In 1931, Major Frederick Russell Burnham commissioned a survey near Bull Flat Creek in Humboldt County, a spot where Save the Redwoods League founder Madison Grant believed the world's tallest tree might be found. When the tree, a 364-foot redwood, was indeed found, the California State Park Commission dedicated the tree to the founders of the Save the Redwoods League on September 13, 1931: "As a living monument symbolizing eternal life and duration of our gratitude." Please view this short, silent video of archival footing, memorializing the struggle to save the redwoods HERE.

94-year-old Sir David Attenborough has probably seen more of wild nature across the planet Earth than anyone living, and he is deeply concerned for our common home. “The science is clear, and has been communicated for the past 30 years, and still we’re not moving in the right direction.” That is the stark message put forward in Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet, the latest project by David Attenborough. This documentary offers simple solutions we can put in place to help protect Earth’s life support systems. The film features Professor Johan Rockström, who volunteers his team to advise Netflix on its sustainability strategy. Watch it HERE on Netflix.

Please join for an encore presentation of our popular virtual tour through Monticello's second and third floors. From the iconic Dome Room to the unexpected cat doors, we'll share a glimpse into the upstairs world at Monticello. Staff will discuss the lives of the enslaved and free people who lived and labored in the bedrooms, hallways, and out-of-the-way corners most visitors never get to see HERE.

Yorktown, Virginia was the location for the American and French army's most significant victory of the Revolution on October 19th, 1781. This victory, led by General George Washington, would set the United States on the path to independence. Join General Washington and General Lafayette as they discuss the campaign of 1781 and the siege of Yorktown HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Sophocles’ psychological drama, “Electra.” Electra is one of the most important mythological figures in drama, appearing as a chief protagonist in tragedies from Aeschylus to Eugene O'Neill. Set in the city of Argos a few years after the Trojan War, Sophocles’ play tells the story of a bitter familial struggle for revenge and justice. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest Robert Groves. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this live and archived video HERE.

The Dig is a poetic dramatization of the 1939 archeological excavations in Suffolk that would yield the greatest treasure ever discovered in Great Britain, and "one of the most important archaeological discoveries of all time.” It tells the story of Mrs. Edith Pretty, who purchased land at Sutton Hoo ("Southern Farmstead") with her husband a decade earlier in order to excavate a series of curious mounds in the low-lying landscape. After her husband's death, Mrs. Pretty engages a self-taught, local amateur excavator, Mr. Basil Brown, to explore the mounds. At the threshold of the Second World War, Pretty's vision and Brown's experience open to them a glimpse of eternity. Watch it HERE on Netflix.

Roses. The ancient Romans propagated them, Shakespeare wrote about them, and Thomas Jefferson had numerous varieties planted at Monticello. Please join us for our premiere livestream featuring Monticello’s Curator of Plants, Peggy Cornett. Ms. Cornett will discuss Thomas Jefferson’s love of roses, Monticello’s mountaintop gardens, and the beautiful rose garden flourishing today at the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Aeschylus’ drama, Seven Against Thebes. When Oedipus, King of Thebes, realizes he has married his own mother, he blinds himself and curses his sons to divide their kingdom inheritance by the sword. The two sons, Eteocles and Polynices, in order to avoid bloodshed, agree to rule Thebes in alternate years. After the first year, Eteocles refuses to step down, leading Polynices to raise an army to take Thebes by force. Thus the tragedy begins. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest Naomi Weiss. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this live and archived video HERE.

Please join in the discussion about education with panelists Nicole Brown, a character interpreter portraying Bray School teacher Ann Wager for Colonial Williamsburg, and MA student in American Studies at William & Mary, Deborah Canty-Downs, a teacher at Katherine Johnson Elementary School, and educator with The Bob and Marion Wilson Teacher Institute of Colonial Williamsburg, and Dr. Julie Richter, Director of the National Institute of American History & Democracy and Lecturer at William and Mary’s Harrison Ruffin Tyler Department of History. Please RSVP here to watch live: https://fb.me/e/HdgOnmUy

The first full-length documentary film ever made about legendary conservation thinker Aldo Leopold, Green Fire explores Leopold’s extraordinary career and his enduring influence – tracing how he shaped the modern conservation movement and continues to inspire projects all over the country that connect people and the land HERE.

