When the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to Bob Dylan in 2016, a debate raged. Some celebrated, while many others questioned the choice.  How could the world’s most prestigious book prize be awarded to a famously cantankerous singer-songwriter who wouldn’t even deign to attend the medal ceremony? In Why Bob Dylan Matters, Harvard Professor Richard F. Thomas answers this question with magisterial erudition. A world expert on Classical poetry, Thomas was initially ridiculed by his colleagues for teaching a…

How Jeff Bezos and John Henry are Remaking Newspapers for the 21st Century Over the course of a generation, the story of the daily newspaper has been an unchecked slide from record profitability and readership to plummeting profits, increasing irrelevance, and inevitable obsolescence. The forces killing major dailies, alternative weeklies, and small-town shoppers are well understood—or seem obvious in hindsight, at least—and the catalog of publications that have gone under reads like a who’s who of American journalism. During the…

A history of Falmouth as told through a century of Portuguese migration: Strawberries and Portuguese civic, religious and economic associations. A special and FREE event, open to all! This talk provides a history of Falmouth from the point of view of the Portuguese settlers who began coming to the town in the decades before 1900. In a period of just a few decades, the numbers of Portuguese in the town swelled to make them not only the single largest ethnic…

A Tour Through the Deadly Streets of Organized Crime Organized criminals have played a major role in Greater Boston's history, lurking just around the corner or inside the inconspicuous building. "Gangland Boston" reveals the hidden history of these places, showing how the Italian Mafia and Irish gangs rose to power, how the Winter Hill Gang ascended to prominence, and how James "Whitey" Bulger become the most feared crime boss throughout the region. From South Boston to the North End, Chinatown,…

The Museums on the Green is proud to be a participant in the Cape Cod Museum Trail’s Festival of Museums on April 28th 2018! This event will be held at the Hyannis Youth Center, 141 Basset Lane, Hyannis, MA, from 10 am to 4 pm The Festival of Museums is just that – a FREE one-day celebration of Cape Cod’s museums and galleries with events throughout the day. Museums and galleries from all around Cape Cod are offering a fun packed day…

From the authors of the bestselling The Finest Hours, the riveting, deeply human story of President John F. Kennedy and two U-2 pilots, Rudy Anderson and Chuck Maultsby, who risked their lives to save America during the Cuban Missile Crisis. During an infamous thirteen-day stretch of October 1962, America faced the prospect of imminent nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Two things saved humanity: the strategic wisdom of John F. Kennedy, and the U-2 aerial spy program. Above and Beyond…

When you think of serial killers throughout history, the names that come to mind are ones like Jack the Ripper, John Wayne Gacy, and Ted Bundy. But what about Tillie Klimek, Moulay Hassan, Kate Bender? The narrative we’re comfortable with is the one where women are the victims of violent crime, not the perpetrators. In fact, serial killers are thought to be so universally, overwhelmingly male that in 1998, FBI profiler Roy Hazelwood infamously declared in a homicide conference, “There…

The Battle of Lexington and Concord challenges the prevailing narrative of the American War of Independence. It was, author George Daughan argues, based as much in economic concerns as political ones. When Massachusetts militiamen turned out in overwhelming numbers to fight the British, they believed they were fighting for their farms and livelihoods, as well as for liberty. Benjamin Franklin was not surprised by this widespread belief. In the years prior to the Revolution, Franklin had toured Great Britain and…

PURITANS AND GUN CONTROL Done in conjunction with the Falmouth No Place For Hate alliance and the Falmouth Gun Buyback Program How did guns fit into the culture which the earliest European settlers brought with them to New England, when Massachusetts was the “wild west” frontier on the continent of North America? Is there anything in 17th century firearms regulations which can inform the present controversies about guns, violence, and freedom? In “Puritans and Gun Control,” David M. Powers explores…

“Into the Lion’s Mouth: the True Story of Dusko Popov: World War II Spy, Patriot and the Real Life Inspiration for James Bond” James Bond has nothing on British double agent Dusko Popov.  As an operative for the Abwehr, SD, MI5, MI6, and FBI during World War II, Popov seduced countless women―including agents on both sides―spoke five languages, and was a crack shot, all while maintaining his cover as a Yugoslav diplomat... On a cool August evening in 1941, a Serbian…

The nail-biting climax of one of the greatest political battles in American history: the ratification of the constitutional amendment that granted women the right to vote. Nashville, August 1920. Thirty-five states have ratified the Nineteenth Amendment, twelve have rejected or refused to vote, and one last state is needed. It all comes down to Tennessee, the moment of truth for the suffragists, after a seven-decade crusade. The opposing forces include politicians with careers at stake, liquor companies, railroad magnates, and…

Amid the ashes of Nazi Germany’s defeat, Marianne von Lingenfels returns to the once-grand castle of her husband’s ancestors, an imposing stone fortress now fallen into ruin following years of war. The widow of a resister murdered in the failed July 20, 1944, plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler, Marianne plans to uphold the promise she made to her husband’s brave conspirators: to find and protect their wives, her fellow resistance widows. First Marianne rescues six-year-old Martin, the son of her…

The New York Times bestselling author of Dark Invasion and The Last Goodnight once again illuminates the lives of little-known individuals who played a significant role in America’s history as he chronicles the incredible true story of a critical, recently declassified counterintelligence mission and two remarkable agents whose story has been called "the greatest secret of the Cold War." In 1946, genius linguist and codebreaker Meredith Gardner discovered that the KGB was running an extensive network of strategically placed spies…

