Miami is a city in and the county seat of Miami-Dade County in south Florida. In 1566, the Spanish admiral Pedro Menendez de Aviles claimed the area, and a Spanish mission was constructed a year later. In 1821, Florida was ceded to the United States, which established Fort Dallas on the banks of the Miami River in 1836 during the Second Seminole War. In 1895, wealthy Cleveland citrus grower Julia Tuttle turned the "Biscayne Bay Country" into a building site, and Miami's population grew due to the area's crops' survival of the Great Freeze of 1894-1895, which drove many farmers towards the new settlement. On 28 July 1896, Miami was incorporated as the city, the only major US city to be founded by a woman.
During the early 20th century, African-American and Bahamian laborers moved into the city, coming to make up 40% of the population, although they were oppressed by Jim Crow laws and the corrupt MDPD chief H. Leslie Quigg, a member of the Ku Klux Klan. During World War II, Miami became a US Navy submarine base, leading to further population growth. The 1959 Cuban Revolution led to an influx of wealthy Cubans who fled after the dictator Fulgencio Batista was overthrown by Fidel Castro, and, during the 1980s, a new wave of Cuban refugees arrived during the Mariel boatlift, when Casto released political prisoners and imprisoned criminals and allowed for them to go into exile in the United States.
The arrival of hardened Cuban criminals, in addition to the arrivals of Colombian, Haitian, and Mexican cartels and the rise of the crack epidemic of the 1980s, led to Miami becoming a battleground during the deadly "Miami drug wars". The city declined due to the drug wars, social problems arriving from Haitian and Latin American immigration, and Hurricane Andrew, but, by the 21st century, Miami had become an international financial and cultural center and the "Capital of Latin America", second only to El Paso as the largest US city with a Spanish-speaking majority, and the largest city with a Cuban majority. In 2018, Miami proper had a population of 470,914 people, while Miami-Dade County had a population of 2,761,581.
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