In her ambitious one-volume historical survey, These Truths: A History of the United States, award-winning historian and New Yorker writer, Jill Lepore offers a magisterial account of the origins and rise of a divided nation, an urgently needed reckoning with the beauty and tragedy of American history. In this wide-ranging conversation, she will discuss the nuanced issues related to questions of conquest and slavery in our nation’s founding as well as the lessons she has gleaned in researching her newest book, If Then: How the Simulmatics Corporation Invented the Future concerning the origins of predictive analytics and behavioral data science in the Cold War era. Please register and join the conversation HERE.

Did you ever wonder what mannequins wear under those historic garments? Have you thought about the ways fragile antique clothes are cared for in a museum setting? Do you know the difference between a conservator and a curator? Join Colonial Williamsburg staff Gretchen Guidess, Conservator of Textiles, Jacquelyn Peterson-Grace, Assistant Conservator of Textiles and Neal Hurst, Associate Curator of Costume and Textiles, for a live discussion on these topics HERE.

Beatrix Farrand (1872 – 1959) was America’s first female landscape landscape architect. Her pioneering career included commissions to design over 100 gardens for private residences, country estates, public parks, botanic gardens, college campuses, and the White House. They include the famous Dumbarton Oaks in Washington, D.C., the Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Garden on Mount Desert, Maine, the restored Farm House Garden in Bar Harbor, the Peggy Rockefeller Rose Garden at the New York Botanical Garden, and significant portions of the campuses of Princeton and Yale. This beautiful new film documents the brilliant work of a brave and pathbreaking American artist. Watch it on Amazon Prime HERE.

Join us for a special livestream with Monticello’s Associate Curator of Decorative Arts, Diane Ehrenpreis. Ms. Ehrenpreis will introduce and offer a behind-the-scenes look at our newest book, “Thomas Jefferson at Monticello: Architecture, Landscape, Collections, Books, Food, Wine.” This visually stunning volume explores Monticello, both house and plantation, and features essays on Jefferson’s cultural contributions by acclaimed cultural and arts luminaries HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Euripides’ drama, “Phoenician Women.” The title refers to the Greek chorus, which is composed of Phoenician women on their way to Delphi who are trapped in Thebes by the war. Patriotism is a significant theme in the story, as Polynices talks a great deal about his love for the city of Thebes but has brought an army to destroy it; Creon is also forced to make a choice between saving the city and saving the life of his son. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest Anna Lamari. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this video HERE.

Join the CW historic carpenters as they use period tools and techniques to produce the materials needed to construct a drying shed for the new brickyard location HERE.

Join us for this evening plenary session from our five-year conference series hosted by The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, Omohundro Institute of Early American History & Culture, And William & Mary. We will explore how we interpret the archaeological and historical evidence of the Indigenous peoples of early America, and what approaches we take to provide them a voice. Our distinguished panelists include Fallon Burner, Sean Devlin, Russell Reed, Dave Givens, and Darius Coombs.

Significant moments in history are often fraught with difficulty. What is a celebration for some, may evoke painful remembrance for others. Please join panelists Christy Coleman, Executive Director, Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation, Ed Ayers, Tucker-Boatwright Professor of the Humanities, University of Richmond, and Tommy Norment, Minority Leader of the Senate of Virginia, as they delve into a discussion, moderated by Barbara Hamm-Lee, host of WHRO's Another View. They will examine the legacy of the past, and how the ways used to commemorate our history have been revolutionized by a more aware and inclusive approach, one that examines the past and present, and looks toward the future HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with Aeschylus’ drama, “Libation Bearers.” In In this second play of Aeschylus' Oresteia trilogy, which takes place many years after the murder of King Agamemnon, his son Orestes returns to Argos with his cousin Pylades to exact vengeance on Queen Clytemnestra, as an order from Apollo. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guests Anna Uhlig and Oliver Taplin. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this archived video HERE.

