As Haiti struggles with the aftermath of a catastrophic earthquake, what can be learned from the history of US disaster relief in Ethiopia, Mexico, El Salvador, Armenia -- and Haiti? Alexander Poster has written about the role disaster aid has played from the Reagan administration to the present and the opportunity crises have afforded the United States, via USAID and private agencies, to exert economic and political influence on devastated countries.

It was a cataclysmic event, the first and only successful slave revolution in the Americas. In 1791 brutally exploited slaves on a small Caribbean island rose up and eventually won emancipation. Their story, a legacy that has inspired and instructed people and nations for centuries, is told in Laurent Dubois's Avengers of the New World. (Encore presentation.)

The French Revolution challenged the divine right of kings and heredity priviledge -- and its radicalism is still controversial today. Comedian Mark Steel, author of Vive La Revolution! A Stand-up History of the French Revolution, talks about the enduring legacy of that watershed rebellion.