The Soldier, the singer and the spymaster who defied the Japanese during World War II On January 2, 1942, Japanese troops marched into Manila unopposed by U.S. forces. Manila was a strategic port, a romantic American outpost and a jewel of a city. Tokyo saw its conquest of the Philippines as the key in its plan to control all of Asia, including Australia. Thousands of soldiers surrendered and were sent on the notorious eighty-mile Bataan Death March. But thousands of…

Dr. Twyman-Ghoshal will discuss some of her research on maritime piracy in our globalized world. The talk will explore what maritime piracy is, the nature and trends of contemporary maritime piracy around the world, and an exploration of some of the root causes of Somali piracy. The conversation will delve into the relationship between the ocean environment (specifically illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing) and maritime piracy.   Anamika Twyman-Ghoshal holds a Ph.D. in Criminology and Justice Policy from Northeastern…

A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist examines the life and times of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, arguing she left behind the Kennedy family’s most profound political legacy. This lecture will be held at Falmouth Academy While Joe Kennedy was grooming his sons for the White House and the Senate, his Stanford-educated daughter Eunice was tapping her father’s fortune and her brothers’ political power to engineer one of the great civil rights movements of our time on behalf of millions of children and adults…

This talk is designed to introduce the audience to the subject of the US whale fishery from the 17th to the early 20th century through a survey of the different facets of the industry. Mr. Martin discusses historical development,  the purpose of the fishery and  its economic importance, risks associated with whaling, the most important species hunted,  the products of whaling, the whale ships, the crew and life on ship-board,  the hunt, capture and processing of whales, the leisure arts…

From the birth of our nation to the recent crushing defeat of the first female presidential candidate, this book highlights women's impact on United States politics and government. It documents the fight for women's right to vote, drawing on historic research, biographies of leaders, and such original sources as photos, line art, charts, graphs, documents, posters, ads, and buttons. It presents this often-forgotten struggle in an accessible, conversational, relevant manner for a wide audience. Here are the groundbreaking convention records,…

The exile of Pope Pius IX and the birth of modern Europe by Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Kertzer Days after the assassination of his prime minister in the middle of Rome in November 1848, Pope Pius IX found himself a virtual prisoner in his own palace. The wave of revolution that had swept through Europe now seemed poised to put an end to the popes’ thousand-year reign over the Papal States, if not indeed to the papacy itself. Disguising himself…

In the follow-up to his New York Times bestseller Rescue Road, acclaimed journalist Peter Zheutlin offers a heartwarming and often humorous new look into the world of rescue dogs. Sharing lessons from his own experiences adopting Labs with large personalities as well as stories and advice from dozens of families and rescue advocates, Zheutlin reveals the surprising and inspiring life lessons rescue dogs can teach us, such as: - How to “walk a mile in a dog’s paws” to get a brand-new perspective…

Absentee owners. Single-minded concern for the bottom line. Friction between workers and management. Hostile takeovers at the hands of avaricious and unaccountable multinational interests. The story of America’s industrial decline is all too familiar—and yet, somehow, still hard to fathom. Jamie Sayen spent years interviewing residents of Groveton, New Hampshire, about the century-long saga of their company town. The community’s paper mill had been its economic engine since the early 1900s. Purchased and revived by local ownership in the postwar…

How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Thousands of fans flocked to multi‑day events, and cities vied with one another to host them. The pilots themselves were hailed as dashing heroes who cheerfully stared death in the face. Well, the men were hailed. Female pilots were more often ridiculed than praised for what the press portrayed as silly efforts to horn…

HISTORIC RE-ENACTOR portrays AMELIA EARHART Historic re-enactor, Jessa Piaia, will present a one-person interpretation of pioneer aviatrix Amelia Earhart entitled “Meet Amelia Earhart (1897-1937): First Lady of the Air”. The program is set in 1936, when Earhart was a popular speaker on the national circuit and preparing for take-off for the around-the-world flight in 1937.  Inspired at an early age by the suffragist movement, Earhart identified with the generation of “the new woman” who had won the right to vote…

THIS PROGRAM WILL BE HELD AT THE FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF FALMOUTH Join us for a Buccaneer Duo--Eric Jay Dolin and Marie Kesten Zahn! Eric Jay Dolin, author of "Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America's Most Notorious Pirates" Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the dramatic and surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age”―spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s―when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North…

The Vietnam War ended on April 30, 1975. Millions of Vietnamese on both sides of the conflict were killed. Nearly 60,000 Americans were among those who died. You have all seen or heard about the war in the recent Ken Burns series: "The Vietnam War." But what happened after the country of South Vietnam no longer ceased to exist? What happened to the former South Vietnamese military officers and men, to their families and to their country? The newly-released book…

Since 2001 the Patriots have played in eight Super Bowl championships and won five, a run of excellence unparalleled in all of professional sports. In a league designed to ensure that no one franchise can dominate over time, New England won for over a decade and a half. A dynasty that began with an improbable run to a championship in 2001 has rebuilt, rebooted, and retooled several times over, winning most recently in 2017. But in those years, no other…

The morning of November 25th, 1856, Mary Chipman Lawrence set sail aboard the whaling ship Addison bound for the Pacific on a voyage that would last three and a half years.  In this performance, Mary will bring forth from her meticulously kept journal, the joys and tribulations of life at sea with her husband, Captain Samuel Lawrence, and their daughter Minnie. The sights and sounds of foreign ports and their inhabitants, the sailors' sea shanties, the surprisingly robust social life…

