Warnings, clues, missteps, assumptions.  In late November of 1941, Washington sent an ominous message to the commander of the Pacific Fleet, warning Hawaii of possible danger. But the intel was vague; the threat was unclear. Although the commander’s intelligence unit had lost track of Japan’s biggest aircraft carriers, he assumed they were far away.  Meanwhile, a Japanese spy was counting the warships in the harbor and reporting to Tokyo. While we know what happened next, we may not know exactly…

  D-Day was the start of the Great Crusade to free Europe from Nazi domination. It may surprise you to know that what many name consider to be the most important date in history, has many ties to good Olde Cape Cod. Join us for an hour-long, illustrated talk with Joe Yukna, co-founder of the Cape Cod Military Museum, as we explore the June 6th 1944 landings on the Beaches of Normandy.  The photo on the left is of the…

December 1777. King George III’s army has pummeled the Continental Army into submission, the Continental Congress is in exile, and the American Revolution appears to be lost just 18 months after the signing of the Declaration of Independence. The beleaguered troops stagger into a small Pennsylvania encampment 23 miles northwest of British-occupied Philadelphia.  They’re physically and morally defeated, barely equipped or expected to survive the frigid winter ahead. Their commander in chief, George Washington, is decidedly at the lowest point…

  SATURDAY, JUNE 8, 11:00 AM  |  NO CHARGE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH, FALMOUTH "American Crisis: George Washington after Yorktown," presented by William M. Fowler Jr. View the George Washington Inaugural Bible Attend the First Presentation of the Katharine Lee Bates Historian Award The George Washington Inaugural Bible, that was used during the inauguration of our first president on April 30, 1789, will be the centerpiece for a special presentation in concert with the Masons’ Marine Lodge A.F. & A.M. in…

Charles Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species, can still spark lively conversations at 21st century dinner parties. Imagine what people were talking about in 1860, shortly after it was published. On New Year’s Day, abolitionist and schoolmaster Franklin Sanborn hosted a dinner party. Henry David Thoreau, local superintendent Bronson Alcott (Louisa May Alcott’s father) and Asa Gray, a professor of natural history at Harvard, were present. Child welfare reformer Charles Loring Brace was the guest of honor. He arrived,…

Winner of the 2018 American Academy of Diplomacy Douglas Dillon Award It’s the wake of World War II, the dawn of the Cold War.  Britain’s empire is collapsing; Stalin’s is on the rise; the United States is in the thick of it.   Our mission: to reconstruct the economy in western Europe and, at the same time, discourage its countries from embracing communism. The Marshall Plan is a massive, costly and ambitious undertaking with heavy opposition. Stalin is determined to crush…

He wrote the Mantle of Command: FDR at War, 1941-1942, which was long-listed for the National Book Award.  He followed it with Commander in Chief: FDR’s Battle with Churchill, 1943.  We were fortunate to talk to him here after each book was released. Now best-selling and award-winning biographer Nigel Hamilton has completed his three-part saga of FDR at war…and we’ll get to meet him once again at the Museums on the Green for the stunning conclusion. This is a story…

In 1945, the USS Indianapolis completed a top-secret, high-speed trip from California to the Pacific Islands to deliver parts of Little Boy, the first nuclear weapon ever used in combat.  It was the most highly classified naval mission of the war--but it was not their most dangerous.  Just days later, two Japanese torpedoes struck the ship when she was sailing alone in the center of the Philippine Sea. The Indianapolis immediately turned into a fiery cauldron and sunk within minutes--300…

The former president of MIT talks about the next technology revolution and how it will change our lives. A century ago, discoveries in physics came together with engineering to produce an array of astonishing new technologies: radios, telephones, televisions, aircraft, radar, nuclear power, computers, the Internet, and a host of still-evolving digital tools. These technologies reshaped our world so radically that we can no longer conceive of life without them. Now, world-renowned neuroscientist Susan Hockfield says new discoveries in biology…

To commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of the feminist pioneer and writer of Battle Hymn of the Republic Heiress. Poet. Author. Lecturer. Feminist. Pacifist. Abolitionist. Julia Ward Howe wrote a mildly shocking sexual novel that was published to good reviews. She also wrote the unforgettable words to the Civil War anthem, Battle Hymn of the Republic, after visiting the Union troops in Washington, DC the previous day.  She helped to establish Mother’s Day and became a groundbreaking figure…

TO BE HELD AT THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH 68 MAIN STREET, FALMOUTH While some aspects of Cape and Islands gardening have remained the same for decades, there are other facets of growing in this area that have changed. Warmer falls and newly introduced insects or diseases present challenges or prompt changes in some landscaping practices.  Data from the latest research and adjustments in how we choose to support wildlife or protect our waterways mean altering old ways of maintaining yards…

