1.
Florida
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Florida /ˈflɒrᵻdə/ is a state located in the southeastern region of the United States. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, Florida is the 22nd-most extensive, the 3rd-most populous, and the 8th-most densely populated of the U. S. states. Jacksonville is the most populous municipality in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States, the Miami metropolitan area is Floridas most populous urban area. The city of Tallahassee is the state capital, much of the state is at or near sea level and is characterized by sedimentary soil. The climate varies from subtropical in the north to tropical in the south, the American alligator, American crocodile, Florida panther, and manatee can be found in the Everglades National Park. It was a location of the Seminole Wars against the Native Americans. Today, Florida is distinctive for its large Cuban expatriate community and high population growth, the states economy relies mainly on tourism, agriculture, and transportation, which developed in the late 19th century. Florida is also renowned for amusement parks, orange crops, the Kennedy Space Center, Florida has attracted many writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Ernest Hemingway and Tennessee Williams, and continues to attract celebrities and athletes. It is internationally known for golf, tennis, auto racing, by the 16th century, the earliest time for which there is a historical record, major Native American groups included the Apalachee, the Timucua, the Ais, the Tocobaga, the Calusa and the Tequesta. Florida was the first part of the continental United States to be visited and settled by Europeans, the earliest known European explorers came with the Spanish conquistador Juan Ponce de León. Ponce de León spotted and landed on the peninsula on April 2,1513 and he named the region La Florida. The story that he was searching for the Fountain of Youth is a myth, in May 1539, Conquistador Hernando de Soto skirted the coast of Florida, searching for a deep harbor to land. He described seeing a wall of red mangroves spread mile after mile, some reaching as high as 70 feet. Very soon, many smokes appeared along the whole coast, billowing against the sky, the Spanish introduced Christianity, cattle, horses, sheep, the Spanish language, and more to Florida. Both the Spanish and French established settlements in Florida, with varying degrees of success, in 1559, Don Tristán de Luna y Arellano established a settlement at present-day Pensacola, making it the first attempted settlement in Florida, but it was abandoned by 1561. Spain maintained tenuous control over the region by converting the tribes to Christianity. The area of Spanish Florida diminished with the establishment of English settlements to the north, the English attacked St. Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times. Florida attracted numerous Africans and African-Americans from adjacent British colonies who sought freedom from slavery, in 1738, Governor Manuel de Montiano established Fort Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose near St
2.
States General of the Netherlands
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The States General is the bicameral legislature of the Netherlands, consisting of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The parliament meets at the Binnenhof in The Hague, the States General originated in the 15th century as an assembly of all the provincial states of the Burgundian Netherlands. The States General were replaced by the National Assembly after the Batavian Revolution of 1795, only to be restored in 1814, the States General was divided into a Senate and a House of Representatives in 1815, with the establishment of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands. On exceptional occasions, the two form a joint session known as the United Assembly. The President of the Senate serves as President of the States General during a United Assembly, ankie Broekers-Knol has been President of the Senate since 2013. The archaic Dutch word staten originally related to the classes in which medieval European societies were stratified, the clergy, the nobility. The word eventually came to mean the political body in which the estates were represented. Each province in the Habsburg Netherlands had its own staten and these representative bodies in turn were represented in the assembly that came to be known as Staten-Generaal, or Algemene Staten. The English word states may have a meaning as the Dutch word staten. The English phrases States General is probably a translation of the Dutch word. Historically, the term was used for the name of other national legislatures as, for example, the Catalan and Valencian Generalitat. Several geographic place names are derived from the States General, in 1609, Henry Hudson established Dutch trade in Staten Island, New York City and named the island Staaten Eylandt after the States General. Isla de los Estados, now an Argentine island, was named after this institution. Abel Tasman originally gave the name Staten Landt to what would become New Zealand, Staaten River is a river in the Cape York Peninsula, Australia. Later, regular sessions were held at Coudenberg in Brussels, Brabant, the next important event was the convocation of the States General by the ducal Council for 3 February 1477 after the death of Charles the Bold. In this session the States General forced the grant of the Great Privilege by Mary of Burgundy in which the right of the States General to convene on their own initiative was recognised, in 1576 the States General as a whole, however, openly rebelled against the Spanish crown. In 1579 the States General split as a number of provinces, united in the Union of Arras returned to obedience, while other provinces. After the Act of Abjuration in 1581 the northern States General replaced Philip II as the authority of the northern Netherlands
3.
