Fun Facts

The first semi-permanent settlements appeared in Florida around 5000 B.C. ship Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in our state on March 27, 1513. He named it "Pascua Florida" because he arrived during the time of the Feast of Flowers.
St. Augustine is Florida's oldest city dating back to August 28, 1565.
Florida's first Legislative Council which was supposed to meet in Pensacola on June 10, 1822 did not meet until 44 days later due to hazardous and time-consuming travel.

When Florida was granted statehood on March 3, 1845, its population was 57, 921.

 Florida Tallahassee was named the state capital in 1824 by Florida's first territorial governor, William P. DuVal.

The 1868 Constitution provided the Seminole Tribe was entitled to a member in the House and the Senate.
Dr. John Gorrie of Apalachicola patented the process of making ice artificially in 1851.
Florida Agricultural and Mechanical School for Negroes was created in 1887. It later became Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.

Florida State College for Women became Florida State University in 1947. During the same year, the University of Florida began admitting women.

 University The Buckman Act of 1905 consolidated the state's institutions of higher learning into three: the University of Florida at Gainesville, the Florida State College for Women, and the Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College for Negroes at Tallahassee.
Frozen concentrates of citrus juices became a major industry in 1950.
The first commercial airline between two U.S. cities was established at St. Petersburg in 1914. airplane In 1937, Amelia Earhart took off from Miami for an around-the-world flight and was never seen again.
satellite frozen flamingo

Explorer I, the free world's first earth satellite, was sent into the air from Cape Canaveral in 1958.

Snow fell in Dade County on January 20, 1977.
Six student athletes from Florida universities have won the Heisman Trophy including University of Florida quarterback Steve Spurrier (1966), University of Miami football quarterbacks Vinny Testaverde (1986) and Gino Torretta (1992), Florida State University quarterback Charlie Ward (1993), University of Florida quarterback Danny Wuerffel (1996), and Florida State University quarterback Chris Weinke (2000).
The current Senate Chamber, first used in 1978, is the fourth chamber used since the first session of the Senate was called to order in 1839. television Florida's legislative telecasts were used as a model for a similar system installed in 1979 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Janet Reno, who became the nation's seventy-eighth Attorney General in 1993, was the Staff Director of the Florida House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee in 1971.
Computers were installed at House Chamber desks to provide Representatives with the text of amendments pending before the House. This was the first such system installed in any state legislature. computer Florida has had 6 Constitutions since it became a state. The first Constitution was drafted in Saint Joseph, now known as Port St. Joe. Presently Florida is governed by the Constitution of 1968.