The history of Florida can be traced to when the first Native Americans began to inhabit the peninsula as early as 14,000 years ago.[1] They left behind artifacts and archeological evidence. Florida's written history begins with the arrival of Europeans; the Spanish explorer Juan Ponce de León in 1513 made the first textual records. The state received its name from this Spanish conquistador, who called the peninsula La Pascua Florida in recognition of the verdant landscape and because it was the Easter season, which the Spaniards called Pascua Florida (Festival of Flowers).[2][3][4]

 

   This area was the first mainland realm of the United States to be settled by Europeans. Thus, 1513 marked the beginning of the American Frontier. From that time of contact, Florida has had many waves of colonization and immigration, including French and Spanish settlement during the 16th century, as well as entry of new Native American groups migrating from elsewhere in the South, and free blacks and fugitive slaves, who in the 19th century became allied with the Native Americans as Black Seminoles. Florida was under colonial rule by Spain, France, and Great Britain during the 18th and 19th centuries before becoming a territory of the United States in 1821. Two decades later, in 1845, Florida was admitted to the union as the 27th US state. Since the 19th century, immigrants have arrived from Europe, Latin America, Africa and Asia.