Habsburg Spain
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Habsburg Spain refers to the history of Spain over the 16th and 17th centuries, when it was ruled by kings from the House of Habsburg. The Habsburg rulers reached the zenith of their influence and power and this period of Spanish history has also been referred to as the Age of Expansion. The Habsburg years were also a Spanish Golden Age of cultural efflorescence, in some cases, these individual kingdoms themselves were confederations, most notably, the Crown of Aragon. Isabella and Ferdinand were bestowed the title of Most Catholic Monarchs by Pope Alexander VI in 1496, the Habsburg period is formative of the notion of Spain in the sense that was institutionalized in the 18th century. Her husband Philip I was the Habsburg son of the Holy Roman Emperor Maximilian I, shortly thereafter Joanna began to lapse into insanity, though how mentally ill she actually was the topic of some debate. In 1506, Philip I was declared jure uxoris king, but he died later that year under mysterious circumstances, possibly poisoned by his father-in-law, Ferdinand II. Since their oldest son Charles was only six, the Cortes reluctantly allowed Joannas father Ferdinand II to rule the country as the regent of Joanna, Spain was now in personal union under Ferdinand II of Aragon. He also attempted to enlarge Spains sphere of influence in Italy, as ruler of Aragon, Ferdinand had been involved in the struggle against France and the Republic of Venice for control of Italy, these conflicts became the center of Ferdinands foreign policy as king. The war was less of a success than that against Venice, Ferdinand would die later that year. Ferdinands death led to the ascension of young Charles to the throne as Charles I of Castile and Aragon and his Spanish inheritance included all the Spanish possessions in the New World and around the Mediterranean. Upon the death of his Habsburg father in 1506, Charles had inherited the Netherlands and Franche-Comté, in 1519, with the death of his paternal grandfather Maximilian I, Charles inherited the Habsburg territories in Germany, and was duly elected as Holy Roman Emperor that year. At that point, Emperor and King Charles was the most powerful man in Christendom, the accumulation of so much power by one man and one dynasty greatly concerned Francis I of France, who found himself surrounded by Habsburg territories. In 1521 Francis invaded the Spanish possessions in Italy and Navarre, the war was a disaster for France, which suffered defeats at Biccoca, Pavia, and Landriano before Francis relented and abandoned Milan to Spain once more. Charless victory at the Battle of Pavia surprised many Italians and Germans, Pope Clement VII switched sides and now joined forces with France and prominent Italian states against the Habsburg Emperor, in the War of the League of Cognac. Henry VIII of England, who bore a grudge against France than he held against the Emperor for standing in the way of his divorce. Although the Spanish army was defeated at the Battle of Ceresole, in Savoy Henry fared better. The Austrians, led by Charless younger brother Ferdinand, continued to fight the Ottomans in the east, with France defeated, Charles went to take care of an older problem, the Schmalkaldic League. The Protestant Reformation had begun in Germany in 1517, the German Peasants War broke out in Germany in 1524 and ravaged the country until it was brutally put down in 1526, Charles, even as far away from Germany as he was, was committed to keeping order
4.