Little has been known of one of the most important figures in early American history, Dr. Joseph Warren, an architect of the colonial rebellion, and a man who might have led the country as Washington or Jefferson did had he not been martyred at Bunker Hill in 1775. Warren was involved in almost every major insurrectionary act in the Boston area for a decade, from the Stamp Act protests to the Boston Massacre to the Boston Tea Party, and his…

Why did the once‑ardent hero of the American Revolution become its most scandalous general?​ In the spring of 1792, President George Washington chose “Mad” Anthony Wayne to defend America from a potentially devastating threat. Native forces had decimated the standing army and Washington needed a champion to open the country stretching from the Ohio River westward to the headwaters of the Mississippi for settlement. A spendthrift, womanizer, and heavy drinker who had just been ejected from Congress for voter fraud,…

Pamela Parmal, the curator of Textile and Fashion Arts at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston will be here to discuss quilts and coverlets from colonial times to the present day.  

The definitive narrative history of the New England Patriots. The definitive, lively, and robust history of the New England Patriots, from Billy Sullivan to Bill Belichick and everything in between The New England Patriots have become a dynasty, though it didn’t begin that way. Love ’em, hate ’em, the Pats have captured this country’s attention like no other franchise. From two award-winning authors, this is the first complete story of a legendary team and its five championship trophies. In the…

The thrilling behind-the-scenes account of how the most sensational scandal in NFL history culminated in the greatest comeback in sports history, featuring dozens of exclusive interviews with Patriots players--including Tom Brady himself. In January 2015, rumors circulated that the New England Patriots--a team long suspected of abiding by the "if you ain't cheating you ain't trying" philosophy--had used under-inflated footballs in their playoff victory against the Indianapolis Colts. As evidence began to build, however, a full on NFL investigation was…

Hockey: the coolest game ever. Lace ‘em up tight because we’re going back to the beginning, and we have centuries to go. This fast-paced sport shot out of the shinny ponds of Saskatchewan, sped south to the United States and raced through Europe and Asia to become the worldwide phenomenon it is today. Meet hockey’s organizational visionaries and on-ice stars. Learn how the equipment advanced and the rules evolved. Visit the venues and relive the games. Find out how corporations…

Lizzie Borden took an axe And gave her mother forty whacks. And when she saw what she had done, She gave her father forty-one. We all know the ditty, but few know the facts behind the infamous, unsolved double-murders that rocked the Fall River community in August 1892. Historian Christopher Daley takes us back to that fateful summer day when Andrew and Abby Borden were brutally killed in their home.  He’ll recount the day’s events and the police investigation that…

1917. It was unlike any other year in American history.  Or American music. As the United States entered World War I, a new musical genre that suited the world’s frantic mood burst onto the national scene. JAZZ.  German musicians who had dominated classical music were forced from the stage and New Orleans natives Nick LaRocca and Freddie Keppard popularized the new sound taking its place. Patriotism was at an all-time high. African-American bandleader James Reese Europe turned the Fifteenth New…

Commemorate the 100th anniversary of an historic Boston tragedy. Molasses flood. If those two-words don’t have you consumed with curiosity already, read on! Shortly after noon on January 15, 1919, a 50-foot-tall steel tank collapsed, disgorging its contents—2.3 million gallons of molasses--on Boston’s waterfront. Incredibly, this 15-foot-high wave of dark syrupy substance, travelling 35 miles per hour, killed 21 people, injured 150 more and destroyed just about everything in its path. The unusual story of the Great Boston Molasses Flood…

It’s 1856.  One hundred passengers—mostly Irish immigrants--have boarded a small ship sailing from Liverpool to New York. Only one will survive: Crewman Thomas W. Nye of Fairhaven. This is his story. It’s also the story of the thirteen other souls who made it into the lifeboat with him when an iceberg tore the ship asunder and set them adrift in the icy Atlantic four hundred miles off the coast of Newfoundland. They had no supplies, just a few blankets, some…

We’re reaching deep into the “History Vault” for this one. About one year after the American Civil War ended, a group of veterans dusted off their guns to fight for their homeland: Ireland, the Emerald Isle. A one-armed war hero, an English spy who had infiltrated rebel forces, and a radical who had staged his own funeral were among the Irish American Revolutionaries, now banded together for a cause. Their mission was to take the British province of Canada and…

Forget cranberries or cod. During Prohibition (1920-1933), rum was the cash crop on Cape Cod. Cape Cod historian Don Wilding will tell us how the country’s "Noble Experiment" turned into a profitable and potentially dangerous undertaking for the locals about a century ago. The story takes place under the cover of darkness, as farmers and fisherman headed off shore and took to the seas to “Rum Row.”  There, they met ships laden with the criminal, yet coveted, alcohol and brought…

Anne Barrett HISTORICAL PERFORMANCE In 1759, the beautiful and wealthy widow Martha Dandridge Custis married the handsome and successful soldier George Washington.  This decision would lead her from the battlefields of the American Revolution to the highest echelons of the infant republic. Later eulogized as “the worthy partner of the worthiest of men,” she used her acute social sense to meet the expectations of her country and define the role of First Lady.  We’ll catch up with “Lady Washington” in…

While the New York Yankees and St. Louis Cardinals were winning pennants and facing off in the World Series, another group of players was fighting it out on a skinned-out college field in North Carolina in 1943. They wore the Cloudbuster Nine baseball jersey. They were fighter-pilots-in-training at an elite naval academy that shaped American heroes like George H. W. Bush, Gerald Ford, John Glenn and Paul “Bear” Bryant. This unlikely wartime team trained on and off the baseball diamond…

