Lectures

Love history and want to learn more? Explore a variety of historical topics as authors, scholars, and local historians present the latest research and books, as well as new looks at old subjects. Lectures are open to the public and are free of charge unless otherwise stated.

Previous Lectures

  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    February 18, 2019 - 6:45am to 8:30am

    Join the East Tennessee Historical Society on Monday, February 18, for a special Brown Bag lecture and book signing as the family team of Dr. Robin Montgomery and daughter Joy Montgomery present a program about Sam Houston, his life, his interaction with the Cherokee, and his role as an image of unity throughout the early 19th century.

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  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    December 4, 2018 - 7:00am to December 5, 2018 - 6:45am

    Join the East Tennessee Historical Society on Tuesday, December 4, for a special Brown Bag lecture and book signing with Bill Landry as he discusses his newest book, When the West Was Tennessee. Landry takes readers on an adventure to discover the stories of the uncommon people who settled the Tennessee frontier, especially our own...

  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    November 4, 2018 - 9:30am to 10:30am

    Join us as television and movie actor Buck Taylor leads a fun and insightful conversation spanning a six-decade career, from the Golden Age of Television to the joy of making movies with notables such as Kurt Russell, Sam Elliott, Val Kilmer, Daniel Craig, Charlton Heston, and James Arness, a career that continues today with his soon-to-be-...

  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    November 3, 2018 - 6:00am to November 4, 2018 - 7:45am

    Join us on Saturday, November 3, for a special Veterans Day event featuring a partnership between ETHS, University of Tennessee History Department, the UT Center for the Study of War and Society, the Knoxville History Project, and Knox Count Schools. In advance of Veterans Day, four historians will discuss themes related to local history and...

  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    October 29, 2018 - 8:30am to 9:30am
    Many will recall the Cold War incident when CIA U-2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in the midst of the Cold War on May 1, 1960, while flying in Soviet airspace. Following his capture he was tried for espionage and then served nearly two years in a Soviet prison, until eventually exchanged for a senior KGB spy. Powers' son, Francis Gary...
  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    October 21, 2018 - 9:30am to 10:30am

    In a special lecture on October 21, Tom Boyd will discuss his new book, A Father's Son: The Development of an Entrepreneur, where he traces the experiences and influences of three generations of a family, from the hardscrabble days of the Great Depression to the present in the shaping of lives today. He especially explores the...

  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    October 17, 2018 - 7:00am to October 18, 2018 - 7:45am

    Well cared for and gleaming uniform white stones, Knoxville's National Cemetery still doesn't look ancient, but in fact it's one of the city's best-preserved relics of the Civil War. Its establishment was a priority of General Burnside when his army occupied Knoxville in 1863, and some graves are exactly where they were during the Confederate...

  • @ East Tennessee History Center
    October 11, 2018 - 1:00pm to October 12, 2018 - 2:45pm

    In 1982 Knoxville hosted the People’s Republic of China for its inaugural World’s Fair participation. Join Bo Roberts, the president and CEO of the World’s Fair and former UT vice president, Jack Neely, executive director of the Knoxville History Project, and Shellen Wu, UT associate professor of modern Chinese history, to commemorate the event...

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