Upcoming Events

March Lunch and Learn
The American Revolution and the Fate of the World: An electrifying global history of a not-so local war

When we think of the American Revolution, we often picture thirteen colonies squaring off against the British Crown in a spirited bid for independence. But this is only half the truth-and perhaps not even the most interesting half. In this riveting program, historian and author Richard Bell invites audiences to rediscover the Revolution as a world war that unleashed chaos, opportunity, and transformation across six continents. Participants will encounter a Native matriarch struggling to preserve a transatlantic military alliance, a Prussian officer reinventing himself in a foreign army, and a Boston schoolteacher shipwrecked thousands of miles from home. This is the American Revolution as you've never seen it before: complex, global, and astonishingly relevant to the modern world.

Richard Bell is Professor of History at the University of Maryland and author of the book Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped into Slavery and their Astonishing Odyssey Home which was a finalist for the George Washington Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize. He has held major research fellowships at Yale, Cambridge, and the Library of Congress and is the recipient of the National Endowment of the Humanities Public Scholar award and the Andrew Carnegie Fellowship. His new book, The American Revolution and the Fate of the World, was published by Penguin in November 2025. He maintains a list of upcoming events at Richard-Bell.com.

April Lunch and Learn
The Art and History of Drag

From William Dorsey Swann, the first self-described "Queen of Drag," to the legacy of John Waters and Divine, Maryland has been home to numerous figures and places significant to the history of drag. Join librarian Ash Baker to travel through time to learn how this gender-bending form of entertainment developed over the past 100+ years, from the 1920s Pansy Craze to the rise of RuPaul's Drag Race.

Ash Baker (they/them) is an Instructor & Research Specialist at Howard County Library System, where they enjoy connecting emerging adults and the LGBTQ+ community with public library services and materials. Outside their library work, they are a genderfluid drag performer, emcee, and event producer, organizing drag shows, makeup workshops, educational presentations, and more across the DMV. No matter in which capacity they work, they're proud to lead with trans joy and a message that the queer lives of the present are the queer history of the future.