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The first European sighting of Florida, just six years after Christopher Columbus reached the New World, is believed to have been made by John and Sebastian Cabot in 1498, when they spotted what is now Cape Florida, on Key Biscayne in Miami. At the time, the area's 100,000 inhabitants formed several distinct tribes: the Timucua across northern Florida, the Calusa around the southwest and Lake Okeechobee, the Apalachee in the Panhandle and the Tequesta along the southeast coast.

In 1513, a Spaniard, Juan Ponce de León , sighted land during Pascua Florida , the Festival of the Flowers, and named what he saw La Florida - or "Land of Flowers." Eight years later he returned with a mandate from the Spanish king to conquer and colonize the territory, the first of several Spanish incursions prompted by rumors of gold hidden in the north of the region. When it became clear that Florida did not harbor stunning riches, interest waned; but the arrival of French Huguenots in 1562 forced the Spanish into a more determined effort at settlement.

Three years later, Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded St Augustine - the longest continuous site of European habitation on the continent. In 1586 St Augustine was razed by a British naval bombardment led by Francis Drake. The ensuing bloody confrontation for control of North America was eventually settled when the British captured the crucial Spanish possession of Havana, and Spain willingly parted with Florida to get it back. By this time, indigenous Floridians had been largely wiped out by disease. Florida's Native American population now largely comprised disparate tribes arriving from the west, collectively known as the Seminoles , who were generally left undisturbed in the inland areas.

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Following American independence, when Florida was returned to Spain, the US began to think in terms of controlling the state. In 1814 a US general, Andrew Jackson, marched south, killing hundreds of Indians and triggering the First Seminole War - on the pretext of subduing the Seminole but with the actual intention of taking the region. Spain formally ceded Florida to the US in 1819, with Jackson sworn in as Florida's first American governor and Tallahassee selected as the new administrative center. Eleven years later, the Act of Indian Removal decreed that all Native Americans in the eastern US should be transferred to reservations in the Midwest. Most Seminole were determined to stay and the Second Seminole War broke out, with the Indians steadily driven south, away from the fertile lands of central Florida and into the Everglades, where they eventually agreed to remain.

Florida became a state on March 3, 1845, coinciding with the prosperity brought by the railroads. As a member of the Confederacy during the Civil War, Florida's primary contribution was the provision of food - a foretaste of its postwar economic role after being readmitted to the Union. As northern speculators began to invest in Florida, the country's newspapers extolled the curative virtues of its climate. These early efforts to promote Florida as a tourist destination brought in the wintering rich: Henry Flagler opened luxury resorts on the northeast coast and extended his Florida East Coast Railroad south, giving birth to communities such as Palm Beach.

Henry Plant connected his own railroad to Tampa, turning it into a thriving port city. Florida's climate enabled citrus fruits to be grown during the winter and sold to the cooler north, and the state became a major beef producer. After World War I, it seemed that everyone in America wanted a piece of Florida, and chartered trains brought in thousands of eager buyers. But most deals were on paper only, and in 1926 the banks began to default. The Wall Street Crash then made paupers of the millionaires whose investments had helped shape the state.

What saved Florida was World War II. Thousands of troops arrived to guard the coastline, empty tourist hotels provided ready-made barracks, and - most importantly - the soldiers got a taste of Florida that would entice many of them to return. In the mid-Sixties, the state government bent over backward to help the Disney Corporation turn a sizable slice of central Florida into Walt Disney World, the biggest theme park ever known. Its enormous commercial success helped solidify Florida's place in the international tourist market: directly or indirectly, tourism makes up 20 percent of the total state economy.