Sarasota Livin'

MERRY CHRISTMAS! Hope you enjoy this information from the The Florida Historical Society

1539 The first Christmas Service in the present-day United States is believed to be a mass offered by priests of Hernando de Soto’s expedition exploring in the vicinity of Tallahassee.

1832 The “Act of Association” was signed by charter members of St. Paul’s Protestant Episcopal Church in Key West.

1837 General Zachary Taylor and the United States army today defeated a force of Seminole Indians near the shore of Lake Okeechobee. Taylor commanded about 1,000 U.S. troops. The Seminoles were led by chiefs Alligator, Arpeika (Sam Jones), Prophet (Otolke-thlocko), and Wild Cat (Coacoochee).

1863 The Florida 2nd Infantry Battalion (re-assigned to the Florida 10th and 11th Infantry Regiments on June 8, 1864), today engaged Federal forces attacking Fort Brooke, present-day Tampa.

1951 Pioneering civil rights activists Harry T. and Harriette V. Moore were killed in their home at Mims when a bomb exploded. Harry T. Moore became a field officer for the NAACP and the group’s president in 1941. Harry Moore, a school administrator in Brevard County, and Harriette V. Moore, a school teacher, lost their jobs in the county when they advocated an end to educational segregation and equal pay for African-American teachers. The most immediate, though unproven, cause for the bombing is thought to be a Ku Klux Klan response to a series of letters Harry Moore wrote to state and Federal officials calling for an investigation into the deaths of Negro prisoners in Lake County.

1962 In Miami, captives from the abortive Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, who were just ransomed from the government of Fidel Castro, vowed that they would return and complete the job they had failed in initially.