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Why remembering the Big Thompson Flood of 1976 matters today

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 29 Jul 2026 15:44:28 +0000

Why remembering the Big Thompson Flood of 1976 matters today Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/29/2026 - 09:44

A cabin lodged on a private bridge just below Drake, Colorado, following the Big Thompson Flood in 1976. (Photo: W.R. Hansen/U.S. Geological Survey)

Bradley Worrell

CU �ֲ��ý Natural Hazards Center Director Lori Peek says there are still lessons to be learned from the devastating flash flood, 50 years later

Fifty years ago this week, a beautiful summer evening in Colorado ended in catastrophe.

On the night of July 31, 1976, a powerful thunderstorm stalled over the Big Thompson Canyon west of Loveland, unleashing a torrential rainfall in a matter of hours. The resulting flash flood killed 144 people and became the single deadliest disaster in the state’s history.

For Lori Peek, professor of sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center at the �ֲ��ý, the flood’s most important legacy may be the lessons that emerged from it—and the realization that those lessons still require attention today.

Lori Peek is a CU �ֲ��ý professor of sociology and director of the Natural Hazards Center.

“Anniversary events like this one are so important because they serve as moments for communities to come together and reflect upon what was lost, what we’ve learned and what we still need to do to become more resilient in the future,” she says.

A perfect storm of human, environmental and built factors

While the Big Thompson Flood is often remembered for its meteorological extremes, Peek says that disasters are never caused by nature alone.

“One of the things we say in this field of study is that there are natural hazards, but there’s no such thing as a natural disaster,” she says. “Every disaster has a human component.

“There are, of course, natural hazards—floods, fires and tornadoes—but what turns them into disasters is the collision between vulnerable built environments, vulnerable human systems and the natural environment. That’s what creates a disaster.”

In the case of the historic Colorado flood, Peek says several factors converged to maximize the damage. These included:

Storm stalled: Rather than moving through an area as storms tend to do, the storm that evening stalled over the canyon, dumping more than 12 inches of water in just over four hours. “It was almost like pouring water into a bowl,” Peek says.
Rapid water rise: The floodwaters rose with astonishing speed, leaving many people trapped in cabins, automobiles or low-lying areas before they understood the danger.
Geography: The canyon’s steep walls funneled water into a narrow corridor, placing people in homes, hotels, campgrounds and vehicles along the river in harm’s way. “The topography played a major role,” Peek acknowledges.
Nightfall: The storm struck after dark, when many people were sleeping. Also, of those who were awake, some could not see or sense the danger.
Cars: Many victims were in cars—either trying to flee the storm or parked near the river. “The people with the highest risk of dying were those who remained in their vehicles,” Peek says.
Timing: The storm struck during the final holiday weekend of the summer, when the canyon was crowded with campers and visiting tourists, as well as a mix of full-time and part-time residents. In total, it is estimated that about 2,500 people were in the canyon at the time.

“There’s also the human dimension—whether people understood the risk, knew what to do, could physically take action and could get to safety,” Peek says. “That complicated mix is what led to so many deaths.”

A cabin lodged on a private bridge just below Drake, Colorado, following the Big Thompson Flood in 1976. (Photo: W.R. Hansen/U.S. Geological Survey)

She adds that research conducted soon after the flood found that survival often depended upon a simple but critical decision: getting out and moving uphill.

“What the research on who survived and why—and who died and why—showed was that the key to survival was getting out … and literally climbing to safety,” she says.

She says that finding is one of the flood’s most enduring lessons.

A (new) sign of the times in 1977

Today, anyone who travels through Colorado canyons is likely familiar with the bright yellow signs depicting a person climbing uphill.

Peek says those signs endure because they communicate something essential: Survival depends upon taking immediate action.

Today, anyone who travels through Colorado canyons is likely familiar with the bright yellow signs depicting a person climbing uphill. (Photo: Brad Turner/KUNC)

“If you’re going to communicate risk effectively, the message has to be actionable,” she explains. “That’s why, even 50 years later, the signage remains so powerful. It tells people exactly what to do in the face of an imminent threat to life safety.”

Peek notes those climb-to-safety signs were the result of an August 1977 working paper by CU �ֲ��ý researcher Eve C. Grunfest, who interviewed dozens of flood survivors, first responders, emergency management professionals and others to learn what worked and what needed to be improved following the Big Thompson Flood. Grunfest studied under Gilbert F. White, a CU �ֲ��ý professor of geography who Peek says is widely considered the father of floodplain management and who founded the Natural Hazards Center in 1976.

The Natural Hazards Center was not established because of the Big Thompson Flood, as White was already in the process of founding the organization in 1975. However, Peek says the flood demonstrated why such an academic research center, dedicated to translating and sharing findings, was needed.

“The Natural Hazards Center was established because, at the time, a lot of research wasn’t making it into the hands of practitioners and policymakers,” says Peek, who was a graduate research assistant at the center from 1999 to 2005. She returned to CU �ֲ��ý in 2017 to serve as the center’s director. “The Natural Hazards Center was established to nurture the hazards and disaster research community and share information with those concerned with reducing disaster risk. That’s the work that federal agencies like the National Science Foundation support us to do, because the evidence shows that actions we take before disaster can save lives and prevent unnecessary harm and suffering.”

Comparing the floods of 1976 and 2013

In many ways, Colorado today is better prepared for flooding than it was in 1976, Peek says.

At the time of the 1976 disaster, emergency managers lacked many of the tools that are the norm today. Then, there were no cellphone alerts, no modern emergency notification systems, no social media networks and few of the sophisticated weather forecasting capabilities available today.

Peek says that weather forecasting has become more precise, at-risk communities have installed warning sirens and emergency communication systems can distribute alerts through many channels and in many different languages to serve diverse groups.

In the Big Thompson Canyon, some vulnerable structures destroyed in the 1976 flood were never rebuilt in the same locations.

“Portions of the built environment have been moved out of the highest-risk floodways and floodplains,” Peek says. “Some of the streamside motels, cabins and other structures that were destroyed in the flood were not rebuilt in those same vulnerable locations.”

When the Big Thompson River flooded again in 2013, Peek says it demonstrated both the value of those improvements and the continuing reality of flooding danger. While the 2013 flood caused massive damage and resulted in at least eight deaths, Peek says she believes losses would have been even worse without decades of investment in warning systems and flood mitigation.

Why some lessons go unlearned

Despite the progress made since 1976, recent disasters show that communities do not always implement best-practice safety measures. Peek points to the 2025 Camp Mystic tragedy in Texas, where children were swept away in a flash flood.

“They didn’t have an emergency action plan. They didn’t have sirens. They didn’t have timely cell phone alerts. They hadn’t moved structures in the floodplain out of harm’s way,” Peek notes.

Why do these failures persist?

Peek offers several reasons. While disasters can create “policy windows” for lawmakers and regulators to act, those windows close more quickly today due to short public attention spans, and consensus is harder to build in today’s age of political polarization, she notes. Additionally, even when guidance exists, people may not know where to begin or may be overwhelmed, she adds.

Still, Peek sees some reasons for optimism. New guidance documents from the Association of State Floodplain Managers provide step-by-step instructions for camps and RV parks to create emergency action plans and offer model ordinance language for lawmakers.

“That’s a good example of how progress happens,” she says. “Such guidance can help spur action.”

A state that has changed—and largely forgotten the storm

Meanwhile, back in Colorado, Peek says one of the bigger challenges in commemorating the anniversary of the Big Thompson Flood is that most Colorado residents—and nearly all of its visitors—have no memory of it.

“Fifty years is a long time,” she notes. “Most visitors would have no reason to know anything about the Big Thompson Flood unless they are particularly interested in disaster history.”

The Big Thompson Flood remains the deadliest disaster in Colorado’s history. By learning what happened, how lives could have been saved then and how lives can still be saved today, we have an opportunity to build a more resilient state.”

Even among residents, Colorado today is a relatively young state demographically. Many people weren’t alive when the flood occurred, and many didn’t attend school here. As a result, public awareness of flood risk remains low, Peek says.

“People are often surprised to learn that �ֲ��ý is one of the state’s communities most at risk to flash flooding,” she says.

