There are many disasters mentioned in the Bible, from the Flood through the Tower of Babel to the destruction of Jerusalem and the 1st Temple and even after. In this class we will read some of the stories of disaster, will see if there is a common thread connecting all of them and what is also unique about each story.

Scenes of everyday life as a subject for painting has a long history in Western art, but was not so highly prized as a subject as mythology or religious subjects might be. That will slowly change. By the 19th century, genre painting was a well-established subject for artists to choose. In the young United States, having little taste for mythology or religion in art, Americans gravitated to genre subjects. This lecture is a survey of some of the painters who specialized in genre painting from its beginnings to the narrative art of Norman Rockwell.

The extraordinary partnership and epic friendship of Franklin Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, the two greatest wartime leaders of the 20th century, was played out over the course of nine meetings totaling 113 days over a six-year period, from September 1939 until FDR's death in April 1945. Their meetings took them around the world, no easy task for one of them who was paralyzed below the waist and confined to a wheelchair, or for the other whose age, health and work habits were of constant concern to his family, friends and doctors.

Lincoln is one of the most famous and iconic Americans in history, but he was vastly more complex than as he is presented in textbooks and in pop culture. This talk peels back the onion to reveal some fun sides of Lincoln - his humor, strength, love affairs, and friendships. In so doing, we'll laugh along with Honest Abe, better appreciate his political genius and contributions to the nation, and gain a better sense of the man.

Although conceived as a standard studio film, Casablanca was quickly recognized as a great romantic film, full of memorable characters and iconic lines, all supported by one of Hollywood’s greatest scores. This course will provide the backstory to the film, place it within the studio production system, and tell how it developed from an unfinished script when shooting began into the Best Picture of 1942. The course will include clips from the movie, discuss its actors and creators, and highlight reasons for its appeal.

Age strong and gracefully with changes you can implement into your everyday lifestyle to improve your balance and flexibility. We will learn several different routines of 10 minutes or less so you may enjoy choices throughout your week. Please wear comfortable clothes. This class is sponsored by CarePlus Home Health.

A decade ago, Bitcoin seemed like a crazy idea embraced by criminals and geeks. Now, there are hundreds of digital currencies and they are emerging as a new system of money exchange embraced by Wall Street and the world's central banks. Here's a primer on the pros and cons of cryptocurrency and how it will affect our future financial transactions.

Genetics is the science of heredity.  This science seeks to explain how the characteristics of living things are passed down from parent to offspring.  Humans have had a sense of genetics for millennia, first as hunter gatherers who knew how their food was propagated, then as Neolithic farmers who were able to selectively breed plants and animals and transform them into domestic entities.  Over the last one and half centuries, scientists have experimented and uncovered the determinants, mechanisms, and rules that cause genetics to work.  Using the tools of molecular biology, scientists have discovered the nature of genes, chromosomes, and DNA.  The purpose of this lecture is to understand how genetics works so that we can then apply it as a line of evidence in human origins and then more specifically to understanding our own individual backgrounds and how we pass traits to our descendants.  This lecture is about molecular biology.

In June 1870, two African American women kidnapped a toddler from in front of her New Orleans home. It was the height of Radical Reconstruction, and the old racial order had been turned upside down. Nervous white residents pointed to the Digby abduction as proof that no white child was safe. Louisiana's twenty-eight-year old Reconstruction governor, Henry Clay Warmoth, hoping to use the investigation of the kidnapping to validate his newly integrated police force, saw to it that the city's best Afro-Creole detective, John Baptiste Jourdain, was put on the case. Join University of Maryland History Professor Michael Ross as he recreates the investigation and trial that electrified the South at one of the most critical moments in the history of American race relations.

Professor Brunsman will discuss the film Mary Silliman’s War (1993). Based on actual events and the book The Way of Duty by Joy Day Buel and Richard Buel, Jr., the film depicts the efforts of Mary Silliman, a Connecticut farmwife, to get her husband released from British imprisonment during the Revolutionary War. Prior to the session, we will email you brief reading to do before the meeting. If possible, we also encourage you to watch Mary Silliman’s War before the session, but it is not required (the film is available for free on YouTube.