Juan Ponce de León

Juan Ponce de León was born of an impoverished noble family in San Tervás de Campos, Spain, in or around the year 1460.

In his pre-exploration days, he took part in the war to retake Granada in Spain. This was the last Moorish stronghold in Spain, which effectively rid the Iberian penisula once and for all of Moorish influence and helped arouse more attention on the great beyond that could only be reached by crossing the ocean to the west.

Ponce de León was one of the intrepid, strong-back-boned early explorers who sailed with Christopher Colombus on his second voyage in 1493. Ponce de León found the good life in the New World so good that he stayed on and settled there in 1502.

After stints as governor of Hispaniola and later of Puerto Rico, he went out a-sailing again and discovered, this time without the help of the iconic Columbus, the pennisula of Florida, making Ponce de León the first -- though not really the first if revisionist historians carry any sway--European explorer to set foot on what later would be known as "these United States."

Here he found no tantalizingly named Fountain of Youth -- or perhaps he did and covered it with brush, and it´s still there waiting to be discovered again.

Ponce de León died in July, 1521, after being attacked by Indians in Florida. It seems that the Indians of the time did not embrace the idea of a colony being established on their soil.

Perhaps Ponce de León just didn´t use enough deception and villanious trickery as his Conquistador brethern so wisely did when dealing with the Aztecs and Incas in previous years.