Spanish Florida
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Spanish Florida refers to the Spanish territory of La Florida, which was the first major European land claim and attempted settlement in North America during the European Age of Discovery. La Florida formed part of the Captaincy General of Cuba, the Viceroyalty of New Spain, Spains claim to this vast area was based on several wide-ranging expeditions mounted during the 16th century. However, Spain never exercised control over La Florida much beyond several settlements and forts which were predominantly located in present-day Florida. Spanish Florida was established in 1513, when Juan Ponce de León claimed peninsular Florida for Spain during the first official European expedition to North America, the presidio of St. Spanish control of the Florida peninsula was made possible by the collapse of native cultures during the 17th century. Several Native American groups had been long-established residents of Florida, during the mid-1700s, small bands of Creek and other Native American refugees began moving south into Spanish Florida after having been forced off their lands by English settlements and raids. They were later joined by African-Americans fleeing slavery in nearby colonies and these newcomers - plus perhaps a few surviving descendants of indigenous Florida peoples - eventually coalesced into a new Seminole culture. The extent of Spanish Florida began to shrink in the 1600s, between disease, poor management, and ill-timed hurricanes, several Spanish attempts to establish new settlements in La Florida ended in failure. The War of Jenkins Ear included a British attack on St. Augustine, at the conclusion of the war, the northern boundary of Spanish Florida was set near the current northern border of modern-day Florida. Great Britain temporarily gained control of Florida beginning in 1763 as a result of the Anglo-Spanish War, France sold Louisiana to the United States in 1803. The U. S. claimed that the transaction included West Florida, as with earlier American incursions into Florida, Spain protested this invasion but could not defend its territory, and instead opened diplomatic negotiations seeking a peaceful transfer of land. By the terms of the Adams-Onis Treaty of 1819, Spanish Florida ceased to exist in 1821, anonymous Portuguese sailors were likely the first Europeans to map the southeastern portion of the future United States. They kept their discoveries secret, however, and did not attempt to establish settlements or explore very far inland, in 1512 Juan Ponce de León, governor of Puerto Rico, received royal permission to search for land north of Cuba. On March 3,1513, his expedition departed from Punta Aguada, Puerto Rico, in late March, he spotted a small island but did not land. On April 2, Ponce de León spotted the east coast of the Florida peninsula and went ashore the next day at an exact location that has been lost to time. Assuming that he had found an island, he claimed the land for Spain and named it La Florida, because it was the season of Pascua Florida. After briefly exploring the area around their landing site, the returned to their ships and sailed south to map the coast. The expedition followed Floridas coastline all the way around the Florida Keys, popular legend has it that Ponce de León was searching for the Fountain of Youth when he discovered Florida. Ponce de León probably was not the first Spaniard to reach Florida, evidence suggests that Spanish raiders from the Caribbean had conducted small secret expeditions to Florida to capture Indian slaves
5.
Pensacola, Florida
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Pensacola is the westernmost city in the Florida Panhandle and the county seat of Escambia County, in the U. S. state of Florida. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 51,923. Pensacola is the city of the Pensacola metropolitan area, which had an estimated 461,227 residents in 2012. Pensacola is a sea port on Pensacola Bay, which is protected by the island of Santa Rosa. The main campus of the University of West Florida is situated north of the city center, the area was originally inhabited by Muskogean peoples. The Pensacola people lived there at the time of European contact, Spanish explorer Tristán de Luna founded a short-lived settlement in 1559. In 1698 the Spanish established a presidio in the area, from which the city gradually developed. The area changed several times as European powers competed in North America. During Floridas British rule, fortifications were strengthened, other nicknames include Worlds Whitest Beaches, Cradle of Naval Aviation, Western Gate to the Sunshine State, Americas First Settlement, Emerald Coast, Red Snapper Capital of the World, and P-Cola. The original inhabitants of the Pensacola Bay area were Native American peoples, at the time of European contact, a Muskogean-speaking tribe known to the Spanish as the Pensacola lived in the region. This name was not recorded until 1677, but the tribe appears to be the source of the name Pensacola for the bay and thence the city. Creek people, also Muskogean-speaking, came regularly from present-day southern Alabama to trade, so the peoples were part of a broader regional and even continental network of relations. The best-known Pensacola culture site in terms of archeology is the Bottle Creek site and this site has at least 18 large earthwork mounds, five of which are arranged around a central plaza. Its main occupation was from 1250 AD to 1550 and it was a ceremonial center for the Pensacola people and a gateway to their society. This site would have had access by a dugout canoe. The areas written recorded history begins in the 16th century, with documentation by Spanish explorers who were the first Europeans to reach the area. The expeditions of Pánfilo de Narváez in 1528 and Hernando de Soto in 1539 both visited Pensacola Bay, the latter of which documented the name Bay of Ochuse. In 1559, Tristán de Luna y Arellano landed with some 1,500 people on 11 ships from Veracruz, Mexico
![Banner of the Spanish Empire from 1506; used in Florida from 1513[12]](/wiki/File:Flag_of_Cross_of_Burgundy.svg)
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![An unofficial flag of Florida, used at the inauguration of Governor William Dunn Moseley in 1845[13]](/wiki/File:Florida_Moseley_Flag.svg)
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