Splitters, spitters, sinkers, sliders. It’s time to play ball.  Baseball. And for Tyler Kepner, the New York Times’ national baseball writer, it’s all about the pitch. Ten of 'em. He got 18 of the 25 pitchers with the most strikeouts in the history of the sport to spill their priceless secrets--players like Nolan Ryan, Steve Carlton, Bob Gibson, Randy Johnson, and Pedro Martinez. Twenty-two Hall of Famers—guys like Bob Gibson, Steve Carlton, Nolan Ryan, Greg Maddux, Mariano Rivera, and Clayton…

His story begins in Taunton and spans over 60 years, through the Civil Rights Movement, The Cuban Missile Crisis and many other important events in American history. He is the son of Portuguese immigrants, part of a hard-working, close-knit family that values its culture and customs like “The Pig Stabbing.” He attended medical school and served in the military. In 1964, he returned home to begin a surgical career that would place him at the center of life in the…

Our modern-day story starts with the author, Peter Stark. While researching the most unpopulated, still-wild places of the United States for a project, he obtained a NASA satellite photo of the country at night. The abundant clusters of lights were cities. To his surprise, one of the darkest, blankest spots was Western Pennsylvania.  There, among the vast wilderness, he found young George Washington…and the subject of his next story. Two decades before Washington led America to independence, the naïve, temperamental,…

William Pynchon was charged with speaking the unspeakable and publishing the unprintable. He wrote the first book banned in Boston—which was also the first book burned in Boston. His unorthodox theological musings certainly stirred things up for the Puritan pioneer, entrepreneur and founder of Springfield, Massachusetts. So did his extraordinary relationships with the Native people he lived among during a time of great hostilities between cultures.  This talk takes us back to early New England to find out what all…

Before every earthquake, there’s the inevitable rumble.  In his latest book, historian Jay Sexton focuses on the rumblings--foreign threats, economics, slavery, immigration and other global concerns--that brought “violent earthquakes,” periods of crisis, to our shores. He believes that centuries of disruptions have forged our nation more than anything we could have done by design. What is the nation’s narrative?   What will our unpredictable future bring? The answers might be found by revisiting our turbulent past. SPONSOR   Eight Cousins Books,…

In June 1944, the Nazis locked eighteen-year-old Dave Hersch into a railroad boxcar and shipped him from his hometown of Dej, Hungary, to Mauthausen Concentration Camp, the harshest, cruelest camp in the Reich. After ten months in the granite mines of Gusen, the nearby sub-camp, Dave weighed less than 80 pounds and was more dead than alive. As Allied forces drew close, the Nazis put him on a death march to Gunskirchen Concentration Camp, over thirty miles away. Soon after,…

The most decorated spy of WWII wasn’t Dusko Popov, the guy who inspired the James Bond series. The spy wasn’t even a guy. In 1942, while the war was in full swing, Odette Sansom decided to follow in her war-hero father’s footsteps and become an SOE Agent.  Britain’s super-secret organization aided the resistance movements and conducted espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance against the Axis powers in occupied Europe.  After five failed attempts and one plane crash, Odette landed in occupied France,…

The venture was daunting. The motive was profit.  Only those with an extraordinary appetite for risk need apply.  Long before the Mayflower sailed (some seventy years prior, to be more exact), a small group of English merchants formed the world’s first joint-stock company.  Its name--The Mysterie, Company, and Fellowship of Merchant Adventurers for the Discovery of Regions, Dominions, Islands, and Places Unknown--was as formidable as its purpose: to seek new markets and trading partners for England, a small and relatively…

NOTE VENUE CHANGE:  First Congregational Church,  68 Main Street, Falmouth This largely-forgotten war was one of America’s first and costliest. It started in 1675 when the leader of the Wampanoag tribe began an uprising to take back some of the land the colonial settlers controlled. His native name was Metacom; the English called him Philip. Ironically, he was the son of Massasoit, the sachem who helped the pilgrims get established. Soon the Nipmucks and tribes along the Connecticut River joined…

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…

It all started in the predawn darkness of June 6, 1944. They were the first to fight when the stakes were highest and the odds longest. Meet the remarkable men who carried out D-Day’s most perilous missions: the first American paratrooper to touch down on Normandy soil; the glider pilot who braved antiaircraft fire to crash-land mere yards from the vital Pegasus Bridge; the brothers who led their troops onto Juno Beach under withering fire; and the French commando, returning…

Jeff Idelson, Retiring President of the NBA Hall of Fame and Museum Peter Gammons, Celebrated Sportswriter & Media Personality Jean Fruth, Award-Winning Photographer   When Jeff Idelson, the retiring president of the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, calls--you pick up the phone. Fast. When he pitches you an idea for a talk about a new baseball book at the Museums on the Green, you don't hesitate. You say, "Absolutely, what date works for you?" When he asks if…

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…

William J. Burns spent three decades as an American diplomat and played a central role in the most consequential diplomatic episodes of his time.  Our time.  The bloodless end of the Cold War.  The collapse of post-Cold War relations with Putin’s Russia. The post-9/11 tumult in the Middle East.  The secrete nuclear talks with Iran.  With compelling detail, incisive analysis and newly declassified cables and memos, he recounts some of the seminal moments of his career and delivers a rare…

