The assassination of Abraham Lincoln brought to a close the bloodiest war in American history. But even now, more than 150 years later, it is still the subject of endless speculation and controversy. Recent publications have “exposed” a “major government conspiracy to allow the assassination and cover it up,” but this is one time where the truth is just as compelling. John Wilkes Booth worked almost totally alone in his zeal to kill Lincoln. The men who planned and executed his insane plot were not a well-organized, highly trained group of patriots backed by a deposed government, but a tiny band of malcontents, drunks and feeble sycophants. With archival photos and maps, Mark Carlson will tell you how and why Booth really killed Abraham Lincoln.

There are many who think that the meaning of life is to be happy. But there is some research that suggests not only that this is not true, but that in the long run, we desire meaning over happiness. We will examine what happiness means and whether a meaningful life is identical to a happy life or not.

Europe’s Enlightenment is critiqued by the emerging Romantic era (early 1800’s), producing a change from Neoclassical art to an entirely new style of art which focuses on emotions in both the color use and themes. Called “bad” and even “degenerate” art in its day, Romantic art led to the later Impressionist, Expressionist, and modern art of the future.

Part 1 – Astrophysics The Story of the Earth begins with the “Big Bang” 13.7 billion years ago.  From a volume less than one atom, all the matter in the universe was created.  Billions of stars in billions of galaxies came into existence in milliseconds.  Then in several cycles of birth to death of individual stars; elements, molecules, minerals, and rocks became part of our universe.  From the detritus of a supernova, the exploding death of a star, our own solar system and our planet came in to existence 4.5 billion years ago.   Learn how this story of astrophysics set the stage for the story of our planet, Earth. Part II — The Eons of Earth Most of the historical geology that earth science majors study in college covers only the last half billion years of Earth’s history.    This lecture will review the origins of the Earth and its subsequent development to our present time.  New technology and recent research have uncovered information that was unavailable to earth scientists in the past.  The birth of the Earth (and the Moon) and the four eons of Earth’s history will be discussed as Earth evolved from molten ball of magma to the present biosphere that we live on today.