Who founded St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565?

Pedro Menéndez de Avilés founded St. Augustine, Florida, in 1565.

Menéndez, a Spanish admiral and Florida's first governor, established the settlement on September 8, 1565. He named it San Agustín, or St. Augustine, because his fleet sighted the Florida coast on August 28, the feast day of Saint Augustine.

St. Augustine was created to secure Spain's claim to Florida and to challenge French settlements in the region. Menéndez attacked Fort Caroline, a French settlement near present-day Jacksonville, soon after founding the town. Spain then maintained St. Augustine as a strategic base.

The city is commonly described as the oldest continuously occupied European-established settlement in the contiguous United States. It is not the oldest European-founded city anywhere in the present-day United States, because San Juan, Puerto Rico, was founded earlier in 1521.