Author Archives: michaeljdouma
On the Success of the Teach-to-Mastery Approach
My students’ essays this semester are, on average, better written than the average published op-ed or academic journal article. You might joke that academic journals set a low bar, and some of them do, that’s true, but the writing in most major journals in the field of history is pretty good (the American Historical Review […]
Jakub Rozalski and the past meeting the present
A few months ago, I discovered this Polish artist named Jakub Rozalski. His work mixes historical agrarian scenes, folkloric elements like werewolves and gnomes, with futuristic mechanical evils. He sets his work in particular years, such as a series of paintings about “1920” as seen in the top image. It is obviously influenced by the […]
Does the Super Bowl Come Later Every Year? (let’s look at the data)
Super Bowl LIX (that is, Super Bowl 59) is coming up, and if you are like me, you might be thinking, “isn’t it pretty late in the year for the Super Bowl? I mean, it’s almost spring, right? Well, I decided the plot the date of the progression of the Super Bowl over time and […]
Presentation for the Holland (Michigan) Museum
My presentation on “The Legend of the Black Dutchman”
A Brief History of the Origins of Croquet in America
Unlike the obscure origins of most other American sports, Croquet’s beginning in the United States is quite definite. Well, that is if we believe a newspaper advertisement from 1863, in which Daniel O. Goodrich, proprietor of the Boston Bazaar, claimed to have introduced the game to the American public two years earlier, in 1861. […]
Who Invented the “Wet Burrito”?
A recent thread on reddit concerned the origin of the “wet burrito.” For those who don’t know, a wet burrito is like a regular burrito, but it is typically eaten on a plate, with a fork, and it is covered in an enchilada sauce. Growing up in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the 1980s and 1990s, […]
Michael J Douma 