CANCELLED: 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…

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…

SPECIAL FREE TALK How many stories start like this? "It all began in a bar a long, long time ago..." Well, this 7-mile road race--which hits especially close to home--started just like that. Since then participation has swelled from 100 runners to 13,000 annually, bringing legendary Olympians and champions to Falmouth for the chance to compete. The history of this fascinating race spans 47 years, and Clerici, an award-winning journalist and freelance writer, will share the behind-the-scenes tales and tidbits…

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…

  Who lived in what we now call Falmouth before the town was settled by British colonists? What happened to those natives after colonists became neighbors? With the help of evidence from town and state archives we can begin to piece together Falmouth's Native American past, from the settlement of the town up until the late 18th century. In this talk Connor Cobb, a Falmouth resident and lover of local history, will shed light on a forgotten and overlooked chapter…

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…

NEW LOCATION: First Congregational Church 68 Main Street, Falmouth 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…

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…

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…

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…

In 2018, the Imperial War Museum commissioned Academy Award-winning producer Peter Jackson to use original footage from their archives to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of World War One.  This special presentation will show the movie on Veterans Day.

On November 23, 1968, there was a turbulent and memorable football game: the season-ending clash between Harvard and Yale. The final score was 29-29. To some of the players, it was a triumph; to others a tragedy. And to many, the reasons had as much to do with one side’s miraculous comeback in the game’s final forty-two seconds as it did with the months that preceded it, months that witnessed the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert F. Kennedy,…

In March 1621, when Plymouth's survival was hanging in the balance, the Wampanoag sachem (or chief), Ousamequin (Massasoit), and Plymouth's governor, John Carver, declared their people's friendship for each other and a commitment to mutual defense. Later that autumn, the English gathered their first successful harvest and lifted the specter of starvation. Ousamequin and 90 of his men then visited Plymouth for the “First Thanksgiving.” The treaty remained operative until King Philip's War in 1675, when 50 years of uneasy…

In 1659, the General Court of Massachusetts Bay Colony banned the celebration of Christmas because of its seasonal excess. (Bah humbug!) It wasn't until the mid 19th century when a German immigrant introduced the Christmas tree and Louis Prang brought his colorful Christmas cards to the city, that Bostonians began to show some holiday spirit. This festive book recalls it all: caroling and hand bell ringing on Beacon Hill, the Nativity scene and display on Boston Common, hot fudge sundaes at Baileys and…

Author and SEA professor Richard J. King talks about his new book, “Ahab’s Rolling Sea: A Natural History of Moby-Dick” and its connections to Falmouth whaling captain Lewis Lawrence. Captain Lawrence sailed the Pacific in the same era as Melville. His unique, data-heavy logbook and chart reveal how 19th-century whalemen understood their impact on whales and the rest of the global ocean. “Ahab’s Rolling Sea” tells the story of Melville’s relationship with the watery world: what he witnessed and read,…

In this undersea retelling of the holiday classic, Sea Santa makes his annual Christmas journey, pulled in his clamshell sleigh by his eight faithful minnows. Sweet and clever rhyme by Christina Laurie and beautiful watercolor paintings by Elizabeth Moisan  illustrate his visit to a family of lobsters on the night before Christmas.      

DOGFIGHT OVER TOKYO The Last Air Battle of the Pacific War It was the early morning of August 15, 1945. When Billy Hobbs and his fellow Hellcat aviators from Air Group 88 lifted off from the venerable Navy carrier USS Yorktown, they had no idea they were about to carry out the final air mission of World War II. Two hours later, Yorktown received word from Admiral Nimitz that the war had ended and that all offensive operations should cease. As they…

ONE BASE AT A TIME How I Survived PTSD and Found My Field of Dreams In the summer of 1981, David Mellor was just a baseball-crazed kid, a star high school pitcher dreaming of someday taking the mound in Fenway Park for his beloved Boston Red Sox. That dream was derailed in a McDonald’s parking lot when he was hit by a racing car, thrown into the air and pinned to a wall. His knee was severely damaged; his hopes…

AMERICA'S FIRST FREEDOM RIDER Elizabeth Jennings, Chester A. Arthur, and the Early Fight for Civil Rights It wasn’t easy to get around New York City in 1854. Omnibus accidents were commonplace. The Five Points gangs regularly attacked pedestrians. Pickpockets, drunks and kidnappers were part of the daily street scene. And, rival police forces watched and argued over who should help. But none of this was on Elizabeth Jennings’s mind the day she climbed the platform onto the Chatham Street horsecar.…

INFLUENZA The Hundred-Year Hunt to Cure the Deadliest Disease in History 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…

SUDDEN COURAGE Youth in France Confront the Germans from 1940-1945 On June 14, 1940, German tanks rolled into Paris. Eight days later, France accepted a humiliating defeat and foreign occupation.  Most citizens adapted; many even allied themselves with the new fascist leadership. Yet others refused to capitulate and joined the French Resistance. But, this is not your typical war story. It’s a coming-of-age story during the war. Among this shadow army of Jews, immigrants, communists, workers, writers, police officers and…

YALE NEEDS WOMEN How the First Group of Girls Rewrote the Rules of an Ivy League Giant Special Surprise:  The author will talk with two women interviewed for the book 1969 was a landmark year. More than 350,000 rock-n-roll fans flocked to Woodstock, the Boeing 747 jumbo jet made its debut, and the Apollo 11 mission put the first two men on the moon. What else?  Yale University, dedicated to graduating “one thousand male leaders every year” finally opened its…

