• 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?

Facts on topics related to Florida

New Jersey

• College Football Hall of Fame inductee Stan "Bags" Pennock was killed in an explosion that wrecked the chemical plant he opened in an abandoned New Jersey slaughterhouse?
• New Jersey's Museum of Early Trades and Crafts houses a collection of over 8,000 tools and artifacts used before 1860 that had been collected by Agnes and Edgar Land over a 50-year span?
• New Jersey's Pigeon Swamp State Park, named for 18th-century landowner Ann Pidgeon, was a nesting place for passenger pigeons before they became extinct in the early 20th century?
• Assembly member Gerald H. Zecker justified higher car insurance rates for drivers in New Jersey's largest cities because "cars in Newark are stolen and wrecked in far greater numbers"?
• New Jersey General Assemblyman Peter J. Genova sponsored a bill that would make English the state's official language, stating that "Spanish has just grown too prominent in New Jersey"?
• State Senator John H. Ewing of New Jersey's 16th District opposed state funding for poorer school districts, as "some drive a Ford Taurus, like me", but "we can't pay for everyone to drive a Mercedes"?
• Union's Connecticut Farms Presbyterian Church (pictured) was the first church in New Jersey to be listed on the National Register of Historic Places?
• white Republican State Senator Norman M. Robertson criticized New Jersey's 2001 redistricting plan, stating "that the map is racist" in reducing the voting strength of African-American voters?
• Albinus of Angers, who as bishop reportedly used diocesan funds to ransom people captured by pirates, thereafter became the patron saint against pirate attack and of coastal communities as far away as Poland and New Jersey?
• Arline Friscia sponsored a bill making New Jersey the first U.S. state to require businesses with 50+ employees to rehire a worker at the same or comparable position after taking a family leave?

Massachusetts

• child actor Johnny Washbrook, though educated at two London art academies, spent his later adult years as a banker in Massachusetts?
• Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, was founded by Jonas Gilman Clark in 1887?
• philanthropist Harriet Nevins left an animal shelter, a fountain, and a John LaFarge stained glass window to the people of Massachusetts?
• Bridge Island Meadows is an inaccessible nature reserve on the floodplains of the Charles River in Massachusetts?
• Eastern Bank is the largest independent, mutually owned bank in New England, and the largest community bank in Massachusetts?
• Pythagoras, Kepler, and Galileo reside in a subway station under Cambridge, Massachusetts?
• Rachel Wall was the first American-born female pirate, and the last woman to be hanged in Massachusetts?
• Schwartz Communications, the largest PR agency in Massachusetts, started by making campaigns for baby food before specializing on counseling pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies?
• Wonderland Greyhound Park in Revere, Massachusetts features over Template:Unit mile of underground piping which heats the race track on cold and wet days?
• architect H. Neill Wilson designed massive summer cottages in Massachusetts' Berkshire County, including Shadowbrook where Andrew Carnegie died?

North Carolina

• "Carolina in My Mind", James Taylor's nostalgic 1968 song about growing up in North Carolina, was written in London and on the Mediterranean islands of Formentera and Ibiza?
• English-born architect William Nichols designed and built statehouses for North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi in the early 19th century?
• hatchlings of the Cape Fear Shiner, a critically endangered minnow endemic to central North Carolina, feed off of their egg yolk for five days after they hatch?
• North Carolina furniture maker Thomas Day employed both African-American slaves as well as white apprentices in his Caswell County workshop, though he was himself a free person of color?
• North Carolina-based author Perry Deane Young's first Vietnam War article for UPI was about the Tet Offensive, which began the night he arrived in Saigon?
• Daniel Boyd is accused of leading a jihadist terrorist cell in North Carolina?
• Dismal Swamp Canal which runs along the edge of the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia and North Carolina is the oldest continually operating man-made canal in the United States?
• Elk Knob State Park, a state park in Watauga County, North Carolina, was established due to a grassroots movement to protect Elk Knob from housing development?
• Flat Top Manor, built by textile industrialist Moses H. Cone in 1900, gets nearly 250,000 visitors annually as the main feature of the Moses H. Cone Memorial Park in North Carolina?
• James Moore, hero of the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge, was one of only five generals from North Carolina to serve in the Continental Army?

