NerdNite[33]: Top Gun and Turks
Did you know Top Gun sucked?! We were as shocked as you.
Join us for this month’s Nerd Nite where we will learn what the classic ’80s (and totally not gay propaganda) film got wrong about fighter pilots. We’ll also be hearing about the fall of Constantinople, one of the most heavily fortified cities in the world. Until it fell, that is.
Be there and be square!
Nerd Nite Seattle LUCID
7:30 (Doors open at 6:30)
Admission: $5
If you were a child of the ’80s, the movie Top Gun taught you all you ever needed to know about fast women and faster jets. But what’s the real story of how technology, politics, and a bombastic fighter jock named John Boyd created the generation of fighter planes that’s still with us today? Let’s dive into the “complex” part of the defense-industrial complex.
Andy Wagner is an engineer with–um, a large aerospace company in the Pacific Northwest. With degrees from Vanderbilt & Tufts Universities, and a decade of experience in the aviation business, he reads a lot of military history and enjoys correcting factual errors in airplane movies.
Should Have Closed That Gate: The Fall of Constantinople
So just how did those Ottomans get their empire started in the first place? Why was Columbus looking for a new spice route? And why do we call it Istanbul now? The answer to these questions and more lies 1453 Siege (And Conquest) of Constantinople, an extraordinary event that saw the end of one Empire and the rise of another. Come join us on a retrospective review of the causes, personalities and innovations behind an event many historians mark as the end of the Medieval Era.
Michael spends more time reading about dead people than ought to be legal in most states, and occasionally likes to talk about it (Because they sure aren’t). With one nerd nite behind him he’s back for more, examining the birth of the Ottoman Empire on the heels of its Christian predecessor in a presentation that hopefully makes up for its lack of harem girls with action, drama and a sprinkling of apocalypic fervor.
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