THE CROWDED HOUR Theodore Roosevelt, The Rough Riders and the Dawn of the American Century When America declared war on Spain in 1898, the US Army numbered 26,000 men, scattered around the country.  Hardly an army at all.  In fact, Theodore Roosevelt’s Rough Riders was born out of desperation. At first glance, they were a motley group of volunteers—heavier on Ivy League athletes and Arizona cowboys than traditional soldiers.  But what they lacked in experience, they made up for in…

COAST TO COAST IN 48 HOURS On July 7, 1929, Charles Lindbergh’s dream of coast-to-coast travel came true. That’s when Transcontinental Air Transport (T.A.T.) began providing passenger service between New York and Los Angeles using airplanes by day and trains by night. The ambitious trip across the country on what would become known as the “The Lindberg Line” took 48 hours, cutting the 72 hour travel time by rail alone by two-thirds. A one-way ticket cost $338, more than half…

SHE CAME TO SLAY The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman Everybody knows she was one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad. Everybody knows she risked her life to lead hundreds of slaves to freedom. But there’s so much more to know about the indomitable and indefatigable Harriet Tubman.  She was a fierce suffragist, advocate for the aged, and spy for the Union army.  She was also the first women to lead an armed expedition during the…

HOW TO GET RID OF A PRESIDENT History's Guide to Removing Unpopular, Unable, or Unfit Chief Executives Party intrigue, personal betrayals, conspiracies, and backroom shenanigans.  Just another day in politics.  And, when it comes to term limits, there are no limits to what people have done and will continue to do to remove unpopular, unable or unfit chief executives.  Yes, the American presidency has seen it all, from rejecting a sitting president’s renomination bid and undermining their authority in office…

THE GHOSTS OF EDEN PARK The Bootleg King, the Women who Pursued Him, and the Murder That Shocked Jazz-Age America Move over Al Capone.  There was once a bigger bootlegger than you.  In the early days of Prohibition, George Remus quit practicing law and started trafficking whiskey.  By the summer of 1921, The teetotaler owned 35 percent of all the liquor in the United States and the title “King of the Bootleggers."  Remus became a multi-millionaire--with the emphasis on multi.…

THIS GULF OF FIRE The Destruction of Lisbon or Apocalypse in the Age of Science and Reason Please Note Time Change:  6:30 pm Start 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…

HONORABLE EXIT How a Few Brave Americans Risked All to Save Our Vietnamese Allies at the End of the War Please Note Special Start Time 3:00 pm The iconic photograph of the Fall of Saigon shows desperate Vietnamese scrambling to board a helicopter evacuating the last American personnel from Vietnam. It is an image of U.S. failure and shame. Or is it? This groundbreaking revisionist history reveals the less-known acts of American heroism that saved more than one-hundred-thousand South Vietnamese…

WASHINGTON’S END The Final Years and Forgotten Struggle This story begins where most leave off.  After eight years as president, George Washington exits the office and enters what would become the most bewildering stage of his life.  Surrendering power proved to be more difficult than he imagined and brought his life to an end he never expected. Nor will you. With every page turn of this astonishingly true story, you’ll discover something you never knew about Washington’s forgotten last years:…

THOMAS JEFFERSON’S EDUCATION This beautifully written history about Thomas Jefferson’s campaign to save Virginia through education reveals the origins of a great university in the dilemmas of slavery.  It also reveals a lot about Jefferson himself, who was never quite the egalitarian we wish him to be. Although he was devoted to educating his granddaughters and once proposed educating all white children in Virginia, he narrowed his goal to building an elite university. Jefferson believed that by educating the sons…

AMERICA THE INGENIOUS How a Nation of Dreamers, Immigrants, and Tinkerers Changed the World The skyscraper and subway car.  The telephone and telegraph.  The safety elevator and the safety pin. All made in America.  Not to mention the microprocessor, amusement park, MRI, supermarket, Pennsylvania rifle, or that magnificent Golden Gate Bridge.  Without doubt, America is a nation of inventors, tinkerers, researchers, and adventurers.  People like the Edisons, the Bells, and the Carnegies--plus less celebrated folks like  Youphes and Loeb Strauss,…

THE IMPEACHERS: The Trial of Andrew Johnson and the Dream of a Just Nation It was a dangerous time in America.  When Abraham Lincoln was assassinated and Vice-President Andrew Johnson became “the Accidental President,” the country was in turmoil. Congress was divided over how the Union should be reunited: when and how the secessionist South should regain full status, whether former Confederates should be punished, and when and whether black men should be given the vote. Devastated by war and…

LINCOLN ON THE VERGE: Thirteen Days to Washington February 11, 1861.  On the eve of his 52nd birthday, Abraham Lincoln boarded a train. The President-Elect of the United States was on the way to the White House for his inauguration, an inauguration Southerners vowed to prevent by any means necessary. He was uncertain what he would find when he arrived there—if he arrived there. Bankrupt and rudderless, the government was on the verge of collapse. To make matters worse, he…

A FURIOUS SKY: The Five-Hundred-Year History of America's Hurricane Each year, hurricanes menace North America from June through November.  Each one is as powerful as 10,000 nuclear bombs.  Each one, from the nameless storms that threatened Columbus’s New World voyages, to the Galveston Hurricane of 1900 which had the highest death toll of any natural disaster in American history, has a story.  They also have heroes, such as Benjamin Franklin who made important discoveries about these megastorms and Benito Vines,…

