In spite of being one of the “Seven Natural Wonders of the World,” humans have not always seen the Grand Canyon in a positive light. First seen by Europeans in the year 1540, the canyon was not comprehended easily. Throughout the entire exploratory era, lasting nearly 320 years, conquistadores, explorers, trappers and miners viewed the […]

This presentation will explore the US Army’s experiment with using camel from the Middle East to make it more mobile in the newly acquired Southwest.  In order to teach the soldiers about camels, a local from the Middle East, who was called Hi Jolly, was shipped over with the camels.  Even though Secretary of War […]

The Nazis in Germany committed the worst crimes against humanity in world history. The Holocaust will remain in our collective memory and reminds us constantly of the profound dangers that threaten modern society.  Democracy is a fragile construct. This presentation analyzes the causes and conditions for the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and traces […]

Although history tries to tell us ONLY men settled the Old West, that is shattered by Jana’s verbal tour through some of the amazing women who made all the difference. Any woman who came West in the 1800s had to be full of grit and spit to survive and Jana has collected the stories of […]

For a state that has been home to Geronimo, Wyatt Earp, César Chavez and Wonder Women, you would think Arizona earned some respect. Yet achieving statehood was a 50-year struggle, which finally ended on February 14, 1912. Jana borrows from both her work for True West Magazine and her work for Phoenix Magazine to put […]

  Invented in Ancient Greece, keyboards allow an individual to play all the voices or music, replacing an orchestra or a choir. Keyboards are such a powerfully disruptive technology that they changed the very language of music, and allowed for some of the most beautiful music in human history to be created. Found all over […]