The city of St. Augustine was established on this date in 1565. Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sighted land on August 28. He named the site San Augustín after Augustine of Hippo. Menéndez sailed through the inlet into Matanzas Bay and disembarked near the Timucua town of Seloy on September 7. When Menéndez and his men came ashore, a mass was officiated by Father Francisco Lopez. St. Augustine is now the oldest continuously occupied European settlement in what would become the United States. The event is memorialized at the Mission Nombre de Dios. The Mission, with the Shrine of Our Lady of La Leche, is one of the oldest in the United States.
~Florida Historical Society