At the same time, Colorado itself has changed dramatically since 1976. The state’s population has swelled from 2.6 million then to more than 6 million today. More people are hiking, camping and driving through canyons than ever, oblivious to the dangers that flash floods pose. And while technology has improved, many of those areas are still without reliable cell service, Peek notes. She adds that floods can strike with little warning.

Could a disaster like the 1976 Big Thompson Flood could happen today?

Peek’s answer is an unequivocal yes. That’s why physical signage, emergency planning measures, public education and land-use planning all remain essential—especially in a warming climate, she says.

“Risk isn’t static,” she says. “As we experience more extreme rainfall events, places that once weren’t considered high risk, or weren’t mapped as flood hazards, may now be vulnerable.”

Peek says it’s also why remembering anniversaries like the 1976 Big Thompson Flood still matters today.

“It’s so important to know our history,” she says. “The Big Thompson Flood remains the deadliest disaster in Colorado’s history. By learning what happened, how lives could have been saved then and how lives can still be saved today, we have an opportunity to build a more resilient state.”

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CU �ֲ��ý Natural Hazards Center Director Lori Peek says there are still lessons to be learned from the devastating flash flood, 50 years later.

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Top photo: Damage caused by the 1976 Big Thompson Flood (Photo: Maurice L. Albertson/Maurice L. Albertson Papers at Colorado State University)

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 28 Jul 2026 19:37:16 +0000

The only way to make beef and dairy more climate-friendly? Stop producing it Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/28/2026 - 13:37

Tiffany Plate

CU �ֲ��ý researcher Cliff Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues are showing why microbial solutions to livestock methane emissions reductions won’t stop beef and dairy’s environmental and health problems

By nature, cows are gassy creatures. But it’s not just the stink of their manure or their belches that are troublesome. The methane gas released by ruminants like cows (or bison, sheep or goats) also causes a lot of trouble for the planet.

That’s because methane is a potent greenhouse gas with a dramatically higher global warming potential than carbon dioxide. And ruminants raised for food account for 14% of global methane emissions.

Over the last decade or so scientists have been hard at work figuring out how to infuse cows’ feedstock with additives that inhibit methane-producing microbes. The process could reduce those methane emissions and potentially produce a more “climate-friendly” beef.

Cliff Bueno de Mesquita, who studies microbial ecology of permafrost and ancient sediments in the lab of ecology and evolutionary biology Professor Noah Fierer and in the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences, teamed up with other microbiologists passionate about environmental issues for this perspective piece. (Photo: Cliff Bueno de Mesquita)

Sounds like a win-win, right? A new perspective piece by Cliff Bueno de Mesquita (PhDEBio'19), a research associate in the lab of ecology and evolutionary biology Professor Noah Fierer and the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES), says otherwise.

“Even if you could decrease cows’ methane emissions by 100%, cows are still worse than plant-based agriculture for their land use, water use, pollution and impacts on human health,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

In their piece in the journal Sustainable Agriculture, Bueno de Mesquita and a team of microbiologist colleagues outline all the reasons that altering cows’ rumen microbes is a misdirected use of time, money and energy. “This is basically distracting from what we really need to be doing, which is reducing the ruminant population size,” he says.

This conclusion—that reducing the numbers of ruminants raised for food is the only solution to actually reducing livestock’s impact on the planet—has already been drawn by researchers around the world.

“There are a lot of great scientists working on this topic, with strong data sets that have been assembled with all of the evidence,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

Bueno de Mesquita and his colleagues cited 98 studies, to be exact, in their peer-reviewed opinion piece that re-emphasizes the personal and planetary benefits of a shift to a plant-based diet—and lays out exactly why rumen microbes are not the answer.

The problem with microbes

Some of the literature references cited in the piece are studies that have been done on the most common feed additives that have been studied for methane inhibition: seaweed and 3-nitrooxypropanol (or Bovaer). The research shows that the demonstrated efficacy of these microbes is extremely variable, with one review reporting a range of 10–63% reduction and another review reporting a range of a 4% increase to a 97% reduction.

Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues are also concerned that altering rumen microbes may lead to unpredictable health effects for the cattle, and may even decrease immunity to pathogens that could be detrimental to human health.

Another reason for concern? This method favors intensive beef production, where cattle are fed in feedlots rather than on grass (as is more likely to be the case in small-holder production). Not to mention that seaweed harvesting has its own inherent carbon emissions and environmental impact.

But Bueno de Mesquita’s team points out that even if none of these were issues, methane reduction does nothing to address potent nitrogen emissions or other emissions from the rest of the production life cycle (e.g., land use, water use, fertilizer, crop residues, manure).

Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues created this graphic to demonstrate how many ways livestock production can impact the environment and human health—and how only one of these impacts is reduced by trying to alter the microbes in the rumen with feed additives. (Graphic: Cliff Bueno de Mesquita and Ylenia Vimercati Molano)

Shifting people’s perspectives

The authors wrote the piece to be accessible to non-scientists in hopes of reaching as wide an audience as possible. “I want the public to be aware and to be skeptical of labels coming from the beef and dairy industry that are calling those products climate friendly,” says Bueno de Mesquita.

Of course, he also hopes that people will consider simply shifting to a plant-based diet in order to make their meals more climate friendly. But he knows that’s easier said than done.

“We're basically living in a ‘carnistic’ society where eating meat is perceived to be normal, natural and necessary,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “That's sort of people's default. So when they’re met with a proposal for a minor shift that challenges that, we know there's gonna be pushback.”

Two years ago Bueno de Mesquita and his co-authors published another paper documenting a push within CU �ֲ��ý’s Ecology and Evolutionary Biology department for more plant-based meals. “The PhD students were very hesitant to implement a dietary change, even though they know that it's going to be better for the environment.”

Even still, Bueno de Mesquita says the current perspective piece is getting a lot of traction. “I basically never get emails about my research papers,” he says. “But I've already gotten emails from multiple people saying that they agree.” He adds that even some leading microbiologists have posted it on social media.

That’s key to reaching the other audience Bueno de Mesquita and colleagues wanted to address: the microbiologists actually doing the research on rumen microbes in livestock feed, usually funded by the beef and dairy industries, he says.

“They're enabling the dairy industry to say, ‘Hey, we're doing this research. This is going to work’,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “Then the industry has an excuse to keep business as usual.”

Instead, he hopes that microbiologists and other scientists studying climate change will step up and speak with a unified voice about what needs to be done as a society. “It's very obvious,” says Bueno de Mesquita. “If you want to reduce methane from ruminants, you need to decrease the number of ruminants.”

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Top photo: Unsplash

Benson Center receives $3 million National Endowment for the Humanities award

Rachel Sauer — Thu, 23 Jul 2026 21:38:09 +0000

Benson Center receives $3 million National Endowment for the Humanities award Rachel Sauer Thu, 07/23/2026 - 15:38

Award will establish endowment to support innovative academic program at CU �ֲ��ý integrating study of the Western tradition with American history, government and civics

The Bruce D. Benson Center for the Study of Western Civilization at the �ֲ��ý has received a $3 million Endowments for Advancing the Humanities Award from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

The award, which is matched by $3 million in private philanthropic commitments, will establish an endowment to support the development of an innovative multidisciplinary academic program at CU �ֲ��ý integrating the study of the Western tradition with American history, government and civics. This endowment will advance CU �ֲ��ý's educational mission by creating a permanent source of funding that expands undergraduate curricular and co-curricular opportunities, strengthens faculty recruitment and retention, deepens K-12 partnerships and bolsters public engagement.

"This award confirms the central role of the humanities at CU �ֲ��ý," said Katherine Eggert, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. “The award’s impact will extend throughout the College of Arts and Sciences. We look forward to working with faculty across the college to enrich educational offerings for all CU �ֲ��ý undergraduates through this opportunity."

This program will build on CU �ֲ��ý’s existing academic strengths and foster a vibrant and multidisciplinary intellectual community dedicated to the study of the Western tradition and its ongoing influence on our world today."
— Joseph Porter, Benson Center director of undergraduate studies

Joseph Porter, Benson Center director of undergraduate studies, associate teaching professor and the awarded proposal's principal investigator, said, “This program will build on CU �ֲ��ý’s existing academic strengths and foster a vibrant and multidisciplinary intellectual community dedicated to the study of the Western tradition and its ongoing influence on our world today. I am confident it will deepen countless students' understanding of texts, events, people and ideas that have profoundly shaped the modern world.”

