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UNSINKABLE - the story of 5 sailors and the USS Plunkett in WWII
May 11, 2021
Unsinkable is a thrilling and vividly told account of the USS Plunkett—a US Navy destroyer that sustained the most harrowing attack of any US Navy ship by the Germans during World War II, that gave as good as it got, and that was later made famous by John Ford and Herman Wouk. More than the story of a single, savage engagement, Unsinkable traces the individual journeys of five men on one ship from Casablanca in North Africa, to Sicily and Salerno in Italy and then on to Plunkett’s defining moment at Anzio, where a dozen-odd German bombers bore down on the ship in an assault so savage, so prolonged, and so deadly that one Navy commander was hard-pressed to think of another destroyer that had endured what Plunkett had. After a three-month overhaul and with a reputation rising as the “fightin’est ship” in the Navy, Plunkett (DD-431) plunged back into the war at Omaha Beach on D-Day, and once again into battle during the invasion of Southern France—perhaps the only Navy ship to participate in every Allied invasion in the European theatre.
Please see more pictures on Mill Valley Rotary club Facebook page:
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Photography in an Age of Environmental Change
May 25, 2021
Photographer David Maisel will present his work, focusing on landscapes that have
undergone severe environmental transformation. He has devoted decades to
making a visual record of such impacted sites in the American landscape and beyond, from both an aerial perspective and from the ground. He will discuss Proving Ground, which focuses on a classified military site in Utah where chemical and biological weapons are developed and tested, Desolation Desert, which examines mining of lithium and copper in Chile’s Atacama Desert, and other projects that challenge our views about our collective stewardship of the Earth. |
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What to Do about Russia
Jun. 08, 2021
U.S.-Russian relations have fallen to their lowest level since the end of the Cold War. Moscow has interfered in U.S. domestic politics, continued a simmering conflict against Ukraine, and cracked down on domestic protest, all the while asserting that the United States is encroaching on Russia's sphere of influence and even seeking to bring down the Kremlin regime. Can the Biden administration shape and pursue a policy that pushes back against egregious Russian misbehavior while cooperating on areas such as nuclear arms control, where U.S. and Russian interests coincide?
Please see more pictures on Mill Valley Rotary club Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/RotaryClubOfMillValley/posts/3826711917446362 |
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A Journey Through Slavery at the Whitney Plantation
Jun. 22, 2021
The Whitney Plantation was an indigo then a sugar plantation located on the right bank of the Mississippi River, in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana. The site is now open to the public as a museum with a total focus on slavery. At Whitney, the visitors are offered a unique perspective on the lives of Louisiana’s enslaved people using restored historic buildings, museum exhibits, memorial artwork and hundreds of first-person slave narratives. As a site of memory and consciousness, the Whitney Plantation Museum is meant to pay homage to all the people who were enslaved in Louisiana and everywhere else in the United States of America.
Dr. Seck will present the history of the Whitney Plantation in the wider context of the Atlantic slave trade and will touch many topics related to the cultural legacies of slavery in Louisiana. The history of slavery is not only a history of deportation and hard labor. Beyond building the original foundations of the US economy, the enslaved Africans and their descendants contributed to shaping and defining American culture and identity.
Dr. Seck is Director of Research at the Whitney Plantation Slavery Museum which is located in Wallace, Louisiana.
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Jul. 06, 2021 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
Former NASA Associate Director Joe Ramos will be our speaker. His presentation is entitled What Does NASA Do? Most people don’t really know what NASA does, and how important it is to develop new science. He will be talking about the four Major Missions of NASA, some of the great things NASA is doing in these areas, and a little about where he worked and what he did. Join via the Zoom link. FREE. Sponsored by the Rotary Club of Mill Valley. Presentation begins at 12:30 after club business has concluded. |
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Jul. 20, 2021 12:30 p.m. - 1:30 p.m.
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