good evening, and welcome to the nantucket whaling museum the in target historical association is very pleased to bring you our socially distanced commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the whaleship essex tragedy. my name is michael harrison. i'm the obidmacy research chair here at the nantucket historical association and we are thrilled to be this evening in conversation with nathaniel philbrick. long time islander here nat and his wife arrived on nantucket in 1986 and have lived here. ever since and that is a historian and has written numerous books about the island in the year 2000 published in the heart of the sea book about the essex tragedy which won the national book award in 2000 for nonfiction since then he's gone on to write quite a number of of books. very good book about the us exploring expedition looking at mayflower whole variety of other other interesting topics branching off from sort of nantucket. this is a sort of sea base for for all of the history work that that nats done. but we are thrilled that everybody can join us this evening this story of the essex trage

the nantucket historical association is very pleased to bring you our socially distance commemoration anniversary of the whaleship essex tragedy. my name is michael harrison i am the research chair here at the nantucket association and we are thrilled to beat this evening in conversatation with nathaniel philbrick, longtime islander here. matt and his wife arrived in nantucket 1986. and have lived here ever since. matt is a historian and has written numerous books about the island. in the year 2000 p published in the heart of the sea, a book about the essex tragedy which one the national book award in 2000 for nonfiction. since then he's gone on to write a very good book about the u.s. exploring expedition looking at the mayflower a whole variety of other interesting topic, branching off from nantucket. this is a sea bass for all of the history work matt has done. we are thrilled that everybody can join us this evening. this story of the essex tragedy is a near and dearr story to nantucket and nantucket's identity as a historic whaling point. at the whaling museum is a unique place to