27th March: Florida

On this date in 1512 Florida was discovered - Florida was sighted by Juan Ponce de Leon, a Spanish explorer. Here are ten things you might not know about Florida.

1. It was Juan Ponce de Leon who gave the state its name. He called it 'La Florida', which is Spanish for "land of flowers".
2. Florida has the lowest high point of any US state. Britton Hill is only 345 feet above sea level. Florida’s mean elevation is only 100 feet. Only Delaware's is lower at 60 feet. Also, if you're anywhere in Florida, you're no more than 60 miles from the sea.
3. Florida is the only state which has two rivers with the same name. There is a Withlacoochee in north central Florida and a Withlacoochee in central Florida.
4. Florida is the largest producer of citrus fruit in the United States. Most of the fruit, 90%, is used to make juice. Hardly surprising then, that Florida's official state beverage is Orange juice and the state flower is orange blossom. The official state gem, on the other hand, is moonstone, which doesn't occur naturally anywhere in the state.
5. The American alligator is the state reptile - South Florida is the only place in the world where alligators and Crocodiles co-exist in the wild. The state bird is the mockingbird, the state mammal the Florida Panther, the state insect the Zebra longwing butterfly and the state tree is the Palmetto palm.
6. The world's first scheduled passenger service airline flight took place in Florida in 1914 when Tony Jannus flew passengers from St. Petersburg, Florida to Tampa. Pioneering in the field of flight continued more recently when Florida became the launch location for the Apollo, Skylab and Space Shuttle programs. The telephone area code for Cape Canaveral and Brevard County in Florida is 321, which was especially assigned to the area because of the space programme. It represents the countdown sequence immediately before launch. Also in 1959, Florida became the only place in the world to have its mail delivered by a cruise missile, fired from a U.S. Navy submarine. The mail consisted entirely of commemorative postal covers. Twenty-two minutes after launch, the missile arrived at the Naval Auxiliary Air Station in Mayport, Florida. The mail was retrieved, sorted and routed in the usual way from a post office in Jacksonville. However, this is a rather expensive and not very safe way of delivering mail generally, so it didn't happen again.
7. Florida has a higher percentage of older people than any other state with 17% of the population over the age of 65. That is set to rise to 25% by 2030. The retirement industry is one of the biggest sectors of the economy, along with tourism. The full title of the official Florida state song is “Swanee River (Old Folks at Home).” As well as the beaches and over a thousand golf courses, Florida has Disney World, which attracts more visitors each year than any other US amusement park. It also has one of the most dived shipwrecks in the world, the Benwood, on French Reef in the Florida Keys.
8. The capital is Tallahassee but the largest city is Jacksonville, which is the largest US city in terms of area. Saint Augustine, Florida is the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States, founded in 1565, by Spanish admiral Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, Florida's first governor. Also here are the Shark Tooth Capital of the World (Venice) and the Fern Capital of the World (Pierson).
9. Two annual events worth mentioning are The Mug Race, which is the longest river sailboat race in the world at 38.5 miles, held on St. Johns River in Florida; and the Annual Interstate Mullet Toss, which takes place in The Flora-Bama Lounge and Package, which is based on the state line with Alabama. The bar is partly in Florida and partly in Alabama. The Mullet Toss is basically a competition where people throw a dead fish across the state line.
10. While in Florida, you must not: fall asleep under a hairdryer; have sex with a porcupine; kill deer while swimming; molest a trash can; have a bath or shower without wearing a bathing suit; sing in public in a bathing suit; break more than three dishes a day; or Fart in a public place after 6pm on a Thursday.

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