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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 05-20-2024 to 05-20-2024Day(s) of the week: MondayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:15 PMInstructor: Adam Brookes, Journalist and Foreign CorrespondentTerm: 2024-2Location: Online ClassThis class is a talk with slides presenting Adam Brookes’s work of narrative non-fiction FRAGILE CARGO: The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China’s Forbidden City. FRAGILE CARGO tells the true story – for the first time in English – of the brave curators and art historians who saved the imperial art collections of China from devastation... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 05-29-2024 to 05-29-2024Day(s) of the week: WednesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: John McCarthy, Montgomery County State's AttorneyTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and Online(Please note: The date of this class has been changed from May 8 to May 29.) This presentation will discuss the evolution of American privacy laws, from its origins in Constitutional amendments through to recent case law. There will be a particular focus on media privacy and reproductive privacy rights. The cases discussed will be New York Times Co. v.... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 05-29-2024 to 05-29-2024Day(s) of the week: WednesdayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:00 PMInstructor: Charlotte Gray, AuthorTerm: 2024-2Location: Online ClassIn 1854, Jennie Jerome (future mother of Winston Churchill) and Sara Delano (future mother of Franklin Delano Roosevelt) were born. They grew up with incredible privilege but refused to settle into predictable, sheltered lives. They lived life on their own terms, but both enabled their sons to reach the epicentre of political power on two continents.... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-03-2024 to 06-03-2024Day(s) of the week: MondayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:30 PMInstructor: Denver Brunsman, Associate Chair, Department of History, George Washington UniversityTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineAs we head into the fall election, Denver Brunsman of George Washington University will discuss the history of the Electoral College. Agreed to in the last days of the Constitutional Convention, the Electoral College persists to this day as a relic of 18th-century political thought and compromise. Why did the framers of the Constitution create such a... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-04-2024 to 06-04-2024Day(s) of the week: TuesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: Richard Bell, Professor of History, University of MarylandTerm: 2024-2Location: Online ClassSeen through American eyes, the Revolution marks a triumphant moment. Through British eyes, it looked quite different. To the King, the war for independence was an affront, a temper tantrum by an ungrateful colonial rabble. But, as historian Richard Bell explains, beyond the palace and Parliament, British responses to the war were anything but monolithic.... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-05-2024 to 06-05-2024Day(s) of the week: WednesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: John McCarthy, Montgomery County State's AttorneyTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineThe Supreme Court has not always made the right decision. This presentation will be a careful analysis of what history has told us are four of the worst cases ever decided by the Supreme Court. The cases discussed will include Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), Dred Scott v. Sandford (1857), Korematsu v. United States (1944), and Buck v. Bell... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-13-2024 to 06-13-2024Day(s) of the week: ThursdayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:00 PMInstructor: Dorothy Trench Bonett, WriterTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineSince Westerners first came into contact with China, there has been an interest in Chinese women, seen as so alien. In recent years, feminism has focused on this ancient culture and novels like Lady Tan’s, "Circle of Women" have explored the lives of those who ‘transcended’ what is seen as millennia of oppression. But how accurate are they? Dorothy... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-17-2024 to 06-17-2024Day(s) of the week: MondayTime: 10:30 AM → 11:30 AMInstructor: Julianne Mangin, Writer and HistorianTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineFiddler Will Adams had deep roots in the African American communities of Montgomery County from Sandy Spring to Norbeck to Ken-Gar. In 1953, he was recorded by folklorist Mike Seeger (half-brother of Pete Seeger) who grew up in Chevy Chase. Adams’ family history offers a glimpse of African American life in Montgomery County from the final years of slavery... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-20-2024 to 06-20-2024Day(s) of the week: ThursdayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:00 PMInstructor: Dorothy Trench Bonett, WriterTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineDid women have a Renaissance? The historical answer is yes. But what does this mean? In her talk, Dorothy Trench Bonett will discuss the effects of humanism on women’s education in 15th and 16th century Europe and introduce women like Sophonisba Anguissola, Marguerite de Navarre and Louise Labe who painted, sculpted and wrote poetry and plays in this... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-25-2024 to 06-25-2024Day(s) of the week: TuesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: David B Lindauer, Lt. Colonel (Ret.), US Army Signal CorpsTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineRarely in modern military history has any unit identified so strongly with its commander as did Patton’s Third Army in the final campaigns of World War II. We will take a look at the Third Army, its commander, and its notable campaigns from the breakout from Normandy until it crossed Germany and entered Czechoslovakia. Along the way, we’ll discuss some... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 06-25-2024 to 06-25-2024Day(s) of the week: TuesdayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:30 PMInstructor: Barbara Blumberg Ressin, CCBCTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineFashion has been in existence in America since the first Pilgrim women arrived in the 1600s. What determined fashion is as varied as the fashions themselves. Mores, religion, government, politics, laws, wars, economics, and practicality all played significant roles in deciding what we women should wear. By way of a PowerPoint that includes videos of... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 07-02-2024 to 07-02-2024Day(s) of the week: TuesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: Richard Bell, Professor of History, University of MarylandTerm: 2024-2Location: Online ClassWhen Tom Paine, the author of Common Sense, died in June 1809 only a dozen people came to his funeral. This program examines Paine’s meteoric rise to celebrity status during the American Revolution and his equally dramatic fall from grace in the decades afterwards. Once lionized as our most relatable and revolutionary founding father, Tom Paine died a... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 07-10-2024 to 07-10-2024Day(s) of the week: WednesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: John McCarthy, Montgomery County State's AttorneyTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineThe Supreme Court has set the parameters for American criminal procedure since the ratification of the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendments. For better or for worse, the decisions dictate the entirety of the process of the criminal justice system. This presentation will focus on four of the most important Supreme Court cases in criminal procedure, including... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 07-15-2024 to 07-15-2024Day(s) of the week: MondayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:00 PMInstructor: Patricia Maclay, Board Member, The American Friends of LafayetteTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and OnlineIn August 1824, the Marquis de Lafayette, a Frenchman and the last surviving major general of the American Revolution, triumphantly returned to the country he loved. Over the next year, Lafayette covered over 6000 miles by carriage, stagecoach, canal barge, and steamboat, traveling to all 24 exiting states and “Washington City.” This presentation will... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 07-24-2024 to 07-24-2024Day(s) of the week: WednesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 11:45 AMInstructor: Jenna Febrizio, PhD, Curator and Director of Education, Heurich House MuseumTerm: 2024-2Location: Hybrid - At Oasis and Online Located in Dupont Circle, the Heurich House Museum explores the American Experience through the legacy of German immigrant Christian Heurich and his Washington, DC Brewery and creates an equitable path to success for local small-scale businesses. The Heurich family lived in the Victorian-era mansion from 1894 to 1956. The house included many... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 07-30-2024 to 07-30-2024Day(s) of the week: TuesdayTime: 10:30 AM → 12:00 PMInstructor: Richard Bell, Professor of History, University of MarylandTerm: 2024-2Location: Online ClassThe Transatlantic Slave Trade was the largest forced migration in human history. In all, more than 12 million African men, women, and children were kidnapped, enslaved and made to board European ships destined for the New World. However, this talk turns this history inside out, examining the huge varieties of African resistance to this 400-year-long... read more
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Sessions: 1Class Date(s): 08-13-2024 to 08-13-2024Day(s) of the week: TuesdayTime: 1:00 PM → 2:00 PMInstructor: Briana Thomas, Historian, Journalist and Tour GuideTerm: 2024-2Location: Online ClassBefore chain coffeeshops and luxury high-rises, before desegregation and the 1968 riots, Washington’s Greater U Street was known as Black... read more