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Augustine faces, and Florida history in general, is that the narrative of U.S. Organizers hope September’s 450th anniversary celebrations will bring more attention to a city that doesn’t always enjoy the same fame as other early settlements. In 1513, Juan Ponce de León was the first recorded European to officially set eyes upon the peninsula. Despite the legend saying he “discovered” Florida while looking for the fountain of youth, historians now agree that Ponce de León travelled due to his own political aspirations. The history of Spanish explorers in Florida didn’t start with Menendez, of course. “He hoped to link the Atlantic Seaboard with the Gulf of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and New Spain, what later would become Mexico … He was really trying to establish a commercial empire in Florida,” explains Francis. While other Spanish explorers came to the New World looking for “God, gold and glory,” this was not exactly the case for Menendez, historian Dr. Planting the Spanish flag, he declared the harbor and surrounding land in the name of the Spanish Empire and began setting up a permanent settlement. On September 8, 1565, Spanish explorer Don Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed ashore at an inlet (later called Matanzas Inlet) on the eastern coast of today’s Florida. Augustine survives as the nation’s oldest continuously occupied city, and is now gearing up for its 450th birthday bash.
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Augustine, Florida, established by the Spanish in 1565. While all of these events are an important part of the nation's beginnings, none of them marked the first permanent settlement in what would later become the United States. The pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock in 1620.
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The Roanoke colony was established in 1585, Jamestown in 1607.