250 and Counting

Category: Florida History

  • The Burning of Norfolk–January 1, 1776

    Cover art for January 1, 1776: "Incident in the Burning of Norfolk," engraving, artist unknown. Originally appeared as an illustration in Cassell's History of the United States in the late 1870s.
    “Incident in the Burning of Norfolk,” engraving, artist unknown. Originally appeared as an illustration in Cassell’s History of the United States in the late 1870s.

    Happy New Year to you!

    The burning of Norfolk was the follow-up to the Battle of Great Bridge and the Patriot occupation of that town. Colonel Howe probably overplayed his hand with this one, and the consequences were catastrophic for the town.

    The Declaration of Independence is just a few months away, now, and (spoiler alert) the part you may be most anticipating doesn’t happen on July 4. But in the meantime, there’s lots and lots of extremely historic things for us to talk about in the run-up to the Declaration, and the immediate aftermath.

    Running through 1775, one day at a time, has been a huge privilege for us, and we hope you’ll stay with us through 1776. This was a project that I’d been thinking about for a long time, longer than I’ve known my partner, Mike Messner. And when I suggested to him that we team up, he jumped on the idea immediately. He’s been instrumental in helping with the research, with brainstorming the ideas, and with keeping me committed to the idea of actually doing a podcast that runs every single day.

    We put a couple of hours into researching, writing, recording, (sometimes re-writing and re-recording) and editing these episodes, and I hope the effort shows. Thank you so much for taking this ride with us, and here’s to the next year.

    Have a wonderful 2026!

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  • August 7, 1775: A Victory in Failure

    Cover art for August 7 1775: Map of St. Augustine in 1740.

    Once again, complacency wins the day. An American ship heads to Florida to raid the British ammunition stores there, and instead stumbles on a ship carrying literal tons of gunpowder. And it’s easily captured because the crew was asleep.

    Wasn’t anyone on watch? Apparently not, or they still managed to allow the American ship to get close enough that they could get on board. EIther way, American ships weren’t worth considering, and there wasn’t any American Navy…yet. But events over the next few days could change all that.

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