Photo: St. Augustine

On September 8, 1565, this city was founded by Pedro Menendez de Aviles, and named St. Augustine because his fleet had reached the Florida shores on the day of the festival of St. Augustine. A Spanish settlement in Florida finally appeared after fifty years of failure to colonize the peninsula, first discovered in 1513 by Juan Ponce de Leon.
Before Menendez, six separate attempts to occupy and settle Florida had been unsuccessful including expeditions led by Ponce De Leon (1521), Panfilo de Narvaez (1528), Hernando de Soto (1539-1543), and Tristan de Luna Y Arrellano (1560-1561).