S2: Ep1--ITS SYLLABUS DAY Y'ALL!!!!! WELCOME BACK!!!!

Leave the tourism brochures, majestic mountain postcards, and sanitized pioneer folklore at the door. In this opening session, we lay out the full 36-week forensic roadmap of Colorado and U.S. history, treating our past not as a polite, inevitable march toward statehood, but as a crime scene of resource extraction, imperial border gambles, and calculated erasure. From the deep-time cliff dwellings of the Ancestral Puebloans through the explosive gold-rush invasion and the fraudulent treaties that carved up native ground, this first hour charts the entire arc of the Fall Term and establishes our core operating philosophy: history is not dead, buried parchment, but the active, living architecture of the modern American West. We will also preview the turbulence waiting in the Spring Term, following the transition from frontier skirmishes into the machine-age brutality of the Colorado Labor Wars, the 1920s Ku Klux Klan takeover of the state government, and landmark civil rights battles along the Front Range. Capping it off with a tour through the high-country eccentricities of our final "Freak Show" finale, this lecture establishes the house rules, expectations, and critical lens required for the year ahead. Prepare to trace the lineage of the ground beneath your feet, follow the paper trails of power, and confront the unvarnished realities of the Centennial State. Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/4th-period-u-s-history--5621461/support. Visit the class at Spreaker.com and follow! Link to the page HERE!  It would mean a lot and go a long way in helping grow class! Thank you for your support!