The ‘shot heard ’round the world’ can be traced to one manuscript containing the orders for the Concord Expedition on April 18, 1775. The quill-to-paper draft orders, penned by British Army officer Thomas Gage, sparked the Battle at Lexington and Concord the following day. U-M’s Clements Library holds the document.

The Robert M. Vogel Collection of Historic Images of Engineering & Industry includes nearly 23,000 photographs of civil engineering, industrial processes, and mechanization of the 19th century, as well as over 1,200 prints, books, ephemera and realia.

In February, U-M’s Kari Landry and Andrew Koeppe won the Grammy for Best Instrumental Composition for ‘Strands,” a piece they’d recorded with their reed quintet Akropolis. Some 16 years before they stood on stage with a statuette at LA’s Peacock Theater, the five members of Akropolis were undergrads majoring in music at U-M.

The U-M Library recently opened access to a digitized archive of some 1,300 fan letters sent in response to the 1938 broadcast of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds.” These letters dispel the myth — long perpetuated by the media — that Welles’ broadcast incited panic and hysteria.

Many histories have been written about the Cherokee nation. But “Cherokee History and the Spirit Family” by environmental lawyer James Barnes, J.D. ’70, delivers the nation’s history by way of his own expansive family network. ‘It’s personal in that sense,’ he says. And it’s powerful.

The award-winning RC graduate and Ann Arbor native followed one Washington, D.C., family for 20 years, producing a rare document of enduring love, hope, and resilience amid gun violence and economic hardship.

Musician Branford Marsalis spoke at the Ford School of Public Policy between a pair of gigs in Ann Arbor this week, noting he seeks harmony between art and activism. While he is adamant his job is ‘to make music,’ he understands the power it can possess beyond the notes. 

As a first-generation Arab-American Muslim, Tony-winning producer/director/writer Mosallam has found his niche by transforming the seemingly specific into the universally resonant.

“In Our Words: An Intergenerational Dialogue” features the works of contemporary artists Kelly Church and Cherish Parrish. Their traditional basket weaving material — black ash trees — are being attacked by an invasive species of beetle, the emerald ash borer, which kills the trees by eating the tissue under the bark.