This is the beginning of an online lesson on Ponce de León. It was written for The Learning Odyssey, which is now part of CompassLearning.

In the early 1500s, a Spanish man was looking for gold in Puerto Rico. The local people told him about a magic gold fountain. "If you drink from the fountain," they said, "you'll stay young forever!"

Was the story true? The man wanted to think so. And it was his job to find out. He was Juan Ponce de León--a conquistador. Conquistadors were Spanish men who came to the New World. They wanted to get rich and take over land.

The Fountain of Youth was supposed to be on an island. But no one knew where the island was. In 1513, Ponce de León and his men sailed away to look for it. They landed in a new place that had beautiful flowers. It was Easter time. In Spanish, a flower is a flor and Easter is Pascua Florida. So Ponce de León named the new place Florida.