Indiana

• 9 of Indiana's 12 native bat species have been observed in the National Natural Landmark Wyandotte Caves?
• abolitionist George Bradburn was with Frederick Douglass on an 1843 anti-slavery lecture tour in Indiana, when they were attacked?
• Kentucky governor William S. Taylor was implicated in the assassination of William Goebel, his political rival, and fled to Indiana to avoid indictment?
• Hoosier tradition holds that Christopher Harrison exiled himself from his native Maryland due to failing to court the future wife of Jérôme Bonaparte successfully?
• Indiana state governor Frank O'Bannon stayed at Fort Harrison State Park while the governor's mansion was being made handicapped-accessible?
• Indiana's Eel River once served as informal boundary between the lands of the Potawatomi people in the north and Miami people in the south?
• Indiana's Morgan-Monroe State Forest features gold panning?
• Indiana's White River Park were the first state games to feature regional qualifiers instead of tryouts?
• Tin Pan Alley song "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" by Paul Dresser, Indiana's state song, became its first official state symbol in 1913?
• chocolataires, popular around the late 19th century, were thrown as a novel alternative to tea parties—once even for a kindergarten fundraiser in Indiana, USA?

Mississippi

• African American artist James W. Washington, Jr. first gained visibility in 1938 working with the WPA in his native Mississippi, but was later associated with the Northwest School?
• English-born architect William Nichols designed and built statehouses for North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi in the early 19th century?
• feminist Jo Freeman was moved from Mississippi by the SCLC in 1966 after the Jackson Daily News published her photo and denounced her as a professional agitator?
• Great American Country television host Nan Kelley (then Nan Sumrall) became Miss Mississippi in 1985 after her fellow Mississippian Susan Akin was crowned Miss America?
• Mississippi-born Joshua Green had successive careers as a major figure in the Puget Sound Mosquito Fleet and as a Seattle banker?
• dozens of tornadoes were produced during a two-day tornado outbreak in 1997, killing at least 27 people in Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee, USA?
• George E. Johnson, Sr., who was born in a Mississippi shack and dropped out of high school, founded the first Black-owned company ever traded on the American Stock Exchange?
• Meridian Baptist Seminary was the first school in Mississippi to offer high school diplomas to African-American students?
• the Simmons & Wright Company building, built in far eastern Mississippi in 1884, was filmed for the movie Due Date?
• Weidmann's Restaurant, established in 1870, is the oldest restaurant in the state of Mississippi?

Colorado

• Colorado state representative Cherylin Peniston won two Fulbright Scholarships while a public school teacher?
• Colorado state representative Joe Rice (pictured) resigned from the Glendale city council in 2003 when called up to serve in the U.S. Army in Iraq, where he advised the Baghdad city council?
• Colorado state representative Spencer Swalm spent time as a Christian missionary in Bolivia?
• Colorado state representative Victor Mitchell secured state funding for Project Lifesaver programs that would provide tracking bracelets for the cognitvely impaired?
• Colorado state senator Chris Romer has proposed using a wiki-like web site to involve citizens in drafting legislation?
• Colorado Rep. Stella Garza-Hicks dropped out of high school in the ninth grade?
• Colorado Sen. Nancy Spence's bill to create a statewide school voucher program was the first to be enacted into law in the U.S. — and then overturned by state courts — after Zelman v. Simmons-Harris?
• Colorado state representative Amy Stephens wrote an abstinence-based sex education curriculum that was translated into over a dozen languages?
• Colorado state senator John Morse worked as an emergency medical technician, accountant, and police chief before entering the legislature?
• state representative Dianne Primavera, a breast and cervical cancer survivor, sponsored legislation for the Colorado Breast and Women's Reproductive Cancers Fund?

Georgia (U.S. state)

