In a fascinating look into our nation’s history and how we remember our fallen leaders, museum specialists from the American History Museum uncover some of the extraordinary mementos of presidential death that Americans have saved over the centuries.
For decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Russia established a mostly amicable relationship in order to avoid further conflict. Today, this relationship is beset by challenges. Explore the current tensions between the two key world powers, and where the relationship may be headed in this 3-session course. This session focuses on the post-Soviet era.
He was passionate about his beliefs, he treated his peers with respect, and they dubbed him "The Happy Warrior" for his tireless advocacy of liberal causes. Learn about the long career of Hubert Humphrey, one of the great post-war leaders who played a central role in some of the country's most divisive issues.
Join historian and author Garrett Peck on a walk though wartime Washington. Its stops include Pershing Park, the First and Second Division monuments, the D.C. War Memorial, the spot where sheep grazed on the Ellipse, and the site where thousands of women volunteered for the American Red Cross.
Between the world wars, no sport was more popular, or more dangerous, than airplane racing. Drawing on his new book, Fly Girls: How Five Daring Women Defied All Odds and Made Aviation History, Keith O’Brien recounts how a cadre of those women banded together to break the original glass ceiling: the entrenched prejudice that conspired to keep them out of the sky.
Though it’s among the signatures on the Declaration of Independence, Benjamin Rush’s name is one that doesn’t immediately come to mind as one of the most influential patriots of the Revolutionary era. Drawing from his new biography, Stephen Fried resurrects and celebrates the most significant Founding Father we’ve never heard of.
For decades following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the U.S. and Russia established a mostly amicable relationship in order to avoid further conflict. Today, this relationship is beset by challenges. Explore the current tensions between the two key world powers, and where the relationship may be headed in this 3-session course. This session focuses on Russian propaganda.
Join Rachel Cooper and Renee Sklarew, authors of 60 Hikes Within 60 Miles: Washington, D.C., as they lead a fall excursion to the Lorton, Virginia, area to explore a trio of distinctive sites in Fairfax County: Mason Neck State Park, American statesman George Mason’s mansion Gunston Hall, and Lorton Workhouse Art Center.
Was Thomas Jefferson an 18th-century version of a celebrity who cannily uses signature looks to shape his public image? Historian Gaye Wilson explores how the Jefferson “brand” was cultivated in clothing, portraits, and even architecture—and how it reflected his politics.
With a nation of highly polarized voters heading to the polls on November 6, the 2018 midterms will help clarify what’s important to a restless electorate. Two days after the ballots are cast, White House and political analyst Ken Walsh brings together four leading political analysts to interpret what the victories and losses mean for the country.
Led by rail historian Joe Nevin, climb through the Allegheny Mountains on a historic restored diesel locomotive as you enjoy a 30-mile round-trip excursion between Cumberland and Frostburg on the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad.
Historian Richard Bell examines this musical phenomenon to reveal what its success tells us about the marriage of history and show business. He investigates what the show gets right—and wrong—about Alexander Hamilton, the American Revolution, and the birth of the United States, and why it all matters.
Literary history—and that of the nation’s capital—is written in the words of Walt Whitman, Henry Adams, Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, and many other authors who called the city home. Writer and local historian Kim Roberts offers a lively cultural overview of D.C. through a literary lens.
Join Garrett Peck, author of Capital Beer: A Heady History of Brewing in Washington, D.C, on a walk through Old Town’s alleyways, archaeological finds, ice wells, warehouses, and waterfront as you explore the beverage’s local heritage and its renaissance.
The Americans and the Holocaust exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum raises many questions about the response of the international community and the U.S. to the rise of Nazism. Two experts from the museum explore the exhibition’s issues, and participants are invited to experience the exhibition after-hours.
Many of the scientific, medical, and technological innovations of the past two centuries have had their roots in military medicine. Visits to the National Museum of Health and Medicine and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine offer insights into that history, as well as military medicine’s links to modern healthcare.
Drawing on his new book, The Great War in America: World War I and Its Aftermath Garrett Peck chronicles the American experience during the war and connects it to the changes that rocked the country in its wake—including women’s suffrage, Prohibition, the Red Scare, and race riots.
Three of the splendid “Charms” of Fairmount Park open their doors for a holiday-season guided tour, offering an intimate look at the lives of well-to-do Philadelphians of the Revolutionary period and the evolution of domestic architecture and interiors as the Federal era began. Bill Keene leads this tour.
Why would a group of young men from one of England’s elite universities betray their country for Russia? Using recently declassified British, American, and Soviet intelligence records, Historian and author Calder Walton examines the lives, motivations, damage, and legacy of the notorious Cold War operatives that came to be known as the Cambridge Five.
The Smithsonian often uses politics and religion to tell stories of American life and history. Curator Lisa Kathleen Graddy of the American History Museum and Brad Braxton of the African American History and Culture Museum reveal how their work shapes those narratives.
From James Madison and the War of 1812 to recent times, a procession of American presidents took the nation into conflict and mobilized the country for victory. Author and presidential historian Michael Beschloss examines the chief executives who made the most difficult decisions that face any leader, and how the evolution of presidential powers in regard to war have shaped those actions.
Spend an afternoon with professional decorator and author Coleen Christian Burke as she covers the traditions of White House holiday decorating. She brings you behind the scenes as the seasonal transformation takes place, and shares how modern first ladies from Jacqueline Kennedy to Melania Trump have lent their distinctive styles and creativity to guiding the annual themes.
Paige Williams, a staff writer at the New Yorker, delves into the sometimes-perilous world of the illicit international fossil trade as she tells the story of an American dealer’s dangerous obsession with a rare dinosaur skeleton.