Endowment income will support humanities faculty in different departments and programs who will expand the Benson Center's course offerings and develop a multidisciplinary curriculum focused on the Western tradition and American history, government and civics. This curriculum will introduce CU �ֲ��ý students to texts, events, people and ideas that have profoundly shaped America and the Western world—from the classical and Biblical traditions through the American founding to the modern age.

The program will introduce students to enduring tensions and questions within the Western tradition and deepen their understanding of both past and present through critical study of influential and transformative texts. It will equip them with the historical literacy, analytical skills and civic understanding necessary for thoughtful citizenship.

“Grants from the National Endowment support organizations and scholars working to illuminate and educate about the great ideas and events of the past,” said NEH Acting Chairman William English in an announcement of the awards. “As we celebrate our nation’s 250th anniversary this year, NEH is proud to help foster robust public engagement with our national history, ideals and intellectual achievements through funding for an array of exhibitions, preservation projects, books, education initiatives and advanced research.”

The transformative award marks a significant milestone in the Benson Center's mission to expand humanistic study of the Western tradition at CU �ֲ��ý.

“We are deeply grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities for its support, as well as to the many alumni, donors and friends whose longstanding dedication, hard work and generosity have made this award possible,” said Taylor Jaworski, Benson Center interim director and associate professor of economics. “This award will strengthen the Benson Center and advance its mission of bringing together faculty and students from across CU �ֲ��ý with shared interests in the Western tradition.”

“We look forward to developing a distinctive academic program at CU �ֲ��ý that will inspire humanistic and civic education for decades to come,” Porter said.

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Award will establish endowment to support innovative academic program at CU �ֲ��ý integrating study of the Western tradition with American history, government and civics.

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Do elections affect political anger?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 22 Jul 2026 18:11:31 +0000

Do elections affect political anger? Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/22/2026 - 12:11

A Freedom Party of Austria (FOP) campaign van bearing the image of Herbert Kickl, who has led the party since 2021. The slogan "Dein herz sagt ja" translates to "Your heart says yes." (Photo: Asurnipal/Wikimedia Commons)

Bradley Worrell

CU �ֲ��ý political scientists find that far-right voters in Austria were less angry after electoral success while many mainstream voters correspondingly became more angry

Much of the current research on right-wing populist parties focuses on what motivates their supporters before elections—particularly anger, anxiety and discontent.

But a recent study from �ֲ��ý Department of Political Science Professor Jennifer Fitzgerald and graduate students Mateusz Leszczynski and Sinan Nadarevic takes a different approach. Instead of examining what drives voters to support far-right parties—typically hardline attitudes on immigration, strong Euroskepticism and deep distrust of domestic political leaders—the researchers sought to understand what happens to those voters after their party achieves electoral success.

“What we’re doing is turning that question around,” explains Fitzgerald, whose research focuses on comparative political behavior. “Instead of asking what leads someone to support a far-right party, we’re asking what happens afterwards. Once someone has cast that vote, how do they feel?”

CU �ֲ��ý political scientists Jennifer Fitzgerald (left), Mateusz Leszczynski (center) and Sinan Nadarevic (right) asked once someone has cast a vote, how do they feel?

The researchers found their answers in studying the 2017 election in Austria, in which the far-right Freedom Party (FPO) finished strongly in third place, allowing it to become a junior partner in a coalition government headed by the center-right Austrian People’s Party (OVP). As the results were counted, FPO voters became less angry and anxious—and more hopeful and confident, the researchers found.

The study’s findings challenge the widely held assumption that populist parties rely on a constant state of anger, says Leszczynski, who studies comparative politics and public policy. Those findings suggest that election outcomes can significantly alter political emotions—at least in the short term, he adds.

Fitzgerald says the research offers a new perspective on how voters experience democratic politics and may help researchers better understand emotional dynamics across modern democracies.

Looking for answers in Austria

One reason the three researchers looked at Austria is because the Freedom Party is one of Western Europe’s longest-running far-right parties and has enjoyed some measure of electoral success, even prior to the 2017 elections, Fitzgerald says.

“(FPO) has a very established electorate and a very well-known brand,” she says.

Austria also had another factor in its favor in terms of studying electoral behavior. Specifically, researchers had access to a rare Austrian survey that tracked political emotions before and after the country’s 2017 national elections. That’s significant because one challenge in studying political emotions is separating them from broader feelings about life, says Nadarevic, who studies comparative politics and American politics.

“It didn’t ask how they felt in general, how they felt about the economy or how they felt about society. It was explicitly focused on the political situation at that moment in time,” he says. He says that distinction helped the researchers isolate political emotions more effectively than many previous studies conducted in other countries with far-right parties.

“We also looked at data from countries such as Britain, Switzerland, the United States and Finland,” he says. “Austria was unique in asking specifically about political emotions rather than simply asking respondents how they were feeling overall.”

Leszczynski says that specificity allowed the researchers “to get much closer to the underlying mechanism.”

At the same time, as with any survey-based study, this research depends on self-reported responses, which always carry built-in limitations, Fitzgerald acknowledges.

“That’s always a challenge with survey data,” she says. “No survey instrument is perfect, and no survey question perfectly captures the phenomenon you’re trying to measure.”

Rather than treating survey responses as definitive proof of emotional states, Fitzgerald says the researchers interpret them in light of existing political psychology research.

“This is where the existing literature becomes so important,” she says. “Prior research gives us a set of theoretical expectations—sometimes competing expectations—which help guide our interpretation of the results.”

Fitzgerald emphasizes that research is an ongoing process of comparing data, theory and previous findings.

“We recognize that surveys don’t provide absolute truth about how people feel,” she says. “However, when interpreted in the context of broader scholarly literature, they can still provide meaningful insights.”

Electoral winners feel better

The study’s central finding is straightforward: Electoral success appears to improve how FPO supporters feel about politics—at least in the short term. Notably, those emotional changes were strongest among voters with deep attachments to the party, Leszczynski says.

“What we looked at was the strength of an individual’s connection to the party,” he says. The researchers compared highly committed supporters with voters who back the FPO but did not strongly identify with it.

“We found that voters who were more strongly connected to the party—what people might call ‘core’ or ‘hardcore’ supporters—experienced much stronger emotional shifts,” Nadarevic says. That finding resembles patterns seen in many democracies, where strong partisans tend to invest more emotionally in election outcomes than voters who simply choose a party in a particular election, he adds.

Fitzgerald says the results suggest that many far-right voters behave much like traditional party loyalists when it comes to how they feel about their preferred party’s electoral performance.

“Our findings suggest that at least some of these voters behave much like traditional partisans,” she explains. “The strongest emotional shifts occurred among those with the strongest partisan attachment.”

Still, the researchers offer a caveat with their findings: Their research makes no claims that election results permanently reduce anger. Campaign cycles may repeatedly increase and decrease emotions; thus, political emotions may be cyclical rather than fixed.

“We can’t say that reduced anger and reduced anxiety persist long term,” Fitzgerald notes.

Elections create winners and losers

Another key finding of the research report: Elections affect more than just the victorious party’s supporters. In the 2017 Austrian election, while FPO voters experienced an emotional uplift, supporters of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reacted in the opposite direction.

An FPO campaign booth in Wein, Austria. CU �ֲ��ý researchers found that in the 2017 Austrian election, while FPO voters experienced an emotional uplift, supporters of the center-left Social Democratic Party of Austria (SPO) reacted in the opposite direction. (Photo: Janos Korom/Wikimedia Commons)

“What we observed was that center-left voters became more politically angry and anxious after the election,” Leszczynski says. In effect, elections produce emotional winners and losers as well as political ones, he adds.

Fitzgerald says she believes that broader perspective is essential for understanding modern democracy.

“If we looked only at far-right voters, we’d learn something useful from this analysis,” she says. “But by examining other parties as well, we see broader patterns.”

Nadarevic says the result is a kind of emotional trade-off, where gains among one group are accompanied by losses among another.

“To us, that’s a fascinating way to think about elections,” Fitzgerald says. “It highlights just how emotionally consequential modern democratic politics have become.”

