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Exploring Florida: A Quiz on History and Geography

Test your knowledge about Florida's history, geography, and cultural significance with this engaging quiz.

#Florida #History #Geography #Culture #United States

1 ________, at Key West

2 Augustine, burning the city and its cathedral to the ground several times, while the citizens hid behind the walls of the ________.

3 Spain regained the Floridas after Britain's defeat by the American colonies and the subsequent ________ in 1783, continuing the division into East and West Florida.

4 How long is Florida?

5 Which of these places is north of Florida?

6 Article II, Section 9, of the ________ provides that "English is the official language of the State of Florida." This provision was adopted in 1988 by a vote following an Initiative Petition.

7 Which of the following places is northwest of Florida?

8 What timezone is Florida in?

9 Prior to the construction of routes under the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, Florida began construction of a long cross-state ________, Florida's Turnpike.

10 After settler attacks on Indian towns, ________ Indians based in East Florida began raiding Georgia settlements, purportedly at the behest of the Spanish.

💡 Interesting Facts

  • the fungus Albatrellus subrubescens was first collected from Florida and Czechoslovakia.
  • the Florida state comptroller refused to pay Lieutenant Governor Edmund C. Weeks his salary because he was not elected.
  • the Don Cesar beach resort in Florida is named after the title character in William Vincent Wallace's 1845 opera Maritana.
  • the McCarthy-style interrogations of the Florida Legislative Investigation Committee caused the firing or expulsion of scores of professors and students from Florida universities between 1956 and 1966.
  • the US Air Force's cold-weather testing facility was moved from Ladd Field in Fairbanks, Alaska, to a refrigerated hangar, the McKinley Climatic Laboratory, at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida.
  • the Atlantic stingrays (pictured) living in St. Johns River, Florida, are the only permanent freshwater population of cartilaginous fish in North America.
  • the 1933 Treasure Coast hurricane blew 16 percent of the total fruit crop from Florida trees.
  • the $7m (£4.2m) estate of Gregory Hemingway, the youngest son of Ernest Hemingway, could not be left to his wife because of the same-sex marriage laws in Florida.
  • remnants of a gristmill, distillery and oil well have been found at Falling Waters State Park which also has the highest waterfall in Florida.
  • in October 1945, shortly after unexpectedly entering a cloud, National Airlines Flight 16 crashed into a lake in Lakeland, Florida, drowning two passengers.
  • in Tampa, Florida in 1998, Hank Earl Carr successfully unlocked his handcuffs, disarmed a detective, and killed three law enforcement personnel before killing himself.
  • in Florida, even Key Largo Woodrats (pictured) "want enormous homes".
  • in September 1969, the Little River in northwest Florida rose 21 feet (6.4 m) in 24 hours due to rainfall from a tropical disturbance.
  • in the U.S. State of Florida, Hurricane Noel caused 4 million dollars' worth of beach erosion (example pictured), including washing away most of a 20 feet (6 m) sand dune.
  • prominent Russian sculptor Fyodor Kamensky worked as a farmer in Florida.
  • more than 3,000 containers of the chemical agent lewisite were dumped off the Florida coast during Operation Geranium.
  • the Black Seminoles are descendants of free African Americans and fugitive slaves traditionally allied with Seminole Indians in Florida and Oklahoma.
  • the Crocodile Lake National Wildlife Refuge protects nearly 7,000 acres of American crocodile habitat in southern Florida.
  • the choice of location for Florida's capital, Tallahassee, was influenced by a waterfall in what is now Cascades Park (pictured).
  • the architects of the Florida Tropical House (pictured), located in Beverly Shores, Indiana designed the house with Florida residents in mind.
  • the Lighthouse Archaeological Maritime Program searched Florida's Lake Crescent for the wreckage of Alligator, a paddle steamer used by archeologist Clarence Bloomfield Moore.
  • the city of Clearwater, Florida, painted two white lines across Watterson Avenue to block Lisa McPherson Trust protesters from disrupting the operations of the Church of Scientology.
  • the decline of the gopher tortoise poses a threat to the Florida mouse, which forms the only mammal genus that occurs only in Florida.
  • when the first indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in southern Florida 15,000 years ago, the region was an arid sandy landscape.
  • the novel Pioneer, Go Home! (adapted into the Elvis movie Follow that Dream) was inspired by squatters who settled on land created when Florida built a bridge to Pine Island.
  • the Westfield Brandon is one of five shopping malls in the U.S. state of Florida managed by the Australian Westfield Group.
  • the Utina were one of the most powerful Timucua tribes during the early days of European settlement in Florida, but appear to have fragmented into at least three chiefdoms by the 17th century.
  • the Meadow Vole is a common rodent species found from Alaska to Florida, and that the subspecies from Florida is endangered.
  • the Florida Railroad was the first railroad to connect the east and west coasts of Florida and the longest railroad to be completed in Florida before the start of the American Civil War.
