“Florida” is the oldest European place name still in use in the USA. Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish conquistador, landed on April 2, 1513, six days after Easter, on the peninsular coast of southeastern North America and gave the country the name “Florida”. On the one hand based on the Spanish name for Easter: “Pascua Florida” and on the other hand because of the blossoms in which the country presented itself at this time of the year. After Florida natives crushed an attempt by Ponce de Leon and a group of settlers to found a colony in 1521, the Spanish and French made attempts to establish settlements or find gold, with varying degrees of success. In 1564, the French established the first Huguenot settlement, Fort Caroline, at the mouth of the St. Johns River on Florida’s east coast. However, this provoked the Spaniards and they destroyed the settlement just a year later. They founded San August in just 40 miles further south. This would become the first permanent European settlement on the American mainland. From here the Spaniards began to proselytize the south-east. Today you can still find houses from that time in the historic center of Saint Augustine, such as e. g. B. “The Oldest Wooden Schoolhouse” (the oldest wooden schoolhouse) in the USA. On March 3, 1845, Florida became the 27th state of the United States. Florida is rightly called the “Sunshine State”. The average temperatures are over 30° Celsius in the summer months and over 20° C in the winter (25° C in Miami). In St. Petersburg the sun shines 360 days a year. Florida is known for many attractions: Cape Canaveral Cosmodrome with the Kennedy Space Center; Disney World Orlando; Universal Studios; Busch Gardens near Tampa; Auto racing at Daytona; Everglades in the south of the state; many seemingly endless beaches on the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico; to name just a few. Check topschoolsoflaw.com for brief history of the state of Florida.