Although there are no immediate plans for a follow-up paper, the researchers say a variety of avenues could be pursued, such as designing longitudinal studies in Austria that could better measure emotional changes over time, examining far-right parties and electoral outcomes in other countries, making comparisons across parties and ideologies and putting an even greater focus on the emotional consequences of political participation.

Implications beyond Austria

Although the researchers focused on Austria, they believe its findings could have relevance elsewhere.

Fitzgerald notes that scholars frequently identify similar characteristics among far-right voters in countries such as Germany, the Netherlands, France and Sweden.

“We think there’s a reasonable possibility that our findings could generalize beyond Austria,” she says.

At the same time, the researchers are careful not to overstate their conclusions.

“We view this as a case study with broader theoretical relevance—rather than proof that the same pattern exists everywhere,” Fitzgerald says.

Perhaps the most difficult question raised by the study concerns democratic legitimacy. For instance, if electoral success reduces anger and anxiety among populist voters, does that represent a healthy outcome for democracy? The researchers are cautious about drawing simplistic conclusions.

“It’s certainly something worth thinking about,” Fitzgerald says. However, the answer becomes more complicated when considering the emotional reactions of other voters, she acknowledges.

“If anger and anxiety decline among far-right voters while increasing among center-left voters, it’s hard to conclude that there is an overall gain in democratic legitimacy,” she says.

For the researchers, they say the most important lesson may be that emotions deserve a more central place in discussions about voting and democracy.

“What we can say is that public confidence in democratic politics matters greatly,” Fitzgerald says, “and understanding these emotional dynamics helps us ask better questions about democracies and their citizens.”

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CU �ֲ��ý political scientists find that far-right voters in Austria were less angry after electoral success while many mainstream voters correspondingly became more angry.

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Top image: A seemingly defaced FPO candidate billboard in Innsbruck, Austria. (Photo: Jolly Janner/Wikimedia Commons)

What ancient eggshells can tell us about extinction

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 21 Jul 2026 19:55:38 +0000

What ancient eggshells can tell us about extinction Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/21/2026 - 13:55

Tiffany Plate

CU �ֲ��ý Professor Emeritus Gifford Miller contributed to a new study that delivers a more accurate understanding of the extinction of one of Australia’s oversized flightless birds

Some people collect albums. Or coins. Or stamps. CU �ֲ��ý Professor Emeritus Gifford Miller collects the eggshells of large extinct flightless birds.

That collection came in handy for recent research that’s helping scientists understand more precisely when Genyornis newtoni went extinct in Australia—and whether humans were responsible for their extinction.

Genyornis is a genus of large flightless birds that roamed the Australian outback alongside modern-day emus; they reached heights of about 7 feet and weights upwards of 500 pounds.

Gifford Miller has spent some 20 seasons in the field in Australia collecting the well-preserved eggshells of flightless birds. The samples were pivotal to recent research determining the extinction date of the continent’s largest flightless bird. (Photo: Gifford Miller)

While emus—which are unrelated to Genyornis—survived, the majority of other megafauna on the continent went extinct around the time humans arrived (or just shortly after).

“There was a really big uncertainty in Australia as to how we get precise, reliable ages on when the actual Genyornis extinction occurred,” says Miller, a professor emeritus of earth science who is also the director for the Center for the Geochronological Analysis of the Global Environment at the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). “Radiocarbon dating wasn’t going to do it, and amino acid racemization wasn't going to do it at the precision we wanted.”

To get closer to the truth, Miller encouraged his colleague, Elizabeth Niespolo, a geologist at Princeton University, to try out a different method called uranium-thorium burial dating. The process relies on the eggshells to uptake uranium—which is plentiful in Australian soils—and then produce thorium as a byproduct of uranium decay.

The results of the research were published this summer in a new article in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews, which Miller co-authored.

The megafauna-human overlap

Previous dating methods posited that genyornis went extinct around 60,000–65,000 years ago. However, Niespolo found much different results.

“She thinks she has very firm extinction dates at about 45,000 years ago, which is quite a bit younger than a lot of other people think,” says Miller.

The date that humans arrived in Australia is also still up for debate, with some studies saying they showed up around 55,000 years ago, and others around 65,000 years ago (still a long time ago when the only way to reach the island at that time was via boat, Miller points out).

Either way, the new results would mean there was a very long period of time between the arrival of human colonizers and the extinction of genyornis.

“We’re basically left with two options: either there is a long overlap, which is unusual relative to almost all other human-faunal extinction overlaps, or the early human colonization dates are too old,” says Miller. “Both are plausible.”

Predation or fire?

Now, scientists are left to continue zeroing on that human arrival date, as well as the method by which humans managed to make so many species go extinct.

Genyornis newtoni was one of many species of megafauna that disappeared from Australia around the time of human colonization. (Illustration: Peter Trusler/Monash University)

“There are two options, and both have some strength behind them,” says Miller. “One of them would be predation, particularly of genyornis eggs.” Many eggshells were found with evidence of contact with fire, he says, meaning they were either cooked directly over a fire or discarded near one. “Clearly people were utilizing these eggs as a food source.”

The birds themselves might also have made their way to the dinner plate. “These are very big birds, much bigger than emu,” says Miller. “So, they would be a meal for a whole family for a week or two.”

For his part, Miller is partial to another theory: that humans impacted the landscape by systematic burning of vegetation that was genyornis’ primary food source.

“We have independent evidence from the emu—including a continuous time series from the present back through the extinction window—that shows the entire ecosystem shifted about 45,000 years ago in the central desert area where these birds are most common,” says Miller.

Leveraging the eggshells for further research

Miller is hoping that he and Niespolo might be able to use her now-proven dating methods on other eggshells in his collection to learn everything they can about the last 100,000 years or so on the continent.

“I have this tremendous geographic spread of samples from all across Australia,” says Miller, who hopes they might use that reservoir of material to determine whether the extinction dates changed based on location. “Did it happen earlier or later on the south coast? Or up in the far north near Darwin where the first people must have arrived?”

Miller also believes they can learn more about the historical temperature gradient of Australia using Niespolo’s dating methods on his collection.

“There are some interesting little tidbits that she and I are kicking around,” Miller says. “We’re looking to put together more projects that might capitalize on this amazing resource of samples I have.”

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CU �ֲ��ý Professor Emeritus Gifford Miller contributed to a new study that delivers a more accurate understanding of the extinction of one of Australia’s oversized flightless birds.

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Top photo: Gifford Miller

Tell us, O muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 15 Jul 2026 22:31:58 +0000

Tell us, O muse, of that ingenious hero who traveled far and wide Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/15/2026 - 16:31

Director Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey opens Friday and stars Matt Damon as the titular Odysseus. (Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)

Rachel Sauer

With Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey opening in theaters Friday, CU �ֲ��ý classics scholar John Gibert considers why Homer’s epic is a tale that endures

The city of Troy likely existed. Scholars and historians broadly agree on this, citing its probable location as the mound of Hisarlık near modern Çanakkale in Turkey at the Aegean end of the Dardanelles, the waterway connecting Greeks and inhabitants of the Black Sea region.

Because of this desirable, strategic location, scholars and historians further agree that it’s likely wars were fought there. What’s much less likely is that a warrior king named Odysseus devised a scheme to build an enormous horse and hide Greek soldiers in it so they could sneak into Troy and win a 10-year war that began when the Trojan prince Paris kidnapped the king of Sparta’s wife, Helen.

Also unlikely: that Odysseus and his crew, on their journey home to Ithaca from Troy, were blown off course for 10 more years, encountering all manner of monsters, temptations and obstacles as punishment for eating the sun god’s cattle.

John Gibert, a CU �ֲ��ý professor of classics, notes that The Odyssey "is infinitely adaptable."

It’s a thrilling story, though, one that’s been told and retold for almost 3,000 years—since the Greek poet Homer (who may or may not have existed) crafted his enduring epic The Odyssey. Friday, Christopher Nolan’s film version of the story opens in theaters, and in explaining to New York Times reporter Melena Ryzik why he tackled such a monumental tale, Nolan commented that “it is the ur-text. It’s in everything I’ve done before.”

Millennia later, The Odyssey still fascinates, thrills and even outrages—students still are assigned to read it, and artists still plumb its 12,100 lines for insights into myth and loyalty and what it means to be human.

