In-Person and Online Program: In the early 20th century, Howard Baskerville, a young Christian missionary from South Dakota, traveled to Persia (modern-day Iran) to preach the gospel. But it would be political activism and not Christianity that would define his life and lead to his death as a martyr in a foreign land. Historian and author Reza Aslan highlights the complex and historic ties between America and Iran and the potential of a single individual to change the course of history.

Andrew H. Knoll, a professor of natural history and earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University, discusses the five moments over the past 500 million years when most of Earth’s animal species disappeared, how those past events relate to 21st-century global change, and what lessons may be learned for preserving our planet’s precious and precarious biodiversity for future generations.

Between 1917 and 1921 a devastating struggle took place in Russia following the collapse of the Tsarist empire. Author Antony Beevor brings the conflict to life through the eyes of firsthand accounts, vivid and powerful personal stories that offer an epic view of the events that reshaped Eastern Europe and set the stage for the rest of the 20th century.

For sports historian Kenneth Cohen, how baseball quickly surpassed other pastimes and became a primary symbol of American uniqueness by the end of the 19th century is a story that’s partly about the powers of marketing in a modernizing nation and partly about the genuinely democratizing potential of a game that everyone could play. Join him as he explores baseball's rise and the decidedly undemocratic response it sparked, as well as the debate about whether it continues to deserve its eminent status as our national pastime today.

The fall of Naples in 1442 not only brought Spanish rule, it transformed the city into a vital center of artistic production. Join Sophia D’Addio, a lecturer in art history at Columbia University, in an exploration of paintings, sculptures, medals, and architecture commissioned by the Aragonese rulers of Naples, most notably the commissions and collections of King Alfonso of Aragon. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)

The medieval period in Western thought, once viewed disparagingly by scholars as the Dark Ages, has come to be recognized as a time of rich philosophic investigation and lively debate. Gregory T. Doolan, associate professor of philosophy at The Catholic University of America, explores the work of notable Christian, Muslim, and Jewish thinkers from the major periods of medieval philosophy.

Under the direction of Kenneth Slowik, the Smithsonian Chamber Orchestra performs five iconic works by Polish and American composers including Bacewicz, Barber, Górecki, Paderewski, and Copland.