The Brewster Lecture
Each year the Department of History of East Carolina University sponsors the Lawrence F. Brewster Lecture in History. The Department sponsored the first Brewster Lecture in 1982 as part of the University’s seventy-fifth anniversary celebration and has published the lectures since 1984. The series bears the name of the late Professor Emeritus of History whose generosity supports the series, the Department, and the discipline at large.
The lecture series seeks to achieve four essential goals: to provide students, faculty, and members of the community with the opportunity to hear distinguished historians share their knowledge and mastery of the discipline; to stimulate an exchange of ideas and a continuing dialogue about issues of fundamental importance; to illuminate the present through the reflective prism of the past; and to support a critical requirement of modern times—the continuing process of education.
"Vespucci: The Man Who Gave His Name to America" 
February 25, 2009 | 7PM | Wright Auditorium
Fernández-Armesto is author of the best selling book Millennium: A History of the Last Thousand Years, which inspired CNN's Millenium, and such critically acclaimed works as The Times Atlas of World Exploration and, most recently, Civilizations. Recent honors include the Caird Medal of the National Maritime Museum (1995), and the John Carter Brown Medal (1999). His journalistic works have been widely syndicated and appear frequently in The Times of London and regularly in the Sunday edition of The Independent. Fernández-Armesto also contributes to BBC Radio, most often as a panelist on "Room for Improvement," International Question Time, and "Night Waves."