Perhaps that’s why we’re still reading it and, in the spirit of its origins, telling it, says John Gibert, a �ֲ��ý professor of classics and scholar of Greek poetry. It’s a story about gods and giants, but it’s also a story about a man trying to return safely to his home and (modest) kingdom.

“The Odyssey is infinitely adaptable,” Gibert says. “It gives storytellers who want to retell it so many options, and no two (retellings) are alike because creatives are always finding different things in the stories that they want to run with.”

‘Tell me about a complicated man’

In her acclaimed 2017 translation of The Odyssey, classist Emily Wilson opens with, “Tell me about a complicated man,” which Nolan has cited in interviews as an inspiration for his $250 million epic.

Wilson’s translation continues:

“Tell the old story for our modern times.

Find the beginning.”

And The Odyssey is a very old story, composed approximately 2,800 years ago and a companion to Homer’s The Iliad.

“Each one of them fills a translation 500 or 600 pages long,” Gibert explains. “So, they're really big works, but The Iliad only tells a slice of the 10th year of the Trojan War—slightly over 50 days, but really with a focus on about three or four days. It's very concentrated, and it's set in a wartime society where the values of warriors are uppermost.

“The Iliad is a kind of proto-tragedy in that it focuses on serious characters engaged in serious actions with large ramifications for the nation. But it is, at the end of the day, a fairly narrow slice of life.”

The Odyssey, on the other hand, follows Odysseus and his crew for 10 years, from a Troy in ruins to the land of the Lotus Eaters to the treacherous passage between Scylla and Charybdis and finally home to Ithaca. They encounter—and often anger—gods and monsters and a witch who turns men to swine, and in the end, only Odysseus makes it home.

Movie poster for Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (Courtesy: Universal Pictures)

From a storytelling perspective, The Odyssey is rich with action and memorable characters and can be read on one level as a rip-roaring adventure. This may stem, in part, from its origins in oral tradition, Gibert says, with storytellers performing it live and adapting it as they went.

“If you look for complete consistency in their storytelling, you will not find it because they’re composing live every time,” Gibert says. “They’ve got a vision of the overall story, but in the details it’s going to differ every single time. So, a lot of Homeric scholars are thinking, ‘A-ha, this is why there's some unevenness in The Iliad and The Odyssey.

“This is also why they have those traditional epithets like ‘swift-footed Achilles’ and ‘circumspect Penelope,’ because deploying a phrase like that buys some time for the performer to think about where he's going next.”

This is also why, in both The Iliad and The Odyssey, there’s description of common things like preparing a meal, taking a bath or performing a ritual sacrifice, Gibert says: “(Performers) had a whole stock of motifs, and they could do that stuff almost on autopilot while they're thinking about shaping the larger storytelling purpose for the occasion that they're currently telling in.”

The oral traditions from which The Odyssey grew also belie the image of a genius who sits with a quill choosing one word at a time until the perfect epic poem spans the papers in front of him—“more or less what Virgil did in Rome centuries later,” Gibert says. “Homer is just something completely different.”

A folktale hero

The Odyssey, then, shares DNA with the sort of tall tales that evolve in their telling. It also presents, in Odysseus, a man who is both hero and human, who is complex and fallible and, in some ways, relatable.

“He is a folktale hero of the man against the sea, the man who has adventures against giants and things like that, so he's a traveling hero and this kind of hero naturally is a magnet for more stories of the same kind,” Gibert says. “You can attach any story to Odysseus, really, because it's plausible that he's the sort of guy that would happen to, and so there’s no limit. He’s a husband returning from war to his wife, and he’s also favored by a goddess who’s smoothing the path for him most of the time.”

And while The Odyssey is the story of Odysseus, is also expands the way that other characters’ stories are told, particularly women’s stories. While women only briefly appear in The Iliad and in small, circumscribed roles, Gibert says, in The Odyssey they’re more varied and complex.

“Of course, their roles are circumscribed, too (in The Odyssey), but there’s just more variety,” Gibert says. “Some of them are monsters; some of them are temptresses, goddesses or figures like the Sirens who can lure sailors to their deaths by singing a seductive song. And then some of them are family members and household members, so you’ve got your mothers, your daughters; you’ve got enslaved people”

In fact, Gibert adds, it is the plight of women and enslaved people with which some of his students have found connection and resonance. He recalls a student reading Book 22 of The Odyssey, in which Odysseus and his son, Telemachus, execute 12 enslaved women who had been assaulted or coerced by Penelope’s suitors, “and she just said, ‘You know what, this is where I quit.’ And she got up and left the classroom,” Gibert recalls.

“That was early in my teaching career and, incidentally, years before Margaret Atwood's Penelopiad (2005), which is more or less built on this scene. It was eye opening for me, and my eyes have stayed open. So, I try to work with (those emotional responses) in the classroom and tell students about how many ways we can think about this text.”

During the fourth semester of the Department of Classics’ Greek program, students read Homer in ancient Greek, developing new lenses through which they can approach both The Iliad and The Odyssey, Gibert says.

And while The Iliad is often regarded as the more profound work, The Odyssey “is going to give you just a much broader palette to paint with,” Gibert says, “with adventure, domesticity, warfare—Odysseus is the one who sealed the deal with the Trojan horse—adventures at sea, shipwrecks, giants. It’s great material for special effects if you're thinking in cinematic terms, but also just in storytelling terms it’s a story that’s still exciting to tell.”

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With Christopher Nolan’s adaptation of The Odyssey opening in theaters Friday, CU �ֲ��ý classics scholar John Gibert considers why Homer’s epic is a tale that endures .

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Top photo: Matt Damon as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey (Photo: Melinda Sue Gordon/Universal Pictures)

Beyond Custer’s Last Stand: The forces that led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 23:18:25 +0000

Beyond Custer’s Last Stand: The forces that led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/14/2026 - 17:18

Bradley Worrell

CU �ֲ��ý historians Thomas Andrews and Noah Ramage argue that the seeds of Little Bighorn, which happened 150 years ago, were planted years before Custer’s defeat

The Battle of the Little Bighorn has long occupied a unique place in American memory. Often remembered through images of Lt. Colonel George Armstrong Custer making a heroic last stand against overwhelming odds, the battle has been mythologized in movies, books and popular culture for nearly 150 years.

But according to �ֲ��ý historians Thomas G. Andrews and Noah Ramage, that familiar story obscures a much larger and more complex reality.

Andrews, faculty director of the Center of the American West, says that rather than a simple clash between the U.S. Army and Native Americans, the battle (which many Indigenous people refer to as the Battle of Greasy Grass) emerged from shifting alliances with Native nations amid a backdrop of competition for territory, economic transformation and mounting pressure on Northern Plains tribes. To understand what happened at the Little Bighorn on June 25-26, 1876, Andrews argues that it is necessary to understand the forces that led up to it.

CU �ֲ��ý historians Thomas G. Andrews (left) and Noah Ramage (right) argue that the seeds of Little Bighorn were planted years before Custer’s defeat.

At the center of the conflict were several Native nations with different histories and interests, some of which allied themselves with the U.S. government while pursuing their own agendas and some of which violently resisted any efforts by the government to dispossess them of their territories. Among that latter group was a coalition led by Lakotas, joined by Northern Cheyennes and smaller numbers of Arapahos.

“Over the course of the 18th and the first part of the 19th century, the Lakotas really become a kind of great power in the Northern Plains,” Andrews explains.

Their rise was fueled largely by horses, which transformed mobility, trade, hunting and warfare. As Lakota influence expanded westward, Andrews says they moved into territories claimed by other tribes, including the Crow and Arikara. Those longstanding rivalries later helped explain why some Native groups chose to align themselves with U.S. forces, he says.

The United States and the Lakotas had already fought before Little Bighorn, Andrews notes. During Red Cloud’s War in the 1860s, the Lakotas and their allies successfully resisted U.S. efforts to establish the Bozeman Trail through their territory.

“They would actually win,” Andrews says. “They ended up winning a favorable treaty from the United States in 1868.”

That treaty guaranteed hunting rights in the Powder River Country and recognized Sioux sovereignty over vast territories. Yet even as the ink dried on the agreement, a confluence of factors was building that would ultimately lead to renewed hostilities, says Ramage, an assistant professor whose research focus is Native American and Indigenous history.