Terry Tempest Williams is the author of numerous books, including the environmental literature classic, Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place. Her most recent book is The Hour of Land: A Personal Topography of America’s National Parks, which was published in June 2016 to coincide with and honor the centennial of the National Park Service. Her writing has also appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, Orion Magazine, and numerous anthologies worldwide as a crucial voice for ecological consciousness and social change. Watch the Recorded Event Here.

This beautiful film features moving wilderness footage from around the world, accompanied by the haunting music of the early-modern French master, Erik Satie. The melodies of these atmospheric pieces use deliberate, mild dissonances against the harmony to produce a piquant, melancholy effect. The compositions are accompanied by the composer’s performance notes to render each piece "painfully" (douloureux), "sadly" (triste), or "gravely" (grave), communicating an affect of pathos and nostalgia for lost origins. The three Gymnopédies and six Gnossiennes are presently available online HERE.

The documentary ATHOS unveils one of Europe’s last remaining secrets: more than 2.000 monks live on the Holy Mountain Athos in Greece, constituting an independent republic devoted entirely to life-as-prayer. For the first time, a film team has gained access to this monastic republic, where they accompanied several monks in their daily struggle for divinity: their everyday lives in the secluded world are composed of praying, singing and working, but also of cooking and celebrating. The monks take the audience with them on their journey to divinity and give insight into their world of prayer and thought HERE.

“Distinctions between Virginians, Pennsylvanians, New Yorkers, and New Englanders, are no more. I am not a Virginian, but an American.” Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an American attorney, planter, statesman, orator, and Founding Father best known for his declaration to the Second Virginia Convention in 1775, "Give me liberty, or give me death!" After the revolution in which he played so important a role, Henry served two terms as the post-colonial Governor of Virginia. Please join the brilliant Richard Schumann of Colonial Williamsburg as he brings the great orator to life HERE.

Pulitzer Prize-winning author and New York Times bestseller Dr. Gordon S. Wood joins the Museum of the American Revolution for a conversation and Q&A on his new book, Power and Liberty: Constitutionalism in the American Revolution, with Museum Chief Historian and Curator Dr. Philip C. Mead. Wood's latest book distills a lifetime of work on constitutional innovations during the Revolutionary era. Exploring how Americans have experienced the nature of power, liberty, representation, rights, and other issues, Wood presents debates over the foundational legal and political documents of the United States with timely insights on the Constitution HERE.

Trade between various American Indian groups and colonists was an important component of cultural, economic, and political life in colonial Virginia. What kinds of goods were being exchanged? Where and how were they made? How was business conducted among such a diverse group of people with differing aims and agendas? Join our American Indian Interpreters and Historic Trades staff as they seek to answer these questions and others HERE.

Please join this week’s Online Reading of Greek Tragedy with the concluding play in Aeschylus’ powerful Oresteia trilogy, “Eumenides.” In accordance with the advice of the god Apollo, Orestes has killed his mother Clytemnestra to avenge the death of his father Agamemnon at her hands, then finds himself tormented by the Furies for the blood guilt stemming from his matricide. Hosted by Joel Christensen, with special guest, Ellen McLaughlin, Andrew Simpson, and Oliver Taplin. Presented by the Harvard Center for Hellenic Studies, the Kosmos Society, and the Out of Chaos Theatre. Stream this video here.

Harvard Book Store's virtual event series welcomes ROBERT GROSS—the award-winning, bestselling author of The Minutemen and Their World—for a discussion of his latest book, The Transcendentalists and Their World. He will be joined in conversation by MEGAN MARSHALL, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Margaret Fuller: A New American Life HERE.