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Dave Cole's presentations fall into two parts, using antique maps to "meander" the world through 400 years of history. The maps and their stories allow you to participate in learning about history, art, and cartography, He makes extensive use of antique maps, art, currency, and historical quotations to enrich your experience.

Part I is an introduction to antique maps covering the Prime Meridian, types of printing methods employed, primary languages (Old English, Latin, Italian, French, Dutch, and German), and artistic embellishments (sea monsters, compass roses, cartouches, vignettes, ornate scripts, etc).

Part II is a "meandering" of the world permitting the antique maps, by their content, to trigger historical stories. Some of the topics that Dave will cover include celebrated myths (California as an Island, Sea Monsters), historical footprints of man (Pyramids, Canals, Mines, the Tower of Babel, Great Wall of China), historical footprints of God (Biblical references), and maps of the Period of Discovery.

Remarkably, there was one time in history, around 1500 AD, when eight very different types of maps were being produced. They are 1) Greek and Roman maps, 2) maps of Claudius Ptolemy, 3) classical Islamic Maps, 4) Biblically based European maps, 5) portolan charts, 6) maps of European Renaissance, 7) Chinese maps 8) Asian Indian maps. The presenter will explain each of these forms of maps, their time of use, and show illustrations of original examples from his collection.

Wesley Brown has been a collector, student, and author of old maps for thirty years. A Denver resident, he co-founded the Rocky Mountain Map Society in 1990, and has served the Library of Congress and the Denver Public Library.

During five critical months in late 1776 and very early 1777, the entire future of our country hung by a mere thread as George Washington and his Continental Army battled to preserve the American Revolution against the seemingly invincible British Redcoats and their Hessian mercenaries. You know the ultimate outcome—we won! But this lecture, featuring maps from Dr. Gibbs’ personal collection as well as great historic paintings, will bring the personalities and events of these critical times to life. Come hear about what really happened at Bunker Hill, the Battle of New York, and Washington’s Crossing of the Delaware. Dr. Gibbs recently gave this presentation to his colleagues - George Washington Presentation.

On the trackless ocean, centuries before the invention of GPS, exploration during the Great Age of Sail (roughly 1400 – 1850) was a constant cycle of starting out with faulty charts, getting lost at sea, using your instruments to find your position, and surviving the voyage so you could carry this new information back to cartographers, who could then turn around and improve those charts. Future voyages were made possible by the improved charts, which allowed mariners to sail a little farther, pushing the envelope until they got lost again, then using their instruments to bail themselves out yet again. Along the way, you would constantly refer to the charts, and look to the heavens to verify your understanding of where you were on the charts. We often picture them, sextant in hand, gazing back and forth between the skies and the chart table, scribbling mathematical calculations and corrections the entire way. It only makes sense then, for a collector of sea charts to also collect instruments. The two go hand-in-hand. How did those early navigators manage it? Early charts and instruments will be on display.

We live in a culture saturated with maps, which can be made instantly to represent virtually any type of data. Technology makes this possible, but our contemporary use of maps is rooted in a fundamental shift that took place well over a century ago. In the nineteenth century, Americans began to use maps in radically new ways. For the first time, medical men mapped diseases to understand and prevent epidemics, natural scientists mapped climate and rainfall to uncover weather patterns, educators mapped the past to foster national loyalty among students, and Northerners mapped slavery to assess the power of the South. After the Civil War, federal agencies embraced statistical and thematic mapping in order to profile the ethnic, racial, economic, moral, and physical attributes of a reunified nation. By the end of the century, Congress had authorized a national archive of maps, an explicit recognition that old maps were not relics to be discarded but unique records of the nation’s past. All of these cartographic experiments involved the realization that maps were not just illustrations of data, but visual tools that were uniquely equipped to convey complex ideas and information. I this session we will chart how maps of epidemic disease, slavery, census statistics, the environment, and the past demonstrated the analytical potential of cartography, and in the process transformed the very meaning of a map.

Some of Dr. Schulten's publications are available at these Web sites:

• Mapping the Nation: A Companion Web site
• Professional Portfolio, University of Denver

With the advent of the space age in the 1960s and the ensuing ubiquitous role of satellite imaging, the way humans create, distribute, and use maps has changed in a fundamental way. Dr. Abbud-Madrid will explain the basics of modern digital mapping, the way in which this technology has revolutionized how we perceive our world, and how maps, just as they were back in the 1500s, have become again one of the most powerful tools in our 21st century society.

We will also have a guest speaker from 1:00 to 1:30 PM -- Dr. Kumar Navulur, Director of Product Development and Laboratories at Digital Globe. Digital Globe, based in Longmont Colorado, builds the high-resolution satellites used by various mapping services including Google and Microsoft. They successfully launched their newest satellite, WorldView-3, in August 2014.