                THE PLEASURES OF AGE: Old Women and Political Power in the Women's Sufrage Movement On her seventieth birthday in 1885, suffragist Elizabeth Cady Stanton delivered a speech on "The Pleasures of Age". She declared that "fifty not fifteen is the heyday of woman's life."  While touring the country in the 1870s, Sojourner Truth turned her embodied performance of old age into a political claim for financial reparations owed formerly enslaved people.  By the 1890s,…

CULT OF GLORY The Bold and Brutal History of the Texas Rangers Saddle up.  We’re heading West for some Lone Star history.  It’s 1823. Texas is still part of Mexico. And, this very wild and very violent frontier surely needs tamin’. Enter the Texas Rangers.  Early on, the propertied power structures of Texas used this bold and brutal bunch as enforcers, protectors and officially sanctioned killers.  They fought the fierce Comanches, chased outlaws, and served in the U.S. Army during…

SUSAN B. ANTHONY Re-Enactor, Sheryl Faye This is going to be the best party ever. One of the most famous women in American history is celebrating her 200th birthday this year—and you’re invited. Susan B. Anthony was born February 15, 1820 in Adams, Massachusetts.  The famous social reformer and activist devoted her life to racial, gender and educational equality and played a prominent role in the women’s suffrage movement. We can only imagine the stories she’ll tell: perhaps she’ll share…

THE SWORD AND THE SHIELD The Revolutionary Lives of Malcom X and Martin Luther King, Jr. "The Sword and the Shield" is a landmark. It is what happens when one of America's greatest historians of African America shines the same light on two of African America's greatest historical figures. Peniel Joseph deploys his supreme talents as a biographer and movement historian to interweave the world-shattering lives of Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X."―Abram X. Kendi, author of "How to…

SEDUCING AND KILLING NAZIS Hannie, Truus and Freddie: Dutch Resistance Heroines of WWII This is the astonishing true story of three teenage Dutch girls, Hannie Schaft and sisters Truus and Freddie Oversteegen. When Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in World War II, they fought back. They found safe houses for Jewish children and gathered vital intelligence for the Resistance. They also seduced high-ranking Nazi officers, lured them into the woods and killed them. They did what they did "because it…

CAPE COD AND THE TEA CRISIS OF 1773 Everyone knows about America's famous "tea party." On December 16, 1773, American Patriots dressed as natives tossed 343 chests of  East India Company tea into Boston Harbor.  However, few know that five days earlier a fourth ship bound for Boston wrecked on Cape Cod--and some of its cargo remained here.  In fact it was the only EIC tea that actually became available to the colonists.  Historian Mary Beth Norton is the first…

THEY KNEW THEY WERE PILGRIMS: Plymouth Colony and the Contest for American Liberty Sinners or saints? In 1620, separatists from the Church of England set sail across the Atlantic aboard the Mayflower. They saw themselves as spiritual pilgrims, seeking the freedom to worship God in accordance with their understanding of the Bible. Others have an alternative, more dispiriting view of the Pilgrims.  In it, they were religious zealots who persecuted dissenters, stole land and  waged war with the Native peoples. …

THE DYNASTY They had never won a championship. They were nearly bankrupt. And, they were the laughingstock of the NFL. But that all changed in 1994 when Robert Kraft acquired the franchise and brought head coach Bill Belichick and quarterback Tom Brady on board. Since then, the New England Patriots have made ten trips to the Super Bowl and won six. Their twenty-year reign atop the NFL stands as the longest in league history. How did they do it?  Acclaimed…

FORMATION: A Woman's Memoir of Stepping out of Line Named by "Esquire" as one of the Best Nonfiction Books of the Year Ryan Dotie never imagined herself on the front lines of a war halfway around the world. But a conversation with an Army recruiter in her high-school cafeteria changed the course of her life.  After being hired as a linguist in Military Intelligence, she needed to find a space for herself in the testosterone-filled world of the Army barracks. She…

ATOMIC SPY: The Dark Lives of Klaus Fuchs German by birth. British by naturalization. Communist by conviction. Klaus Fuchs was a brilliant scientist, a fearless Nazi resister and an infamous spy. In 1950, he was convicted of espionage for handing over the designs of the plutonium bomb to the Russians, putting an end to America's nuclear hegemony and single-handedly heating up the Cold War. Fuchs was one of the most dangerous agents in American and British history. But, was he…

WHEN WOMEN WON THE RIGHT TO VOTE: History, Myth, and Memory How well do you know the 19th Amendment? When women achieved passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920, they did not win the right to vote—despite repeated claims that they did. Just what, then, did the women’s suffrage amendment do? Join Dr. Lisa Tetrault for a discussion of this often misinterpreted and misunderstood history and discover how 1920 is part of a much larger and longer story about the…

EINSTEIN'S WAR: How Relativity Trimphed Amid the Vicious Nationalism of World War "Stanley is a storyteller par excellence."--The Washington Post The Great War, the industrialized slaughter that bled Europe from 1914 to 1918, shaped Albert Einstein’s life and work.  Although he never held a rifle, he formulated the mind-bending theory of general relativity while blockaded—and literally starving--in Berlin. While some of his colleagues were fighting against rabid nationalism or inventing chemical warfare, Einstein was struggling to craft relativity and persuade…

DEMAGOGUE The Life and Long Shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy He’s been called the most dangerous demagogue in American history. Perhaps no other man has caused so much damage in such a short time. When Joe McCarthy finally made it to the Senate, he flailed around in search of an agenda. Finally, after three years, he hit upon one: anti-communism. By recklessly charging everyone from George Marshall to much of the State Department with treason, he whipped the nation into…