Hold onto your seat because you’ll never believe what’s under your feet. That’s right, we’re going underground. Our tour guide is Will Hunt, a man obsessed with anything below ground. It all started when he was sixteen years old. After discovering an abandoned tunnel that ran beneath his house in Providence, Rhode Island, he was hopelessly hooked on exploring underground worlds: from the derelict subway stations and sewers of New York City to sacred caves, catacombs, tombs, bunkers and ancient…

Winston Churchill called him World War II's "organizer of victory." Harry Truman said he was "the greatest military man that this country ever produced." Even as a young officer, George Marshall was heralded as a genius.  During WWI, his reputation grew when he planned and executed a nighttime movement of more than a half million troops from one battlefield to another that led to the armistice. Between wars, he helped modernize combat training and re-staffed the U.S. Army's officer corps…

While the United States was embroiled in the Great War overseas, a lethal enemy was at work stateside as well.  In October 1918 alone, 195,000 Americans died, making it the deadliest month in American History.  The killer was influenza.  It infected about 500 million people—one third of the world’s population.  At least 50 million people died worldwide, with about 675,000 deaths in the United States. Now, more than a century later, many think influenza is a common and mild disease.…

Long before the Civil War, Lucy Stone and other Massachusetts abolitionists opposed women's exclusion from political life. They launched the organized movement at the first National Woman's Rights Convention, held in Worcester. After the war, state activists founded the Boston-based American Woman Suffrage Association and Woman's Journal to lead campaigns across the country. Their activities laid the foundation for the next generation of suffragists to triumph over tradition. Author Barbara Berenson gives these revolutionary reformers the attention they deserve in…

Fact: New York Times bestselling author Katherine Howe is descended from three women who were tried for witchcraft in Salem. Fiction: Her latest work, The Daughters of Temperance Hobbs, is a bewitching story of a woman with a similar history. Meet Connie Goodwin. She’s a young, tenure-track professor in Boston.  She’s also an expert in witchcraft.  By day, she studies the history of magic in colonial America―especially women’s home recipes and medicines―and exposes society's threats against those fluent in these…

On All Saints Day 1755, tremors from an earthquake measuring 9.0 (or higher) on the Moment Magnitude Scale swept from the Atlantic seabed toward the Iberian and African coasts.  Lisbon, one of the wealthiest cities in the world and the capital of a vast global empire, was directly in their path.  Within minutes, much of the city lay in ruins. But this was only the beginning. The quake unleashed a giant tsunami which smashed into Portugal’s coastline and barreled up…

It took an untold number of weapons to win World War II:  tanks, submachine guns, flame throwers, rifles, and grenades.  But one of the Allies’ most powerful weapons was the art of deception.  Elaborate plots, phantom armies, fictious radio transmissions, controlled leaks, double agents and other clever ruses spun a deadly web of deception for the enemy. Local historian Michael McNaught will unravel some of the greatest military secrets and strategies taking place off the battlefield at this fascinating talk.

The day before Woodrow Wilson took the presidential oath of office in 1913, he expected a throng of onlookers when he arrived in Washington.  He was upstaged by one woman--twenty-five-year old Alice Paul—and 8,000 suffragists, who marched with banners and floats down Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House. A half million spectators, supporters and detractors watched.  The New York Times called it “one of the most impressively beautiful spectacles ever staged in this country.”  The new president called the spectacle’s…

Dorothy Kilgallen had it all: fame, fortune and family.  She was a Pulitzer-prized nominated newspaper columnist, a star on the sixties TV game show “What’s My Line” and a crack investigative reporter who covered high profile criminal trials. On November 8, 1965, the 52-year-old media icon was found dead in her Manhattan townhouse bedroom.  The cause: acute ethanol and barbiturate intoxication.  The ruling:  accidental.  Or was it?  Earlier that year, she had taken on the biggest case of career: the…

The USS Constitution is the world's oldest commissioned naval vessel still afloat.  President George Washington named the wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy after the United States Constitution. She was launched in 1797, one of six original frigates authorized for construction by the Naval Act of 1794. The vessel is most noted for her actions during the War of 1812 against the United Kingdom, when she captured numerous merchant ships and defeated five British warships, one of…

The War to End all Wars remade the world’s map and created new global powers. It also brought destruction and carnage no one had ever seen before.  The apocalyptic-like world of 1918 was nothing like the world of 1914. Four years of machine guns, poison gas and mortar shells wrought a new reign of suffering and terror. Millions were injured. Millions more were killed. By war’s end, its horrors had crept into the world’s collective psyche and changed everything. Including…

They came seeking religious freedom.  They found an untamed, inhospitable and dangerous wilderness. They struggled with deprivation, disease and death. Through the grace of God and with the help of the "People of the Dawn," they survived. As the 400th Anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims approaches, travel back to 1620 and relive their first year: the difficult voyage over the Atlantic, the landing on Cape Cod shores, the “first encounter” with the Wampanoag Nation, the move onward to…