| Military |
| Year | Month | Day | Event | Related
Resource |
| 1825 | December | 17 | The Cape Florida Lighthouse was completed. The site was the southern tip of Key Biscayne. | display |
| 1835 | December | | The Second Seminole War began. One of the incidents that contributed most heavily to its start was the killing of 108 United States soldiers near Bushnell, Florida. The war lasted until 1842 and was the most significant of all the Seminole Wars. Some of the fighting occurred in southeastern Florida, some in the areas that would later be part of the City of Miami. During the war, Fort Dallas was established on the Miami River. | display |
| 1836 | July | 23 | The Seminole Indians attacked the Cape Florida Lighthouse in the midst of the Second Seminole War. They set fire to the structure, but did not manage to completely destroy it. | |
| 1838 | | | Fort Dallas was established. Situated at the mouth of the Miami River, it served as a base for the United States Navy before Florida became a state. It was from this base that the U.S. launched attacks against Florida's Indian population in the Second Seminole War. | display |
| 1842 | | | The military abandoned Fort Dallas following the Second Seminole War. | |
| | William English acquired the Fort Dallas land formerly held by the military. | | | 1855 | | | The United States reoccupied Fort Dallas. They did so for use in the brief fighting of the Third Seminole War (1855-1858). William English had already abandoned the property in the early 1850s as he headed west for California. This continued fighting discouraged settlement in the Miami area. | |
| 1858 | June | 10 | The United States Army abandoned Fort Dallas. While they had already been forced to reestablish their presence there once before, the end of major fighting against the Seminole tribes marked the end of the fort's usefullness. | |
| 1859 | | | Simeon Frow became keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. Having come recently from Key West and originally from Majorca, he held the post until the light went out during the Civil War. Later, one of his sons would hold the position. | |
| 1866 | January | | Temple Pent returned to his position of keeper of the Cape Florida Lighthouse. The first keeper following the Civil War, he held the position for two years, until his death in 1868. | |
| 1891 | | | Julia Tuttle and her children arrived in Miami. They did so after purchasing 640 acres on the north bank of the Miami River. It was the old Fort Dallas land. Like the family of William Brickell, hers was from Cleveland. It was there that the two had met. | display |
| 1898 | June | 24 | The first of 7,000 U.S. troops began to arrive in Miami. Some came to build fortifications on William Brickell's bluff, and some were on their way to fight against the Spanish in Cuba. A wide large area of the northern sector of today’s downtown became their home. Camp Miami, as it came to be known, was near the city's black area. The soldiers provoked several violent incidents there. | display |
August | 12 | The last units of Camp Miami dispersed. With the war in Cuba ending so quickly, the soldiers' stay in Miami had only lasted for six weeks and ended before they were ever needed in Cuba. | | October | | William Burdine and his family moved to Miami. "Burdine and Son" had been operating in Bartow, a central-west Florida town, but when William's son John found quick success selling wares to soldiers stationed in Miami, the father made the choice to move the store to the growing city. The store's first home was on South Miami Avenue close to Flagler Street. | | | 1903 | | | The Army Corps of Engineers began dredging the first opening to the Atlantic Ocean, cutting through mangrove swamps at Government Cut. The project allowed for safer, more direct access to the port of Miami. | |
| 1917 | October | | The U.S. government purchased thirty-one acres of lowlands at Dinner Key in Coconut Grove. They immediately began filling in the marsh in order to create an instructional facility for the Navy. | display |
| 1941 | April | | United States Army soldiers began to arrive in Miami Beach, where many were to be housed throughout World War II. Many facilities were used, including hotels, restaurants, and golf courses. | display |
December | 07 | The Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. | display | | 1942 | February | | The Army Air Corps began sending the first of what was to be 4,000 men to Miami Beach - the site chosed for their officer training. | |
February | 19 | A German U-boat sank the the tanker Pan Massachusetts twenty miles south of Cape Canaveral. The ship was carrying one hundred thousand barrels of gasoline, and its sinking illustrated to South Floridians that the war in Europe had crossed the Atlanic. | | February | 24 | A German U-boat sank the Republic off West Palm Beach. This came only five days after the sinking of another ship off Cape Canaveral. | | March | 03 | The Dade County Commission voted to change the name of the County Causeway to the MacArthur Causeway in honor of the general whose troops were then fighting in the Philippines. | | April | 15 | Formerly called Municipal Pier, the Serviceman's Pier opened to recreation-seeking soldiers. The Miami Beach Pier Association's first president, Kay Pancoast, worked tirelessly to raise funds for the project, and within one year, over 200,000 servicemen visited the pier. | | April | 20 | Construction began on the Richmond Naval Air Station. It was on the site of today's Metroozoo. | | May | 14 | The Portero del Llano, attacked by a German U-boat close to the shores of Miami Beach, burned and sunk within sight of the city. | | | 1943 | August | | The United States government had appropriated at least 188 Miami Beach hotels, 109 apartment houses, and 18 private homes. | |
| 1944 | November | | Only 68 Miami Beach hotels and 11 apartment houses remained as appropriated property of the United States government. | |
| 1945 | September | 15 | A major hurricane hit southern Dade County. Many structures were destroyed. Several buildings on the Richmond Naval Air Station were among those destroyed, including the base's blimp hangars in a large fires. | |
December | 01 | The Serviceman's Pier in Miami Beach closed. | | | 1980 | May | 20 | The INS detention center on Krome Avenue opened. It had previously been used as a missile base. | |
| 1989 | | | The Everglades National Park Protection and Expansion Act of 1989 was passed. The act authorized the Army Corps of Engineers to restore, as much as possible, the park's natural hydrological conditions, and the purchase of 107,000 additional acres of land to increase water flow on the park's eastern side. | |
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