1513 Juan Ponce de Leon sets foot on Florida, becoming the first European known to do so.
1513 Explorer Juan Ponce de León declares Florida a territory of Spain.
1539 In Florida, Hernando de Soto lands at Tampa Bay with 600 soldiers with the goal of finding gold.
1539 DeSoto claims Florida for Spain.
1715 A Spanish treasure fleet of 10 ships under Admiral Ubilla leaves Havana, Cuba for Spain. Seven days later, 9 of them sink in a storm off the coast of Florida. A few centuries later, treasure is salvaged from these wrecks.
1821 The United States takes possession of its newly bought territory of Florida from Spain.
1835 Osceola leads his Seminole warriors in Florida into the Second Seminole War against the United States Army.
1842 Indian Wars: Second Seminole War ends, with the Seminoles forced from Florida to Oklahoma.
1845 Florida is admitted as the 27th U.S. state.
1861 American Civil War: Florida secedes from the Union.
1861 American Civil War: Georgia joins South Carolina, Florida, Mississippi, and Alabama in seceding from the United States.
1864 American Civil War: Battle of Olustee occurs – the largest battle fought in Florida during the war.
1928 The Okeechobee Hurricane strikes southeastern Florida, killing upwards of 2,500 people. It is the third deadliest natural disaster in United States history, behind the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 and the 1906 San Francisco earthquake.
1933 Giuseppe Zangara is executed in Florida's electric chair for fatally shooting Anton Cermak in an assassination attempt against President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
1939 Holocaust: The {{MS|St. Louis}}, a ship carrying 963 Jewish refugees, is denied permission to land in Florida, United States, after already being turned away from Cuba. Forced to return to Europe, more than 200 of its passengers later die in Nazi concentration camps.
1945 A hurricane in southern Florida and the Bahamas destroys 366 planes and 25 blimps at NAS Richmond.
1947 The Everglades National Park in Florida is dedicated.
1957 The United States successfully launches the first Atlas intercontinental ballistic missile at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1959 Explorer program: Explorer 6 launches from the Atlantic Missile Range in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1965 Gemini program: Gemini 6A, crewed by Wally Schirra and Thomas Stafford, is launched from Cape Kennedy, Florida. Four orbits later, it achieves the first space rendezvous, with Gemini 7.
1968 Apollo program: ''Apollo 8'', the first manned mission to the moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida. At 2h:50m:37s Mission elapsed time (MES), the crew performs the first ever manned Trans Lunar Injection and become the first humans to leave Earth's gravity.
1969 Apollo program: ''Apollo 11'', the first manned space mission to land on the Moon, is launched from the Kennedy Space Center at Cape Canaveral, Florida.
1972 The Pioneer 10 space probe is launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida with a mission to explore the outer planets.
1972 An Eastern Air Lines Flight 401 (a Lockheed Tristar) crashes on approach to Miami International Airport, Florida, killing 101.
1980 In Florida, Liberian freighter ''MV Summit Venture'' collides with the Sunshine Skyway Bridge over Tampa Bay, making a 1,400-ft. section of the southbound span collapse. 35 people in six cars and a Greyhound bus fall 150 ft. into the water and die.
1980 Demonstration flight of a secretly modified C-130 for an Iran hostage crisis rescue attempt ends in crash landing at Eglin Air Force Base's Duke Field, Florida leading to cancellation of Operation Credible Sport.
1986 The Living Seas opens at EPCOT Center in Walt Disney World, Florida.
1989 Oba Chandler murders an Ohio family on their Florida vacation by drowning them in Tampa Bay.
1990 U.S. District court judge Jose Alejandro Gonzalez, Jr. rules that the rap album ''As Nasty As They Wanna Be'' by 2 Live Crew violates Florida's obscenity law; he declares that the predominant subject matter of the record is "directed to the 'dirty' thoughts and the loins, not to the intellect and the mind."
1996 An ice storm strikes the central U.S. killing 26 people. A powerful windstorm affects Florida and winds gust over 90 mph, toppling trees and flipping trailers.
1999 Allen Lee Davis is executed by electric chair by the state of Florida, the last use of the electric chair for capital punishment in Florida.