Matrix Founding for Backstories provided by an anonymous donor, the National Dama for the Humanities, and the Joseph and Robert Cornell Memorial Foundation.

From Virginia Humanities, this is Backstories.

Welcome to Backstories, the show that explains the history behind today's headlines. I'm Nathan Connolly, I'm Brian Ballot.

I'm Joanne Freeman. If you're new to the podcast, we're all historians. In each week, along with our colleague Ed Ayers, we drill down to one topic in American history.

Florida Man, you know who he is, the guy who makes headlines for committing some unbelievable crimes.

A man accused of destroying a liquor store in Oklahoma, he told police he was in Alice in Wonderland.

A Florida man discovers his Ferrari won't float, and it's all caught on camera.

Two neighbors get into a violent confrontation in an Oakland Park neighborhood.

What makes this one stand out is the weapon involved, one of the men brindishing a sword.

Oh Florida man, you brought us the 10 lines over the year of Florida.

But you know what, can't beat those beaches.

Ah, yes. Florida, my home state, where I spent much of my childhood.

The place that made me, well, who I am today.

So you're the reason Florida has a reputation for being a little different than every other state.

Very funny Nathan. I actually was curious about this whole Florida is weird phenomenon.

So I reached out to Craig Pittman. He's a native Floridian and long time reporter at the Tampa Bay Times.

Here's his take on what makes Florida so weird.

There are a lot of reasons. One of the big ones is we've undergone a wrenching demographic change in just the last 50 or 60 years.

In 1940, we were the least populated southern state.

And then in 2014, we passed New York to become the third most popular state.

So we've had 22 million people move here. We've got about 100 million tourists visiting every year.

And we're not evenly spread over the whole peninsula. You know, we're kind of crammed in that 30 mile wide swath along the coast and along interstate four where the theme parks are.

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