CRI History: Other   

For more than 200,000 years, Homo sapiens have been moving around the planet, sometimes drawn, sometimes driven by a host of natural and man-made forces: from drought to floods, to crop failure, to war, to the quest for survival or the hope of a better future. We will examine the roots and the routes of human migration from our beginnings in Africa and trace our oft-branching journey into the 21st Century. Push and pull factors, and the vast implications of large numbers of our fellow and sister humans on the move, will allow us to understand and appreciate more fully events in the headlines as well as the mosaic of people who have settled in the Pacific Northwest. In the second session, we’ll explore the specific impacts of migration on the United States. Bring your own migration stories and all-over-the-map questions and comments!

This class focuses on spies who distinguished themselves from other spies, including the most dangerous spy; the most feared; the most beautiful; the most famous; the most damaging; the world’s greatest spy; the spy who saved the world; and the spy who was never caught. We will examine their biographical profiles, motivation, and the impact of their spying, as well as take a brief look at the techniques of their espionage tradecraft. 

The general perception about the survival of Titanic passengers is that women and children survived at a higher rate than men and that passengers in the upper classes survived at a higher rate than those in the lower classes. Recent research shows that this perception is not true in general. New sophisticated statistical methods are applied to the Titanic passenger data, and the results show that the aforementioned comparisons are an oversimplification of the truth. Note that no prior statistical knowledge is necessary for following this talk. While some statistical terminology and principles that are appropriate for a lay audience will be presented, the talk will focus on the social atmosphere of the time and the end results of the statistical analyses, not on the actual statistical analysis of the data.