The name “Florida” was given to the peninsula by the Spaniards, who first discovered it. In Spanish, the word “Florida” means “flowery”.
On this day the United States bought the territory of the Florida peninsula from the previous owner – the Kingdom of Spain. This purchase was arranged by U.S. Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who later became the President of the United States (his father was president as well). The treaty was signed on this day in the U.S. capital of Washington. As compensation for Florida, the United States pledged to provide $ 5 million, which did not belong to Spain directly, but was used to pay the debt that Spain had towards American private citizens.
The deal was, therefore, very favourable for the United States. They gained approximately 170,000 square kilometers of territory. It is interesting that today Florida is one of the richest and economically most powerful U.S. states. For example, it has a higher annual GDP than Austria, Sweden, Belgium, Switzerland, Saudi Arabia, Polish, Taiwan, Greece, Israel, Argentina, etc. It has a GDP even higher than Germany’s richest provinces (overtaking even Bavaria). Florida today has nearly 20 million inhabitants.
Just to mention, the name “Florida” was given to the peninsula by the Spaniards, who first discovered it. In Spanish, the word “Florida” means “flowery”. This name was probably chosen because, at the time when Florida was discovered, it was just on the eve of Easter, called “Pascua Florida” in Spanish.
