Saint Augustine Founded

September 8, 1565

Pedro Menendez de Aviles landed on the Florida coast and founded Saint Augustine, hoping to flush French Huguenots from Fort Caroline. He slaughtered the surrendered French garrison weeks later at Matanzas Inlet. Saint Augustine, oldest continuously inhabited European town in the continental United States, was born in massacre. The settlement's survival through centuries of hurricanes and attacks makes it the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in the continental United States.