Today In Florida ...

"The first rule of hurricane coverage is that every broadcast must begin with palm trees bending in the wind. "

Carl Hiaasen

• 1838 Captain L. J. Beall and a detachment of twenty enlisted men from the 2nd U.S. Dragoons were attacked today at Kenahapa Prairie by a group of Seminoles. Six enlisted men were wounded in the fray. Seminole casualties were unknown.
• 1871 James Weldon Johnson, African-American poet, teacher, activist, and diplomat, was born today in Jacksonville.
• 1880 The first post office in Melbourne opened today.
• 1929 The first regularly scheduled flight from North to South America departed Miami today. Clipper airplanes, carrying mail and passengers, took four days to complete the trip to Miami to Cartagena, Colombia.
• 1942 Four German saboteurs from a U-boat landed today on Ponte Vedra Beach. They were to link up with a second team of agents in New York. All were arrested within three days, following the defection of one of the members, Walter Dasch, and all of them, with the exception of Dasch, were subsequently executed.
• 1958 Florida Presbyterian College, now Eckerd College, was founded today in St. Petersburg.