  • the West Indian laurel fig tree is an introduced species in Florida where it has escaped from cultivation.
  • the Overseas Railroad, completed in 1912 for 128 miles (206 kilometers) beyond the end of the Florida peninsula to Key West, was heavily damaged in the Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 and not rebuilt.
  • the St. Bernard de Clairvaux Church in North Miami Beach, Florida is a medieval Spanish monastery that was purchased by newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst, disassembled, and then kept in 11,000 crates in a warehouse in Brooklyn for 26 years.
  • the Tugboat Spence and its barge Guantanamo Bay Express deliver cargo twice-monthly from Naval Station Mayport near Jacksonville, Florida to Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
  • the St. Johns River was Florida's first tourist attraction and the primary travel route to the more remote parts of the territory before it was developed.
  • eight human skeletons linked to suspected serial killer Daniel Conahan triggered the largest excavation of human remains in Florida history.
  • despite threatening the western coast of Florida, USA, 1950's Hurricane Love weakened prior to landfall and moved ashore with little fanfare.
  • Commodore Cruise Line was the first Florida-based company to operate week-long cruises around the year.
  • 1960's Tropical Storm Brenda, which made its initial landfall in Florida, dropped record-breaking rainfall on New York City.
  • Stephen Crane (pictured) based the 1898 short story "The Open Boat" upon his personal experience of having survived a shipwreck off the coast of Florida.
  • Florida State Hospital at Chattahoochee originally served as Florida's first penitentiary.
  • Fort Dallas, a military post used during the Seminole Wars, became the site of the new city of Miami, Florida in 1895.
  • John S. Collins, who came to southern Florida to grow vegetables and coconuts on a barrier island, built 2.5 mile long wooden Collins Bridge across Biscayne Bay in 1913 which led to the development of Miami Beach.
  • Fort Delaware State Park, once a Civil War prisoner-of-war camp, is now home to one of the largest heronries north of Florida.
  • Ron Rothstein was the first head coach of the Miami Heat, an American professional basketball team based in Miami, Florida.
  • professional baseball player Pat Osburn's brother-in-law was Milt May, and father-in-law was Florida State Senator Wilbur H. Boyd.
  • Florida has over 20 official state symbols, including a state soil and a state wildflower.
  • Florida attorney Ellis Rubin claimed his client was driven to nymphomania by the side-effects of Prozac.
  • Cuban First Lady Marta Fernandez Miranda de Batista became a contributor to Miami's Jackson Memorial Hospital while in exile in Florida.
  • Florida's City College paid US$11.2 million to acquire its current Fort Lauderdale campus.
  • Jack Donaghy calls the state of Florida "America's Australia" in the 30 Rock episode "The Natural Order".
  • Philadelphia publisher F. A. Davis brought electricity to St. Petersburg, Florida, and founded nearby Pinellas Park after hearing a lecture on Florida's medical benefits.
  • marsh rice rats in Florida are infected by an "unprecedented" number of internal parasites.
  • Julia Morton was the "poison plant center in south Florida".
  • M. Athalie Range was the first black since Reconstruction and the first woman to head a state agency in Florida.
  • a rare, iridescent purple pearl worth thousands of U.S. dollars was found in a plate of steamed clams at a Florida restaurant.
  • Adam Davis was convicted of the murder of Vicki Robinson and is currently on Florida's death row.
  • Hiptage benghalensis is considered a weed in Florida.
  • a trio of pet Mexican Spinytailed Iguanas released on Gasparilla Island, Florida by a resident in the 1970s has led to a current population explosion of over 12,000 lizards.
  • although Florida-based slave holder and trader Zephaniah Kingsley wrote pamphlets defending slavery, he freed dozens of his own and married four of them.
  • an average of 90,000 people a month walk, jog, cycle or skate along Florida's Pinellas Trail.
  • although Spottail pinfish are known from both south Florida and the Gulf of Mexico, there are no confirmed reports of them from the West Indies.
  • William Whitaker introduced orange groves to Florida.
  • Tropical Storm Helene of 2000 struck Florida just five days after Hurricane Gordon.
  • Blue Tilapia (pictured) have become the most widespread foreign fish in Florida waters since their introduction in 1961, and are now a serious management problem in Everglades National Park.
  • Marcus Schrenker, after committing pseudocide, may face charges from the Coast Guard, the Federal Aviation Administration, as well as Indiana, Alabama, and Florida law enforcement.
  • Riverside Theater in Jacksonville was the first theater in Florida, and the third in the United States, equipped to show sound film.
  • secessionists in St. Augustine, Florida, captured the town's fort (pictured) three days before Florida actually seceded from the United States.
  • Tropical Depression One in June 1992 produced 100-year floods in portions of southwestern Florida.
  • Temple Beth-El, built in 1876, is the oldest synagogue in the U.S. state of Florida.
  • citrus plantation owner Julia Tuttle owned the land upon which Miami, Florida was built, and that she gave half her land to Henry Flagler to entice him to build a station for the Florida East Coast Railroad there.
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