• Cloudland Canyon State Park in the U.S. state of Georgia straddles a gorge cut into the mountain by Sitton Gulch Creek, where the elevation differs from 1,980 to 800 feet (604 to 244 m)?
• Holy Spirit College in Atlanta, Georgia, will admit its first class of full-time undergraduate students later this year?
• Kelbessa Negewo was charged with murder in his home country of Ethiopia after one of the women who claims he tortured her discovered him working as a bellhop in an Atlanta, Georgia hotel elevator?
• an area of more than 60,000 square miles (160,000 km²) in the U.S. states of Georgia, North and South Carolina was exposed to airborne clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide during Operation Dew?
• in November 1931, American country blues harmonicist Eddie Mapp was found stabbed to death at the age of 20 on an Atlanta, Georgia, street corner?
• in the Frederica Naval Action of the American Revolutionary War, three galleys led by Georgian colonel Samuel Elbert (pictured) defeated a much stronger British force?
• judge Michael W. Mosman was involved in U.S. Supreme Court justice Lewis F. Powell's voting to uphold Georgia's sodomy law in Bowers v. Hardwick while working as his law clerk?
• several forts at Fort Morris Historic Site in Georgia protected the Medway River and its settlements during the French and Indian and American Revolutionary Wars and the War of 1812?
• the 17th-century church built by the Tacatacuru, a Timucua chiefdom on Cumberland Island, Georgia, was said to be as big as the one in the Spanish colonial capital of St. Augustine?
• the Cherokee Nation was induced to cede large portions of land in Tennessee and Georgia to the United States in the Tellico Blockhouse, Monroe County, Tennessee?

Alabama

• Alabama is the first state in the United States to create its own legislatively enacted cabinet-level Department of Homeland Security?
• Alabama land- and slave-owner Benjamin Ogle Tayloe (pictured), reputed to be America's richest man in 1860, lost a half million dollars during the American Civil War?
• Alabama lawyer and Republican Party pioneer John Grenier of Birmingham was self-taught in four foreign languages: French, Spanish, German, and modern Greek?
• country music singer Ty Herndon's grandmother Myrtle hosted a Gospel music radio show on WPRN and WPRN-FM in Alabama for more than 40 years?
• disc jockeys at WLWI-FM in Montgomery, Alabama, USA, have been nominated for Country Music Association Awards six times since 1981?
• English-born architect William Nichols designed and built statehouses for North Carolina, Alabama, and Mississippi in the early 19th century?
• Barton Academy in Mobile was the first public school in the U.S. state of Alabama?
• John G. Cullmann was nearly assassinated after establishing a settlement of German immigrants in northern Alabama?
• 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?
• McFarland Mall in Tuscaloosa is the second oldest standing shopping mall in the US state of Alabama?

Illinois

• bishop William McKendree (1757–1835) earned the nickname "Father of Western Methodism" for his travels through his vast see of Virginia, Tennessee, Missouri, and Illinois?
• Meigs Field in Chicago, Illinois, sits on the site of Burnham Park (pictured), which was a serious contender to host the United Nations Headquarters?
• Wilmette, Illinois's Chicago and Northwestern Depot has been described as the most historic building in the village?
• algific talus slope ecosystems exist only in the Driftless Area of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, and Iowa?
• Augustus Louis Chetlain was said to have been the first man in Illinois to volunteer for the American Civil War?
• Benjamin Ferguson bequeathed a fund to Chicago, Illinois that provided for seventeen of the city's most prominent sculptures?
• David Moosman led his high school to the Illinois state championship in football and qualified for the state championships three times in wrestling?
• Indian Village, Chicago hosts the only 24-hour elevator operator building in Chicago, Illinois?
• Peotone Mill, a windmill built in 1871, was donated to the village of Peotone, Illinois in 1982 after being idle for nearly a century, and was registered on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in the same year?
• Spoon River College in Illinois was founded in 1959 as Canton Community College?

Michigan

• 43 miners were trapped for five days underground in the 1926 Pabst Mine Disaster in Michigan?
• Detroit's Rosedale Park, containing 1,533 properties, is the largest district in Michigan to be listed on the U.S. National Register of Historic Places?
• Henry Ford helped stop construction of a state highway in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan in order to gain admission to the exclusive Huron Mountain Club?
• Jennifer Granholm became the first female governor of Michigan after winning the 2002 Michigan gubernatorial election?
• Michigan highway M-97 was simultaneously named both Reid Highway and Groesbeck Highway by different levels of government from 1927 until 1949, the year it was dedicated to Alex Groesbeck?
• Michigan's Ludington Public Library was claimed as the library that will last a thousand years?
• Michigan's Mason County District Library is an umbrella entity that administers two libraries?
• Michigan, France, and the United States have all sued for claim to the “holy grail” of Great Lakes shipwrecks, French explorer La Salle’s ship Le Griffon (pictured) that sank in 1679?
• Bruce Hilkene was captain of the 1947 Wolverines who were selected as the greatest Michigan football team of all time?
• Burnt Hair Records was part of Michigan's space rock music scene in the 1990s?