glory of his work but what matters is is relevant. and most important his being here today to remind us of truman's relevance and why we need to remember world war ii and those who have gone before us. i'm so thankful to david mccullough and ms. gambell for being here. it is like having royalty among us, our own version of "downton abbey." ladies and gentlemen, please help me welcome, mr. david mccullough. [applause] mccullough: thank you. thank you. thank you very much. i want to thank the university first of all, for the honor of taking part in this program. this series. and thank all of you for coming out on such a fabulous day.

i just got here from boston. [laughter] so you know how thankful i am. one of the clearest lessons of history is that there is no such thing as a self-made man or a self-made woman. and that almost everything of value is accomplished as a joint effort. very rarely does anybody ever do anything alone. and i know that from personal experience because in my career, beginning back in the time when john kennedy was president, i have been assisted in every way professionally in my work by my editor in chief and my, the star i steer by, my wife rosalie.

and i would like her to stand up and let you -- right down here. [applause] we have five children and 19 grandchildren. and she's mission control. [laughter] and secretary of the treasury. and the best dancer i have ever danced with in my life. i would like to just start with a couple of conclusions i have come to about history. first of all, there never was a simpler time past. i'm always annoyed when i hear some of these supposedly wise members of our society going on

at length on a talk show about that was a super time. no, it was not. it was different but it was not simpler. imagine being here on, in this country in 1918, 1919, for example, when over 500,000 americans died of influenza, a disease they do nothing about. did not know where it came from. 500,000 people. that is our present-day -- population that would be one million people. 500,000 people was more than our entire loss in all the military services of the deceased and killed in world war ii, the worst war the world has ever known, the worst calamity the world has ever known by far.

and a big part of the life of my subject today, harry truman, had to do with war, not just the second world war, but the first world war. and he was a man of far more complexity than most realize and that most people realized at the time. he was also an american very worth considerable study. as a life, not just as a president. and i today hope to talk about why knowing his life helps immensely with understanding his role in world war ii. but to go back to the some of the basics about history history should never, ever be boring. it should never be made boring by boring teachers are boring commentators on television. history is human. and that's the essence of it.

it is about life. when in the course of human events. begins our great declaration of independence. human events. and human beings make mistakes. human beings can do vile, evil mean, cruel things, but human beings can also rise to surpassing heights in performance in life and in being a kind and gracious and worthy person deserving of attention and respect. or in art of musi -- or music or poetry or the theater. and make no mistake -- history is not just about politics and the military. politics and the war.

it is about the entire human experience at our best and our worst. and nothing ever happened in the past. there was no past. nobody lived in the past. they lived in the present. it was their present and not ours. nor did they have any idea how things were going to turn out in the long run any more than we do in our time. no such thing as a for seeable future. and those are all points to keep in mind when examining the protagonists of history. and certainly with a man like harry truman. the fact for example that harry truman to pleasure from reading latin is something nobody at the time ever knew. no reporter every bother to ask him about that. he was supposedly the failed haberdashery that never went to college.

yes, he was a failed haberdasher and he never went to college. the only president of the century or our century, this century, who never went to college. and yet, that never stopped him from reading. and he read history mainly. that was his real interest, but he read shakespeare and the bible and chaucer. and he read in latin. cicero and the rest. this supposedly failed nobody from independence, missouri. and as i hope i can make clear today in what i have to say, the fact that he had failed did him worlds of good. he failed again and again or was set back by circumstances behind his control, which seemed in his value to society, and seemed any hope he had for achieving anything, but he never let that get him down. i'm presently working on a book about the wright brothers, which will be published this spring.

and the wright brothers never went to college. in the wright brothers read history and shakespeare and the great masters of the english language, english and american. they were interested in architecture and art. they were not just a couple of small town ohio bicycle mechanics who got lucky. pand they a -- and they also failed again and again it their mission to achieve flight. today, we're staying at the marriott hotel. today, looking out from our window from the 11th floor, i saw a number of birds go by. hawks, vultures, seagulls --

there were the birds the my brother studied in order to achieve what they did. and one of the treasures of the collection at the library of congress, the wright brothers papers -- private and business papers -- is a book about that big kept by wilbur wright is he was studying the birds on the beaches at kitty hawk. in there, he writes, "no bird ever soared in a calm." and that was exactly their approach to life. the old irish saying, may the wind always be at your back. if you want flight, it has to be coming straight at you. you only take off when the wind is against you. and that is exactly what happened with harry truman again and again, and he knew it. the seeming disadvantage of the