April 2, 1513

 

April 2, 1513 is the date assigned to Ponce de Leon's discovery of the land we now call Florida. The land of flowers would be his doom--later he would be killed by a poison arrow in a battle with the Calusa indians, in southwest Florida. How often do we hear that these indians maintained some kind of independence until the 18th century?
More to the point, these indians carved wooden statues of cats. Statues that to me look like domestic cats, (and have been carbon dated to the 15th century) although theoretically the domestic cat did not predate the European invasion.