This event. Tonight we are very pleased to welcome to the smithsonian tony, australian born perpetual explorer, travel, writer and author of six books including napoleons privates 21 years of history unzipped, the centers grand tour, a journey through the underbelly of europe, and most recently the improbable revolution that changed world history. As a College Student tony regularly disappeared to hitchhike through the outback and travel through rural india where he briefly enjoyed an inglorious career as a film extra. Based in the east village of manhattan he makes it a point to continue exploring in iceland, beijing, tasmania to name a few. Tonys travel stories have been published in magazines like the New York Times and Smithsonian Magazine and have been translated into a dozen languages having been selected 7 times for the best American Travel writing series. Hes also a regular television guest on the History Channel where he has spoken about everything from the crusades to the bir
Politics and music in the first half of the 20th century. He describes how music can be a tool of outreach and xenophobia, depending on the Political Climate of the era. Good afternoon. Hello, everyone. Im amanda shondra. Its my pleasure to welcome you here today for Classical Music and American Foreign relations, a complicated duet. Thank you to our members. Its your support that keeps us going. Thank you so much. Were going deep into the december before the holidays. Its a pleasure to have you. If you are not yet a member, if you are curious about our membership levels or programs, talk to me or any of our volunteers just outside the doors. You can pick up a copy of the magazine if you dont have one already. Find us online at smithsonianassociates. Org. Please take a moment to silence any mobile devices or your cellstonecel cellphones. Good to doublecheck because we have cspan in the house. Your ring tone will be saved. Thank you. Just an additional note. Our exits we have one in the
History written by the i like to say to the winners go the history. Theyre the ones telling the story. All right . Unless theyre doing this in war. But this is the way it usually works. So you usually get their perspective. All right. Were going to see that a lot in this war where youve got a lot of patriots, American Revolution stuff. Had you read the spring chapter to get the british perspective. Their version is a little different. What other challenges do you run into . Kate . Uncertainty who won what battle and all that stuff. You do run into some uncertainties. Again, lots of different perspectives here. You may have some bias. Generals like to make themselves look good. Wars are nice for promotion. So, yeah. Got to be really careful about your sources. As historians you know not to take everything at face value and military guys, generals, officers doesnt mean theyre always right. Anything else . Other things . Okay. Also you have issues with, like, how, trying to reconstruct a
When a fellow learns to fly with the army air corps, he does not learn it all in a day, week or month. The gateway is a big schooling ground in san antonio texas, the primary training point for airline pilots. We are here at Randolph Air Force base, where airpower begins. Iconicthe great buildings in air force history. From here, you can see the entirety of the air force base, the circular design. It is a beautiful place. It is a functional base. It was built in time to help the air force build their numbers so they would have a winning air force by 1942, and they build it to be the showplace of the air force and it became known as west point of the air, with engineers and artillery specialists in the army, this is where you learned the craft of flying and supporting flying operations. So it started here and many have come back here. A lot of people mention the base as being important to san antonio. It is. Why is it important . It has always been a generator for technology and innovat
Lives presentation. I would like first to find the program sponsor, the law firm, for their generous support, not this year but for several years now. It is this kind of Corporate Support along with matt from so many of you as individuals that enables the great lives series to thrive. So i would like to ask our good friends from the law firm stand so we can acknowledge them. [applause] also, a special group tonight that i would like to knowledge, that is the simpson circle, a group composed of former Mary Washington members. They are here tonight and we would like to have them stand so we can acknowledge them. In introducing tonight speaker, dr. Joanne freeman, i would like to mention at the outset that one of her most commendable qualifications is that she received her phd from the university. Thats right, uva. [laughter] in any case, not long after receiving that degree, she was recognized already as one of the nations top young historians. She has subsequently has achieved widesprea