The history of Miami, Florida first started more than a thousand years ago by the Tequesta Indians. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés and his men first visited and claimed the area around Miami, Florida for Spain in 1566. Fort Dallas was built in the mid-1800s and the area became a site of fighting during the Second Seminole War. After the Great Freeze of 1894, Julia Tuttle, a local citrus grower, convinced Henry Flagler, a railroad tycoon, to expand his Florida East Coast Railroad to Miami and on July 28, 1896 Miami was officially incorporated as a city. Miami prospered during the 1920s but weakened after the 1926 Miami Hurricane and the Great Depression in the 1930s. After Fidel Castro rose to power in 1959, many Cubans immigrated to Miami, further increasing the population. In the 1980s and 1990s, various crises struck South Florida, among them the Arthur McDuffie beating and the riot caused by it, Hurricane Andrew, and the Elián González uproar. Read the rest of this article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Miami%2C_Florida _______________________________ Today's selected anniversaries: 1430: Hundred Years' War: Joan of Arc was captured at the Siege of Compiègne. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Compi%C3%A8gne) 1813: South American independence leader Simón Bolívar entered Mérida, leading the invasion of Venezuela, and was proclaimed El Libertador ("The Liberator"). (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sim%C3%B3n_Bol%C3%ADvar) 1945: End of World War II in Europe: Reichspräsident Karl Dönitz was captured and his Flensburg government was dissolved. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl_D%C3%B6nitz) 1998: The Belfast Agreement was accepted in a referendum, with a high margin of three-fourth 'yes' votes to Northern Ireland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belfast_Agreement) 2002: The "55 parties" clause of the Kyoto protocol was reached after its ratification by Iceland. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kyoto_protocol) _____________________ Wikiquote of the day: "Cynicism isn't smarter, it's only safer. There's nothing fluffy about optimism." -- Jewel (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jewel_%28singer%29)