In an era where conspiracy theories get national attention, disinformation spreads on social media, and some politicians trade on a mythologized version of America’s past, it’s fascinating to look back at a hoax that captured many imaginations at the turn of the 20th century: the Kensington Runestone. The Runestone was “discovered” in 1898 and purportedly told the story of Viking missionaries who traveled to Minnesota in 1362, more than a century before other Europeans reached this continent.

Since our regular programming has ended for the academic year, we'll be bringing you a weekly series of events from our extensive archives! Every Throwback Thursdays "event" will feature a talk from the past ten years of the IAS, paired with new commentary, trivia, and other interesting details! We hope you'll enjoy the opportunity to revisit some of the fascinating talks and panels we've presented over the past decade, and look forward to sharing our Fall 2019 IAS Thursdays schedule with you when it's ready!

This week in 1798, John Adams passed the Naturalization Act, the first of four laws collectively known as the Alien and Sedition Acts. These laws were highly controversial in their time and remain so today; all but one was struck down within four years, but echoes of their intended policies ring through to our current, rapidly-escalating national immigration and sanctuary crisis.

On June 10, 1752, Benjamin Franklin made a famous kite flight in a thunderstorm, allowing it to be struck by lightning and collecting the resulting electric charge in a Leyden jar, proving the electrical nature of lightning. Franklin's demonstration was one of many in his innovative life, and has capture popular imagination like little else.

On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously decided on the case Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, ruling that racial segregation in public educational facilities is unconstitutional. In the decades that followed, the integration process has been in many places slow, dangerous, or even functionally nonexistent.

On May 22, 1843, the inaugural wagon train of the Great Emigration departed from Independence, Missouri, bound for the Pacific coast. A group of 1,000 settlers (along with 1,000 head of cattle) began a five-month journey across the Western half of the continent, arriving in Oregon in late October.