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The indigenous people of the Everglades region arrived in the Florida peninsula approximately 15,000 years ago, probably following large game. The Paleo-Indians found an arid landscape that supported plants and animals adapted to desert conditions. Climate changes 6,500 years ago brought a wetter landscape, and the Paleo-Indians slowly adapted to the new conditions. Archaeologists call the cultures that resulted from the adaptations Archaic peoples, from whom two major tribes emerged in the area: the Calusa and the Tequesta. The earliest written descriptions of these people come from Spanish explorers who sought to convert and conquer them. After more than 200 years of relations with the Spanish, both indigenous societies lost cohesiveness. Official records indicate that survivors of war and disease were transported to Havana in the late 18th century. Isolated groups may have been assimilated into the Seminole nation, which formed in northern Florida when a band of Creeks consolidated surviving members of pre-Columbian societies in Florida into their own to become a distinct tribe. Seminoles were forced into the Everglades by the U.S. military during the Seminole Wars from 1835 to 1842. The U.S. military pursued the Seminoles into the region, which resulted in some of the first recorded explorations of much of the area. Seminoles continue to live in the Everglades region, and support themselves with casino gaming on six reservations located throughout the state. (more...)

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• 1499 – Thirteen-year-old Catherine of Aragon, the future first wife of Henry VIII of England, was married by proxy to his brother, 12-year-old Arthur, Prince of Wales (pictured).
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• 1817 – The Articles of Association of the Bank of Montreal in Montreal, Quebec, Canada's oldest chartered bank, were adopted.
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• 1991 – Despite a boycott by the local Serb population, voters in Croatia passed a referendum supporting independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

More anniversaries: May 18 – May 19 – May 20