The first recorded sighting by Europeans was by the Spanish expedition of
Álvaro de Mendaña on 16 April 1568. More precisely the sighting was due to a local voyage done by a small boat, in the accounts the
brigantine Santiago, commanded by
Maestre de campo Pedro Ortega Valencia and having
Hernán Gallego as pilot. They were who charted it as "Pascua Florida" (from
the festival of that name) from where its present-day name "Florida" derives.
Tulagi in Nggela Sule was the seat of the administration of the
British Solomon Islands prior to the 1942 Japanese invasion in World War II. The Nggela Islands group lies immediately north of the more famous island of
Guadalcanal, the scene of the
Guadalcanal Campaign during
World War II; however, Nggela Sule itself was garrisoned by the
Japanese in April 1942 in connection with their efforts to establish a
seaplane base on neighbouring Gavutu. On 7 August of the same year, the
United States 1st Battalion,
2nd Marine Regiment landed on the island to provide cover for the
assault on the neighbouring Tulagi islet. Florida Island served as a small, secondary base of operations for the US and
Australian and New Zealand war effort in the Pacific for the duration of the war. Following the Allied liberation of the island from the Japanese, it became the site of a US seaplane base. About 80 Japanese troops from Tulagi escaped to Florida Island and fought Marine and
British Solomon Islands Protectorate Defence Force patrols for the next two months until being wiped out. The island subsequently served as a watering point for the
US Navy, diverting water from an underground source on the island. After World War II, the British administration moved to
Honiara, Guadalcanal. ==Fauna==