Stranger Things Have Happened

A history blog, focusing primarily on the author's research and reading in American (particularly colonial, Revolutionary, and Native American) history.

Thursday, October 15, 2026

A Republic, If You Can Fight It

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At the last session of a college seminar on nuclear weapons and strategic defense, my seminar leader, astronomer Mike Lecar (RIP), raised ...

Monday, July 20, 2026

Volcano Wine

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The Canary Islands, or rather the easternmost of them, were twice depopulated in the early modern era. Spanish exploitation and disease wi...

Saturday, July 04, 2026

The Villasur Expedition

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The story of Pedro Villasur’s last expedition can begin, as so many contemporary European military stories began, with a royal inheritance. ...

Sunday, May 10, 2026

There's Her House Behind the Barn

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Fans of George Orwell may recall his description, in “Such, Such Were the Joys,” of his disagreeable course of study at Crossgates (real n...

Sunday, April 19, 2026

New Book? New Book!

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While my esteemed readers were distracted by more pressing matters, I apparently wrote another book. Hoozay! To Be Men of Business: The Or...

Sunday, March 29, 2026

Our Overdetermined Future

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There is a joke about future expectations, and how they change within a society over time, and it goes like this: Baby Boomers often seem di...

Wednesday, December 24, 2025

Mormon Cocaine Pirates of the Caribbean

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Everything old is new again. The United States appears to have entered an undeclared naval war with Venezuela, much as it fought an undeclar...

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Dave Nichols

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