Expansion, gold and a new federal policy

By the mid-1870s, Native nations on the Plains faced enormous pressures. The completion of railroads accelerated western settlement, while Custer’s 1874 expedition into the Black Hills triggered a gold rush into lands protected by treaty, Andrews says.

“You basically had this huge influx of American squatters essentially moving illegally into territories that the government had recognized as sovereign Sioux territory,” he adds.

‘What my great-grandmother saw at Little Bighorn’

For many Americans, the Battle of the Little Bighorn is remembered as “Custer’s Last Stand”—a dramatic clash of armies on a Montana hillside where Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and more than 200 soldiers of the 7th Calvary were killed on June 25, 1876.

For Rick Williams, an Oglala Lakota/Northern Cheyenne Native, historian, Indigenous rights advocate and �ֲ��ý Center of the American West former board member, the battle was never just a chapter in a history book.

It was a story passed down through his family in hushed tones, told by his great-grandmother in her native Lakota and Cheyenne and translated into English for him by his grandmother.

“I’m probably one of the few people living today who has a direct connection with someone who was there,” says Williams. “My great-grandmother was born in 1869 … and she was a little girl in the Cheyenne camp during the Battle of the Little Bighorn; she witnessed what happened.

“Growing up, my grandmother and great-grandmother would tell these stories, but they always warned me not to repeat them. They believed they could still get into trouble, possibly from the public or maybe with the government,” he adds. “Even in the 1950s and 1960s, there was still a fear surrounding (Native American) discussions of what happened at Little Bighorn, because Custer was still revered.”

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Ramage argues those developments reflected a broader shift in federal policy and attitudes toward Native nations. By this time, Ramage says the federal government was becoming increasingly willing to ignore existing agreements. In 1871, Congress stopped making treaties with Native nations, signaling that Washington increasingly viewed itself as possessing unilateral authority over Indigenous peoples and their lands.

“Instead of negotiating with Indian nations as they had in the past, a very aggressive United States starts to dictate policy to Indian nations,” Ramage says, “partially because it views them as inferior.”

He places the conflict within a broader era of American territorial expansion.

“The United States was incredibly ‘grabby’ at this moment,” he says, comparing events on the Northern Plains to a broader period of aggressive imperial expansion in which the United States seized more than half of Mexico’s territory in 1848 (through a treaty) and the annexation of Hawaii in 1898 (without a treaty).

“The U.S. wants to finally monopolize power in the Northern Plains—and to do that it had to finally overcome Lakota power,” Ramage says. He adds, “This is not a war that starts because of some sort of misunderstanding. The U.S. started this war, and it started it with the explicit aim of subjugating the Lakotas.”

Destruction of the buffalo

At the same time settlers poured westward, Andrews and Ramage say another force threatened the foundations of Plains Indian life: the destruction of the bison.

Buffalo were essential to Native economies and cultures. They provided food, clothing, shelter materials, trade goods and spiritual meaning. But industrialization suddenly transformed buffalo hides into valuable commodities, Andrews says.

In 1871, a tanning process was developed that allowed buffalo hides to be converted into belts for industrial machinery.

“It was really kind of this remarkable, literal harnessing of these massive herds of wild creatures on the Great Plains that suddenly could become industrial inputs driving American economic growth,” Andrews says.

The consequences were devastating, Andrews and Ramage agree. Commercial hunters armed with long-range rifles slaughtered buffalo in enormous numbers.

“They were really just hide hunting at that point,” Andrews explains. “Usually, they were not even taking the tongues off of the buffalo that they killed but just stripping the hides off and leaving the carcasses to rot.”

Ramage and Andrews agree that federal officials understood the significance of what was happening.

“U.S. military leaders recognized how profoundly Plains Natives depended on bison,” Andrews says. “They understood that attacking bison would serve U.S. national interests.”

Reservations and resistance

At the same time buffalo populations were collapsing, the federal government was attempting to force Native peoples onto reservations, which were intended not merely as places to live but as mechanisms of control, Andrews says.

“Their main way of trying to do this was by establishing reservations and by trying to use food, the provision of rations, to control Native peoples,” he says.

Native leaders disagreed over how best to respond. Some believed accommodation offered the best chance for survival. Others argued for continued independence.

Sioux veterans of the Battle of Little Bighorn (Photo: Library of Congress)

Initially, many Native people were willing to try reservation life, Andrews says. However, federal corruption, underfunding and bureaucratic failures made reservation existence increasingly untenable, he adds.

“Native people who tried to comply with what the United States wanted usually ended up starving,” he says.

By the summer of 1876, many Lakotas and Cheyennes had left the reservations and gathered in the Powder River Country, where treaty rights still guaranteed hunting access. What emerged was one of the largest Native encampments ever assembled on the Northern Plains, Ramage says.

The Army marches into disaster

As the U.S. Army moved to force these groups back onto reservations, Custer and the 7th Cavalry advanced toward the encampment, relying heavily on Native scouts for tracking.

While those scouts reported that it was the largest gathering of Native peoples that anyone had ever witnessed, Andrews says U.S. commanders failed to grasp the true size of the force they faced. On the fateful day of battle, Custer’s detachment of 7th Cavalry members encountered thousands of Native combatants rather than the few hundred they anticipated, he notes.

“The Americans had so badly underestimated what they were up against,” he says.

Ramage argues that this failure extended beyond Custer himself.

“Little Bighorn was arguably an intelligence failure for the United States as a whole—not just Custer,” he says. He blames federal officials for consistently underestimating Lakota power.

Grave markers at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument in Montana. (Photo: Victoria Stauffenberg/National Park Service)

“Many U.S. officials incorrectly assumed they were fighting racial inferiors,” he says. “They were consistently over-confident.”

Defeat at the Little Bighorn

The Battle of the Little Bighorn remains one of the most studied and debated engagements in American history. Andrews cautions that key details remain uncertain because most of Custer’s immediate command died in the fighting.

“We don’t have their perspective, and we never will,” he says.

Historians continue to debate Custer’s decisions and the roles played by subordinates Marcus Reno and Frederick Benteen, both of whom had contentious relationships with their commander.

“Reno and Benteen both despised Custer,” Andrews says.

What is clear is that the Army encountered a vastly larger and more capable force than expected. Native warriors rapidly mobilized from the enormous village and overwhelmed Custer’s detachment of about 200 soldiers. Andrews says he believes the outcome can be attributed in large part to the Cavalry commander’s ego.

“I think really it’s Custer’s arrogance,” he says.

Ramage cautions that focusing solely on tactical mistakes can distract from the larger strategy being pursued by the Army.

“From my perspective,” he says, “there is a way in which focusing on (Custer’s) strategic blunders … seriously overlooks the fact that the ‘successful’ U.S. military strategy at this moment was often defined by horrific attacks on vulnerable non-combatants.”

For Natives, victory in battle, defeat in war

News of the defeat shocked Americans, Andrews and Ramage agree.

The battle occurred during the nation's centennial year, a period Andrews describes as marked by economic depression, political corruption and uncertainty. The death of a famous cavalry officer and the destruction of his command seemed almost unimaginable, he says.

At the same time, the battle quickly became part of a national mythology. Andrews says the story of “Custer’s Last Stand” helped transform a military disaster into a narrative of heroic sacrifice.

Meanwhile, for Native peoples, their victory proved short-lived.

“The government was dead set on retribution and on securing eventual victory,” Andrews says. He notes that federal authorities intensified military operations, tightened ration policies and increasingly used hunger as a method of coercion.

“The government essentially tries to starve Native peoples into submission,” he says.

By the spring of 1877, most Native groups had surrendered or fled to Canada.

Ramage says the Army’s defeat at Little Bighorn did not change the government’s end objectives.

This is not a war that starts because of some sort of misunderstanding. The U.S. started this war, and it started it with the explicit aim of subjugating the Lakotas."

“The U.S. was deeply committed to its military goals,” he says, “and even a humiliating defeat at Little Bighorn would not and did not change its course in terms of policy.”

Lasting consequences still felt today

With the subjugation of these Northern Plains tribes, the U.S. government reduced the size of the Great Sioux Reservation, seized the Black Hills despite treaty protections and intensified its campaign to assimilate Native peoples.

