>> congratulations. this is important work. conversations] bookshelf features the country of is best-known american history writers of the past decade talking about their books. you can watch our weekly series every saturday at 4 p.m. eastern on american history tv on c-span3. c-span is on the campus of the university of north carolina chapel hill. up next we learn about its founding. today we are on the campus of the university of north carolina at chapel hill. unc chapel hill is the first

in the country. this is a contest to claim we argue with the university of georgia abou unc's charter came to dev years later. so, when this area was selected, there was no town or village here. onre was an anglican chapel the side of the carolina in. they had an auction of town lots . so, they understood that there needed to be a town to support it for businesses, places for people to live. they were in essence born on the same day. the university was chartered in

17 89. the groundbreaking was and 7093 and a year and half later, 1795, the university opened. had events on campus here. no student showed up. it took a few years before the first student arrived. he came 100 miles off the coast of north carolina. for the first century it was a school for white men only. it's really impossible to talk about the university without talking about slavery. the earliest building, the one behind me, the construction, the subsequent renovations. we also know that slavery played

a role in the financing of the university and this was due to the fact that the state legislature did not originally a lot funding. instead they provided funds ts,ough s cheats -- eschea which meant if someone died without a legal a are, the property would revert to the university, the university would sell it and take the proceeds. this was usually land. there were a number of cases where the university inherited enslaved people and immediately ordered them to be sold to finance the university. during the civil war, slavery was an and or goal part of life in the university of north carolina and students and faculty were overwhelmingly on the side of the confederacy. the universities stayed open, but barely.

the university administrators managed to negotiate. so, things really began to change for the university and andtown in the 1880's 1890's. a railroad came just west of town. there were a couple of textile mills develop there. in the 1890's, there is a drive toward the university. this is the graduate school and really making a more concerted effort to be involved in the life of the state of universe -- of north carolina.

the university began to grow in prestige and national reputation, i would say in the 1920's and 1930's and this is when it was embarking on really ambitious building and growth. inspired by state universities in the midwest and other parts of the country, but the university really began to engage not just with the state of north carolina, but the region and those academic programs attracted students from all over the country and they brought a lot of attention to the university faculty and began to develop its reputation as a regional leader, certainly, but also nationally. some of the buildings were still here. we have a bustling public university.

we have the modern, global public university, deeply committed to the state of north carolina, but also has ties to facilities all over the world. it is still at the center of public life in north carolina. >> our cities tour staff recently traveled to chapel hill, north carolina, to learn about its rich history. watch more video from chapel hill and other stops on our tour, visit c-span.org/cities tour. you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every weekend, on c-span3. sunday, book tv features the latest book from andrea bernstein, and author and professor deirdre mccroskey. starting at noon eastern, a live conversation with deirdre mccroskey. her most recent book is "why

liberalism works." other titles include "the rhetoric of economics," and the burj law era trilogy eastern on "afterwards," andrea bernstein chronicles the trump and kershner families in her latest book "american oligarchs." >> when the president as a private businessman was extremely adept at fending off criminal investigations, he made sure he understood who his friends were and they understood who he was. to make it work for him. he was never charged in any criminal case. it is interesting to have that background in the rearview mirror as we go into this impeachment situation, where he is being called to account, and where there is a public reckoning, and in some ways, even though he's president, he is not able to make things go

away as he once could. >> watch featured authors this weekend and every weekend on book tv on c-span2. next on american history tv, the u.s. holocaust memorial museum in washington, d.c. hosts the commemorative ceremony to remember those who perished and to mark international holocaust remembrance day, observed every january 27 on the anniversary of the auschwitz birkenau concentration camp liberation during world war ii. among the speakers, we hear from 2 survivors who offered their memories and a prayer. ♪ >> on behalf of the museum leadership, i want to welcome the many ambassadors, diplomats, representatives from the.s