In the history of what is now the United States, Florida holds a preeminent position. The Florida peninsula was explored by Spaniard Ponce de Leon in 1513. Pensacola Bay is the site of the first European settlement in the nation in 1559. Six years later, Pedro Menendez de Aviles founded St. Augustine, the country's oldest city in continuous existence. The French came into the area in 1564 and the British in 1586. All of this activity was prior to the Virginia and Massachusetts English settlements in the early part of the next century. Florida, however, did not become a territory of the United States until 1821 when it was acquired from Spain. It became a state in 1845.