Even today, the legacy remains unresolved. Andrews notes that Lakotas never accepted the seizure of the Black Hills. While federal courts later approved financial compensation, the Lakotas rejected monetary settlements. “They actually want the land,” he notes.

For Ramage, the ongoing dispute illustrates that Little Bighorn’s significance extends well beyond a single military engagement. The battle occurred during a period when the federal government increasingly abandoned treaty-making and asserted unilateral authority over Native nations—a shift with consequences that are still being debated today.

“This is a war with one very clear aggressor: the United States,” he says.

Meanwhile, the battle’s memory continues to evolve. Once commonly remembered as “Custer’s Last Stand,” Andrews and Ramage say modern historians increasingly place the conflict within the broader context of Native resistance, U.S. expansion and the struggle for Indigenous sovereignty. The historians say tribal histories, oral traditions and Native perspectives have become a more prominent part of the story, challenging earlier interpretations that focused almost exclusively on Custer and the 7th Cavalry.

For Andrews, that continuing conversation is evidence that the battle remains relevant.

“The histories and its legacies are still absolutely active in Indian country,” he says. “There are still so many unresolved issues.”

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CU �ֲ��ý historians Thomas Andrews and Noah Ramage argue that the seeds of Little Bighorn, which happened 150 years ago, were planted years before Custer’s defeat.

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Top painting: "The Custer Fight" by Charles Marion Russell, 1903

‘What my great-grandmother saw at Little Bighorn’

Rachel Sauer — Tue, 14 Jul 2026 15:49:24 +0000

‘What my great-grandmother saw at Little Bighorn’ Rachel Sauer Tue, 07/14/2026 - 09:49

Bradley Worrell

CU �ֲ��ý Center of the American West former board member Rick Williams shares family insights into the historic battle and offers thoughts on how perceptions have changed over time

It was a story passed down through his family in hushed tones, told by his great-grandmother in her native Lakota and Cheyenne and translated into English for him by his grandmother.

For Rick Williams, an Oglala Lakota/Northern Cheyenne Native, historian, Indigenous rights advocate and previous board member of the CU �ֲ��ý Center of the American West, the Battle of Little Bighorn was never just a chapter in a history book.

With this summer marking the 150th anniversary of the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine recently spoke with Williams, who shared his family recollections and why he’s encouraged to see that American perceptions of the battle and Native Americans have changed over the years.

Question: What did your great-grandmother tell you about the battle? What details differed from historical accounts?

Williams: According to my great-grandmother’s account, she and a cousin had been playing near the river when (Cheyenne) scouts warned them to return to camp. Instead, they stopped where they could watch what was happening. …

According to those accounts, warriors were concealed along the river and ambushed Custer’s force as it crossed. The attack created immediate confusion and disorganization. Some soldiers were thrown from their horses and others fled up nearby draws and ridges.

As soldiers attempted to retreat uphill, another group of Lakota or Cheyenne warriors arrived from a different direction after hearing the gunfire. That left Custer’s men with no avenue of escape. That’s why the traditional image of a carefully organized ‘Last Stand’ doesn’t fit some Native accounts. The soldiers never had the opportunity to establish an effective defensive formation.

There are many versions of what happened, and every story seems to have several variations. But one thing is clear: The battle was far more complicated than the traditional narrative suggests. …

One story my great-grandmother told me was children at the camp going among the dead cavalry men after the battle. The children would open the soldiers’ money belts and throw the contents into the air. She said, ‘I didn’t know it was money. If I had known, I would have saved some.’

These were oral stories I learned firsthand.

Later, I told that story at a history conference in Billings. A prominent historian said it couldn’t be true. He argued that Custer’s men wouldn’t have been carrying that kind of money in the field.

By then, I had done extensive research in military archives. I learned that every military post kept monthly reports called post returns. When I examined the records from Fort Lincoln, I found that just before the expedition left, Custer had drawn two months’ pay for his men. The records also noted that the money was distributed before moving into the campaign area. So, the documents supported my great-grandmother’s story.

Beyond Custer’s Last Stand: The forces that led to the Battle of the Little Bighorn

But according to �ֲ��ý historians Thomas G. Andrews and Noah Ramage, that familiar story obscures a much larger and more complex reality.

Learn more

Question: Are there other notable details from your grandmother’s account or from your own research on the battle that differ from the traditional narrative?

Williams: Part of my research suggests a gap between the public narrative and what Native people remember. For example, there was a claim that Custer’s body was not mutilated because he was respected by Native people. However, accounts passed down in my family tell a different story. …

The Cheyenne knew who Custer was. Unlike some other groups, they had prior history with him, particularly after the Washita campaign. There was an old story that after the peace ceremony, a Cheyenne spiritual leader emptied pipe ashes onto Custer’s boots and warned him never to come among their people again or he would be killed.

According to Native accounts, Custer was shot in the river (at Little Bighorn) … and a Cheyenne warrior then cut out his heart, held it up and declared that (the spiritual leader’s) warning had finally been carried out. You’ll never find that story in most written accounts. It’s an oral tradition that was passed down within families. …

Another thing that often gets overlooked in history is Native intelligence and military skill. The military capabilities of the Native nations were routinely underestimated. Yet, at Little Bighorn, they demonstrated superior knowledge of the terrain, superior scouting and effective coordination.

History is complicated. If you really wanted a complete understanding of Little Bighorn, you’d need accounts from the Lakota, the Cheyenne, the Crow scouts (for the cavalry), (Custer’s subordinate Captain) Reno and everyone else involved. No single narrative tells the whole story.

Question: Why do you think the accounts of Native Americans who were present at the battle were not given the same credence—at least initially—as secondary accounts regarding Custer and his men, who did not live to tell their stories?

Williams: For many years, historians largely ignored or dismissed Cheyenne accounts. One reason was simple: The Cheyenne used a different directional system. Their cardinal directions were based on Bear Butte—one of their most sacred landmarks. When historians translated Cheyenne stories using conventional directions, the stories seemed inaccurate.

In the 1980s, after a fire at Little Bighorn exposed new archaeological evidence, archeologist Richard Fox studied the battlefield extensively. Working with researchers familiar with Cheyenne traditions, he found that when the directional references were properly understood, Cheyenne accounts matched the archeological evidence remarkably well. In some cases, they were more accurate than any other version of events.

Question: Do you think American public perceptions of the battle have changed in your lifetime?

Williams: Absolutely. Fifty or 60 years ago, criticizing Custer publicly was difficult. Many people viewed him as a heroic figure, and there were passionate defenders of that interpretation.

I think that’s one reason my grandmother cautioned me not to repeat certain stories; there was a real concern about how people would react.

Over the years, Native perspectives have gained greater recognition. The interpretation at the battlefield itself has changed, and the visitor center now presents a more balanced story.

From a Native perspective, outsiders were entering and occupying someone else’s homeland. History sounds very different when viewed from that angle."

The archeological work done after the battlefield fire was especially important because it challenged longstanding assumptions. At the same time, Native voices became harder to ignore.

Question: Are there still elements of the historical narrative regarding western expansion before and after the battle that you think are largely unchanged in American culture?

Williams: One issue that still bothers me is the language some people use when talking about western expansion. The traditional story often describes settlers moving peacefully into empty territory and being attacked by savage tribes. But native people lived on that land already.

From a Native perspective, outsiders were entering and occupying someone else’s homeland. History sounds very different when viewed from that angle.

Question: If Little Bighorn had ended differently, do you think the history of the West would have changed substantially?

Williams: That’s difficult to answer. The battle took place in 1876—the nation’s centennial year. Because of that timing, the event became highly symbolic. It captured the nation’s attention in a way that few other battles could have.

Had the outcome been different, perhaps some things would have changed, but larger forces were already in motion. There was tremendous pressure for western expansion. Public attitudes toward Native people were deeply entrenched. Government policies were already moving in certain directions. Even without Little Bighorn, many of those forces would still have existed.

For generations, Native nations experienced policies designed to assimilate, relocate or absorb Native peoples into mainstream society. Those policies affected nearly every aspect of life.

Even today, many tribes remain constrained by federal systems that affect their ability to govern themselves and develop their economies.

Question: Some 150 years after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, do you have thoughts on how the American public views Native Americans?

