1862 The Florida Methodist Conference met today in Tallahassee.
1886 Horticulturalist Lue Gim Gong settled in DeLand on this day. Gim Gong’s experiments with producing a hardy and commercially viable orange led to the development of a fruit that today bears his name.
1941 Floridians were still reeling at the horror of the Japanese attack of Pearl Harbor and other American installations in the Pacific. They were gearing up for a long and extended battle on two fronts as the United States Congress responded to the declarations of Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini by declaring war on Italy and Germany. This titanic struggle would be a seminal watershed for the people of Florida.
Here are some of the results of World War II on the state. During the next four years, Floridians would:
- Construct 1,560 miles of new highways
- Build the only fully powered concrete ships in the world
- Drill the first producing oil well in the state in Collier County
- Be invaded by a small force of German saboteurs at Ponte Vedra Beach
- See the state’s permanent population rise from 1,897,144 in 1940 to 2,771,305 in 1950
- Become home to more than 4,000 German prisoners in 16 sites around the state
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