Montgomery C. Meigs was one of the most influential yet underrated figures of 19th-century America, observes Carolyn Muraskin, founder of DC Design Tours. Renowned for energy, precision, and prickly determination, his legacy is stamped across the nation’s capital. As Quartermaster General of the Union Army, he supplied and equipped more than two million troops. He proposed transforming the Lee family estate at Arlington into a burial ground. Meigs oversaw the Capitol’s cast-iron dome, Washington’s aqueduct, and the Pension Office, later choosing his epitaph: “Soldier, Engineer, Architect, Scientist, Patriot.”
Create your own story as you learn to upcycle book pages as surfaces for drawing, painting, and collage using gelatin plate prints, textures, photo transfers, drawing, painting, and text redaction.
From ancient gods and goddesses to timeless heroic narratives, classical myths have long shaped artistic expression—but how do these age-old stories resonate in modern and postmodern art? Art historian Jennie Hirsh explores the surprisingly vital and often overlooked role of classical mythology in contemporary art, showing how artists use these stories not just to illustrate, but to engage with questions of identity, power, gender, and society. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1/2 credit)
After its disappointing air combat performance over Vietnam, the U.S. set out to improve its training of fighter pilots. Among the initiatives was a top-secret project launched in the late 1970s that pitted clandestinely obtained Soviet MiGs flown by a cadre of highly experienced pilots—known as Red Eagles—against fighter pilots of the Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps. Retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rob Zettel, a Red Eagles veteran, shares an insider’s view of the project.
This is a fun, relaxing class that presents facts and trivia about orchids, discusses famous orchids, and explains how 120 million years of evolution have created the family of flowering plants that we know as Orchidaceae.
The Bauhaus, founded in 1919 in Weimar, Germany, by the young architect Walter Gropius, was part Modernist school of art and design and part dream factory. Students were taught in workshops led by both craftsmen and artists and the curriculum included everything from fine art, typography, and graphic design to interior design and architecture. In a 4-part series, art historian Joseph Paul Cassar explores the importance and enduring influence of the Bauhaus. (World Art History Certificate elective, 1 credit)
On July 29, 1878, a total solar eclipse swept the American West, inspiring a race to the Rockies to unlock scientific mysteries. Author and science journalist David Baron shares the story of three eclipse chasers—asteroid hunter James Craig Watson, trailblazing astronomer Maria Mitchell, and young Thomas Edison—to illustrate this saga of ambition, discovery, and a nation’s quest for scientific glory during the Gilded Age.
Ages 7 to 11. Learn about the systems which built and shape our Mother Earth from her molten beginnings to her many ecosystems of today!