BELVA LOCKWOOD FOR PRESIDENT Anne Barrett as the First Woman Presidential Candidate A woman president? Why not? After all, it's 1884! Meet the indomitable Belva Ann Lockwood: American attorney, politician, educator and author, and the first woman to run a full national presidential campaign. She once said, "I cannot vote but I can be voted for." Listen to her lively campaign speech, detailing her early struggles to break free of social conventions, her fight to be admitted to the Supreme…

FURIOUS HOURS Murder, Fraud, and the Last Trial of Harper Lee There are two stories here. The first goes back to the 1970s, down into the Deep South. Reverend Willie Maxwell, a rural preacher, was accused of murdering five of his family members to collect the money from the insurance policies he took out on them. With the help of a savvy lawyer, he escaped justice for years until a relative shot him dead at the funeral of his last…

WASTELAND: The Great War and the Origins of Modern Horror 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…

THE CABINET: George Washington and the Creation of an American Institution George Washington took his oath of office as the first President of the United States in 1789.  Two and a half years later, he called his first cabinet meeting. Seriously?  That’s right.  The US Constitution hadn’t created or provided for such a body. In fact, the delegates to the Constitution Convention had explicitly rejected the idea. Faced with diplomatic crises, domestic insurrections, constitutional challenges and a Congress lacking help,…

A HISTORY OF THEATER ON CAPE COD Theater on the Cape began in 1916 when a group of artists and writers in Provincetown mounted a production of a one-act play, Bound East for Cardiff, by a little-known playwright, Eugene O’Neill. They staged the play in a rickety old theater on a wharf in what was then little more than a sleepy fishing village. From that artists’ colony—and others like it across the Cape and Islands—it grew into the constantly expanding…

IN THE WAKE OF THE MAYFLOWER The First Encounter In the Wake of the Mayflower is the story of life after the Mayflower's arrival--from The First  Encounter  through the 50 years of peace that ended with King Philip's  War. It highlights the mutually-dependent relationship between the Pilgrims and the indigenous Wampanoags, documented in  Karen Rinaldo's depiction of "The First Thanksgiving /1621." This painting has been met with critical acclaim by historians, the National Park Service and Wampanoag leaders for its positive eye on…

THE BOSTON MASSACRE: A FAMILY HISTORY Fact. On a late winter evening in 1770, British soldiers shot and killed five local, unarmed citizens. However, from the very beginning, one fascinating truth has been obscured from this often-told story: the conflicts between the British troops and the increasingly rebellious colonists leading up to the historic event were not just political. They were also personal. Very personal. In an antagonistic 1768 decision by army officers, the first British troops sent to subdue…

THE FIRST FIRST LADIES The Informal Political Power of Early American Women During the 17th and early 18th centuries, social class was ever-so important. And, despite the entrenched tradition of patriarchy, high-ranking women could wield more power than lower-status men. Meet the first First Ladies. The wives of the governors of America's original thirteen colonies were married to politics—literally and figuratively. Because of this, they were  particularly well placed to leverage their talents, status and influence to achieve personal and…

Please Note Time Change, Now Scheduled for Noon NO USELESS MOUTH: Waging War and Fighting Hunger in the American Revolution In the era of the American Revolution, guns weren’t the only weapons of war.  Hunger was also at the center of every power struggle. In peaceful times, gifts of food, ceremonial feasts and a shared experience of hunger were part of the diplomacy between the British, Patriots and Native Americans. However, when diplomacy failed, food became a powerful tool of…

From Rags to Riches to Radical, the Epic Journey of Rose Pastor Stokes
This is the stuff of fairy tales: poor Russian immigrant falls madly in love with the heir to a great American Fortune.  She is Rose Pastor. He is James Graham Phelps Stokes, the crown prince of the Phelps Stokes dynasty. Member of the legendary 400 families of New York high society. Friends with the Morgans and the Vanderbilts.  And he’s totally smitten, too.

The Inspiring True Story of the Women Airforce Pilots of World War II
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941, Cornelia Fort was already in the air. She had escaped Nashville’s debutante scene at the age of 22 and headed to Hawaii for a fresh start as a flight instructor. When the bombs began to fall, Fort and her student were in the middle of a lesson. They barely made it back to ground that ill-fated morning.

Benjamin Franklin was an abolitionist freethinker from the urban north. George Washington was a slaveholding general from the agrarian south. These vastly different men had a three-decade bond that helped forge the United States.

Robber Barons, Railroads, and the Making of Modern America
In 1869, when the final spike was driven into the Transcontinental Railroad, few were prepared for its seismic aftershocks. America's railways, once a hodgepodge of short, squabbling lines, soon exploded into a titanic industry helmed by speculators, crooks, and visionaries.

The Radical Republican History of the Civil War
In 1862, the ardent abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison summarized the events tearing the United States apart: “There is a war because there was a Republican Party. There was a Republican Party because there was an Abolition Party. There was an Abolition Party because there was Slavery.” Garrison’s simple statement expresses the essential truths at the heart of LeeAnna Keith’s When It Was Grand.

The Principles Behind Eisenhower's Biggest Decisions
By Susan Eisenhower, a DC policy strategist, security expert and Ike's granddaughter
Few people have made decisions as momentous as Eisenhower. Even fewer have had so many diverse decisions to make. From D-Day to Little Rock, from the Korean War to the Cold War crises, from the Red Scare to the Missile Gap controversies, Ike was able to give America eight years of peace and prosperity by relying on a core set of principles.