly decimated Florida's economy. All seemed lost until World War II broke out, and Florida became a major military training ground. The good times came back.

Postwar America boomed. And Florida was no exception. A new industry with its eye on the far reaches of the universe set up shop on several desolate barrier islands halfway down Florida's east coast, while an entertainment conglomerate set up shop in Central Florida. NASA and a little mouse named Mickey changed Florida forever.