All Library locations will be closed Thursday, July 4, for Independence Day.
Signature Event
Tuesday, March 4, 2014
6:30pm
Due to a quirk in the calendar in the year 1849, one school of thought contends that Missourian David Rice Atchison deserves to be co...
Signature Event
Tuesday, February 25, 2014
6:30pm
In Person
John B. Judis, senior editor at The New Republic, examines the half-century of raging conflict between Jews and Arabs—...
Signature Event
Sunday, February 23, 2014
2:00pm
In Person
Join Bernard Norcott-Mahany as he recounts “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (the movie Mitty is not the real Mit...
Signature Event
Thursday, February 20, 2014
6:30pm
In Person
Americans are familiar with Civil War land battles—but much less so with the war at sea, from the development of ironclad warships and submarine...
Signature Event
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
6:30pm
In Person
Well before the famous 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City sparked the modern gay rights movement, Kansas City had its own active gay rights communi...
Signature Event
Sunday, February 16, 2014
2:00pm
Murderers. Mob bosses. Anarchists. Bootleggers. Thieves. They’ve all found a home at the U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth, Kansas, regarded for many y...
Signature Event
Sunday, January 19, 2014
2:00pm
Trumpeter Miles Davis once said: "You can tell the history of jazz in four words: Louis Armstrong. Charlie Parker."
Saxophone virtuoso Charlie "Bir...
Signature Event
Sunday, December 8, 2013
2:00pm
By 1940, Kansas City authorities had finally deposed “Boss Tom” Pendergast. In the spring of that year, teams of laborers from the Works Progress Admi...
Signature Event
Thursday, November 21, 2013
6:30pm
In Person
If George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are the saints in America’s civil religion, then the 29th president, Warren G. Harding, is o...
Signature Event
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
6:30pm
Even for those of us unfamiliar with history, the very name “Gettysburg” suggests a monumental clash of armies. But beyond the chaos of the battle its...