Winter Lecture Series

Great Moments in Polar Exploration – Antarctica

with Professor Dan Breen

A 5-PART SERIES: Sundays: January 22nd, 29th, February 5th, 12th, 26th from 2-4 pm in the 1st floor meeting room. This a hybrid (live and virtual) program – see links below.

Part 1: JANUARY 22 at 2:00-4:00 pm:

Watch on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/lTNTRh1grBU
The first known human encounters with Antarctica did not happen until the late eighteenth century, but by the beginning of the twentieth, the continent had become to capture the imaginations of people around the world. That story has a lot to do with an Englishman, a Russian and in particular, with a seal hunter from Connecticut.

Part ll: JANUARY 29 at 2:00-4:00 pm:

Watch on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/2IsxOkFSEpQ

In this session we will meet the two men who more than any others, would be forever associated with the quest for the South Pole: Robert Falcon Scott, and Ernest Shackleton. The two could hardly have been more different–but in 1902, the two would embark together upon one of the great epic marches of the history of polar exploration. 

Part III: FEBRUARY 5: 
WITH SHACKLETON ON THE NIMROD

Watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5HQ9re_FkgI

In what was called ‘the Great Southern Journey,’ Shackleton and a small group of companions nearly reach the Pole in 1908 becoming the first humans to travel on the Polar Plateau.

Part IV: FEBRUARY 12:

THE RACE TO THE POLE (PART ONE)

Watch on our YouTube channel: https://youtu.be/G-0vnGAXAko

In 1910, Captain R. F. Scott sets off again on an attempt to reach the South Pole. To everyone’s surprise, however, Scott would have a competitor in the formidable form of Roald Amundsen, already famous as the first person to navigate the Northwest Passage.

Part V: FEBRUARY 26
THE RACE TO THE POLE (PART TWO)

Watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HVP3d55RoFc
While Scott’s attempt at the Pole ended with the most storied tragedy in the history of polar exploration, Amundsen would triumph magnificently, only to find his achievement widely vilified on his return to Europe.

This a hybrid (live and virtual) program.

Dr. Daniel Breen is a professor of Legal Studies at Brandeis University. In the past fifteen years,   Dr. Breen has a BA from the University of Wisconsin,  a JD from the University of Georgia and a PhD in History from Boston College. He has taught at Framingham State University and Newbury College. 
Winter Lecture Series Programs:  (All with Professor Daniel Breen)
2006 World War I
2007 The Great Depression
2008 World War 2 Part 1
2009 World War 2 Part 2
2010 The Civil War Part 1
2011 The Civil War Part 2
2012 Prohibition
2013 Landmark Supreme Court Decisions
2014 Modern Chinese History
2015 Great Moments in Science: A Tale of Six Countries
2016 The Roosevelts:  An Intimate History
2017 Little Known Presidential Elections in American History
2018 Getting to the Moon: American Space Exploration 1945-1969
2019 The Hundred Years War: A Century of Native American Resistance 1790-1890
2020 History of the U.S. in Six Songs
2021 Five Real Life Murder Cases
2022 Great Moments in Polar Exploration – Arctic
 

 Thanks to the Friends of the Bedford Free Public Library for sponsoring this program. Free and open to the public.

 
Author: rcallaghan
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