George Washington never visited Florida but he had an obsession with the military value of St Augustine for the British.

Ahead of the July 4 holiday and all the commemorations of the 250th Anniversary of the United States we remind folks that Florida stayed loyal to the crown during the Revolution and feature a few key figures in that pro-British sentiment.

Florida has a long history of Anti-Catholicism which we break down in this episode.

We discuss the history of the Voting Rights Act in Florida - what Florida was like for African-American voting rights before 1965 and all the incremental progress and eventual decline since the initial passage in 1965.

We finish up our extensive look at cancelled expressways in the state with a look at the panhandle.

We discuss cancelled expressways outside large urban areas and in fast growing sprawlish counties in the peninsula.

The University of South Florida was almost turned into an expressway-driven concrete jungle. Students and the USF community fought back. But those were just a few of the roads that planners envisioned in the Tampa Bay area that had to be fought by neighborhood activists in the 1970's, 1980's and 1990's.

We continue our look at neighborhood activism and college rebellions against concrete highways by discussing several cancelled road projects in the Orlando area during the 1980's and early 1990's.

The Sawgrass Expressway exists today but it's merely a fragment of what was originally planned. This is a story of condo commando power, FAU student activism, knocking on from the University of Miami-related activism we talked about in the previous podcast (Sawgrass Expressway was a replacement for the "University Expressway which was to run from UM to Northwest Broward and then connect toward FAU via the "Deerfield EXpressway). It's a story of neighborhood rebellions, a poorly managed expressway project and the activism of some legends in the condo world.

Ever wonder why power lines are in certain places in south Florida. Easy answer...the surface road the run along was meant to be an expressway. Why did all these super highways never get built? Community opposition and an environmental awakening.

We discuss that this week on the podcast.