BREVARD COUNTY, FLORIDA – Early on the morning of July 31, 1715, an event took place along Florida’s east-central coast that shook the royal courts of Europe. At approximately 4 a.m., a powerful hurricane struck Spain’s plate (from “plata,” the Spanish word for “silver”) fleet and wrecked it on Florida’s “coast of the Ays,” between present-day Melbourne Beach and Vero Beach.