The Florida History Podcast

We begin our focus on Florida's role in America 250 discussing the differences between the points of emphasis being pushed this year versus what was experienced in the Bicentennial year of 1976.

Kartik's new book is a deeper dive and longer read than his previous writings. He covers how areas that now comprise Florida stayed loyal to the British during the American Revolution and outside of the grasp of the United States until 1821, despite repeated efforts to buy it, conquer it or simply coax into the union. As America turns 250 it's important to note this history and how Florida...

As a bridge between our college football series and our forthcoming civil rights series we discuss the Miami-Notre Dame rivarly and the racial aspect of it- and assess the empowerment of African-Americans in college athletics.

We discuss the rivalry rivarly that defined College Football in the 1980's and changed the sport in general.

Despite being a backwater in the early days of college football, Florida did very occasionally produce some great teams - notably the 1928 Florida Gators and Miami Hurricanes teams of both 1950 and 1956. These were some of the best pre-integration teams from the state.

After we finish our current series on College Football we're going to dive into uncomfortable things about the America at 250 narrative - including events like the Ocoee Massacre and Rosewood. We will also compare the Bicentennial of 1976 to the America at 250 in 2026. Why is the storytelling so different now than it was then?

We dive into the two largest HBCU programs in Florida and discuss what they meant to civil rights and African-American athletes in the state.

To celebrate America 250 we are going to tell the true stories of what happened in Florida after joining the union in terms of African-Americans. We will go from 1845 right through the Civil Rights era.

Despite their own huge rivalry Miami and Florida State fans seem to exhibit a sense of solidarity when it comes to Florida. The same can be said for some SEC schools when it comes to Florida. Neil Blackmon joins us to examine why this is.

Neil Blackmon joins us again to discuss the historic rivalry between Florida and Miami which ended for the foreseeable future in 2025.

We continue our miniseries on Florida's college football history with a look at Bobby Bowden v Steve Spurrier and the colorful 1990's in the Florida v FSU rivalry.

We begin a short series on the history of College Football in the state discussing the early history of the rivalry between Florida and Florida State on the gridiron and the importance placed on it by both schools. In the coming weeks we will also look at the Florida-Miami rivalry and the FSU-Miami rivalry. Neil Blackmon of Saturday Down South and an eminent historian of UF football joins us for t...

Kartik Krishnaiyer explains why he believes Fort Caroline represents the actual origin story of the United States - decades before Jamestown or Plymouth Rock.

What did the French colonists find in the way of plants in the northwest corner of the Florida peninsula?

In the finale of our miniseries of the French in Colonial Florida we discuss the 1719 capture and occupation of Pensacola by the French. By 1726, Pensacola had been returned to Spanish rule.

French privateer Dominique de Gourgues works with the Timucuan to exact a measure of revenge on the Spanish with a massacre at San Mateo.

We read from Laudonnière 's memoires of his voyages how exactly he escaped Fort Caroline and why he believes "Florida was lost."

The Spanish effort to retake Florida ends in success- Jean Ribault and his men are slaughtered.

Summer 1565 led Laudonnière's Fort Caroline colony to interact with help British travelers, then be reinforced and botted up by their own countrymen sent by the French King and then finally slaughtered by the Spanish while the other French left the colony to try and hunt down the Spanish at St Augustine.

Rene Laudonnière establishes Fort Caroline at the mouth of the St Johns River. The colony struggles with mutiny and food though relations with the nearby Timucua were generally good, they began to become strained. All the while the Spanish are hunting down the French Huguenots.

The first French settlement in what was then Florida but is now South Carolina took place in 1862. But the colony was soon abandoned while religious strife back home engulfed some of our key figures.

We discuss the religious strife that dominated 16th Century Europe as well as France's pragmatic diplomatic and foreign policy of the era- despite being a Kingdom dominated by the Catholic Church hierarchy, tension with Spain often led to pragmatism and alliances with Protestants and Muslims on the continent. This world view also contributed to France's colonial policies in the New World s...

We're going to do a few episodes on colonial interactions between France and Florida centering around Fort Caroline and Pensacola. It can be argued the French interactions in Florida between 1562 and 1565 was the stimulus for so much of what happened in North American History after.

Kartik Krishnaiyer describes his new book on the Canada-USA relationship and gives an update on the podcast and what he and Robert are working on outside the podcast. Link to buy the new book .

We discuss the British leaving East Florida between 1784 and 1785 and how the British kept their hands in the pie of Florida for the decades following 1785.