On this day in 1598 in an unusual move, Fray Francisco de Avila, a Franciscan monk, refused to testify at the St. Augustine trial of seven Indians accused of killing another Franciscan priest.

In 1985 Mel Fisher discovered the wreck of theNuestra Senora de Atocha, a Spanish galleon, sunk in a 1622 hurricane, carrying more than forty tons of gold and silver.