Williams: Despite everything, I believe one thing has improved dramatically: People don’t view Native Americans the same way they did 50 or 60 years ago. For much of earlier American history, Native people were often portrayed as enemies, obstacles or relics of the past.

Today, more people are willing to listen. They’re looking at the historical record and saying, ‘We didn’t get this completely right.’ That’s encouraging.

I hope the next 50 years involve more than simply acknowledging mistakes. I hope they include real efforts to rebuild communities and create opportunities.

People sometimes talk about reconstruction efforts in other parts of the world after wars and disasters. Native communities have often needed similar investments but have rarely received them. There is still a great deal of work to be done.

But for the first time in a while, I think more people are willing to have an honest conversation about history—and that’s a good place to start.

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CU �ֲ��ý Center of the American West former board member Rick Williams shares family insights into the historic battle and offers thoughts on how perceptions have changed over time.

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Top image: "Indian Memorial" by Colleen Cutschall, a senior Oglala-Sicangu Lakota artist originally from Pine Ridge, South Dakota, at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument. (Photo: National Park Service)

CU alumna fights to educate girls in the world’s youngest country

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 08 Jul 2026 15:36:07 +0000

CU alumna fights to educate girls in the world’s youngest country Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/08/2026 - 09:36

Cody DeBos

In South Sudan, change happens when girls pick up books, says Micklina Kenyi

Before a girl opens her eyes in South Sudan or in a refugee camp across the border, her day is likely already spoken for.

There is water to fetch, meals to cook and siblings to care for. In families stretched thin by poverty and regional instability, she may be sent to work in a neighbor’s household, her wages handed directly to her parents until it’s time to marry.

School, if an option at all, belongs to her brothers.

CU �ֲ��ý alumna Micklina Kenyi fled the now-South Sudan as a child and built the nonprofit Girls With Books! to support girls there in attaining education.

This is simply the way of life in South Sudan, a fledgling country celebrating 15 years of independence July 9.

Micklina Kenyi grew up in this world and knows it well. Now the �ֲ��ý alumna is working to change the outlook on education in South Sudan one girl at a time.

From refugee to advocate

Kenyi fled what is now South Sudan as a young child, spending years crossing borders and running between villages, orphanages and refugee camps before arriving in the United States in 2003 as part of the Lost Girls of Sudan program.

She eventually made her way to Colorado and CU �ֲ��ý, where she earned dual bachelor’s degrees in political science and women and gender studies.

“I felt these majors would help me understand the politics going on the in U.S. and in South Sudan. I wanted to understand the question: ‘Why are people using women and ignoring women?’” Kenyi says.

She also wanted to research why harmful cultural practices are consistently forced on women and whether women in South Sudan were alone in facing them. Unsurprisingly, they aren’t.

After learning of similar experiences lived out by women across India, China, Eastern Europe, Africa and indigenous communities in America, a conviction took shape.

“It is only going to be women who can liberate themselves, and only women to be advocates for themselves and come up with programs that will elevate the situation of all women. Why? Because we understand what it’s like and what it takes to change things,” Kenyi says.

With this perspective, Kenyi leaned on her education to start building what would eventually become the �ֲ��ý-based nonprofit Girls With Books!, where she serves as executive director.

Building Girls With Books!

The organization’s roots trace back along the very pathways through which Kenyi found herself arriving in the United States.

“It was once possible to bring girls to the U.S. the same way that I came, through legal process, so I thought maybe I could do something like that,” she says.

Unfortunately, that pathway closed as the political landscape in Sudan and South Sudan shifted. But rather than giving up, Kenyi and Girls With Books! has developed an approach that brings education to the girls in their own hometowns.

“The mission of Girls With Books! is to educate South Sudanese girls to become peacebuilders and positive change-makers in South Sudan,” says Micklina Kenyi. (Photo: Micklina Kenyi)

“We provide education for South Sudanese girls in Juba and Bor cities, as well as in northern Ugandan refugee camps. Our program covers primary and secondary education, including post-graduation courses like computer skills and entrepreneurship,” Kenyi says.

The program funds tuition and room and board at private schools to address the limitations of government-run public schools. It also provides girls with uniforms, school supplies, toiletries and feminine hygiene products.

“The mission of Girls With Books! is to educate South Sudanese girls to become peacebuilders and positive change-makers in South Sudan,” Kenyi says.

That’s an uphill battle in a country where fewer than 5% of girls graduate high school. However, Kenyi says most girls jump at the chance to go to school when an opportunity becomes available and thrive once there.

For a girl whose day was once consumed by labor and household chores, graduating from school opens new doors. Some go on to university, others start businesses, and even those who marry soon after graduating carry their education forward.

“They carry with them the knowledge and skills learned in school and become moms who are better equipped to raise children who usually have better health and education outcomes than most,” Kenyi says.

For those who want to pursue a future outside the home, jobs are scarce, Kenyi says, which is why Girls With Books! seeks to equip graduates with practical skills in addition to a good education.

“The program includes post-graduate work in computer training and job-readiness skills like interviewing, networking and resume writing. Armed with some of these practical skills, graduates have a greater potential to be hired,” she explains.

In 2025, Girls With Books! supported 116 South Sudanese schoolgirls, a number expected to grow to 150 this year. (Photo: Micklina Kenyi)

Fifteen years and building

This July marks 15 years since South Sudan declared independence. Building a new country from the ground up is arduous work, and there is still much to be done.

“South Sudan has not yet realized its potential as a new independent country,” Kenyi says.

She calls out the endemic corruption that has diverted oil revenue—the country’s main source of income—away from roads, hospitals, schools and civil servants a young nation desperately needs.

Meanwhile, ongoing fighting disrupts students’ routines and complicates operations on the ground for organizations like Kenyi’s.

“Some of the biggest challenges to the work of Girls With Books! are the lack of focus, by the government, on building the country’s infrastructure and investing in the educational system and in civil society,” Kenyi notes.

Yet the girls keep showing up.

“There is, however, surprising resilience among the young students we work with, and their sense of hope often reminds us how important our presence is for their futures,” she adds.

Pitching in

Over time, Kenyi and Girls With Books! have identified a formula that works. In 2025, the organization supported 116 South Sudanese girls, and Kenyi expects to raise that number to 150 this year.

The next challenge is scaling their impact even further.

“Our hope is that we can find enough funding to implement these programs on a national basis, so that young women can begin to impact the directions of the country and to cement the commitment to a peaceful society,” Kenyi says.

Of course, finances aren’t everything. For those interested in contributing beyond a donation, Kenyi says Girls With Books! welcomes volunteers to help with communications, program design and fundraising efforts.

“Also reaching out to students in U.S. schools so students here can better understand the realities of life in countries like South Sudan,” she adds.

Much like its future as a country, the story of South Sudan’s next generation is still being written. Thanks to the work of Kenyi and Girls With Books!, girls in Juba, Bor and the surrounding areas are in class, ensuring they have a fair chance to be the ones who write it.

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In South Sudan, change happens when girls pick up books, says Micklina Kenyi.

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Top image: Girls at school in South Sudan (Photo: Micklina Kenyi)

GOALLLLL! What makes soccer fans different?

Rachel Sauer — Wed, 01 Jul 2026 19:22:41 +0000

GOALLLLL! What makes soccer fans different? Rachel Sauer Wed, 07/01/2026 - 13:22

A fan watches the June 23 Uzbekistan v. Colombia match at the 2026 FIFA Fan Fest in Mexico City. (Photo: ProtoplasmaKid/Wikimedia Commons)

Kaio Kish

As the ongoing FIFA World Cup is showing, says CU �ֲ��ý sports scholar Jared Bahir Browsh, nationalism and longtime loyalties set soccer fans apart

Every four years, the world comes together for one sport: soccer—“football” to the rest of the world—as teams compete for national glory in the FIFA World Cup. Fans of powerhouse national teams like Argentina, Brazil and Spain have long shown immense passion for their teams and the sport.

Recently, though, the U.S. men’s national team has started to gain some traction, especially after its exciting victories over Paraguay and Australia in this year's FIFA World Cup, which is scheduled through July 19.

Even as the U.S. men’s national team gains popularity among fans, though, there still seems to be a distinct separation between the fans of this country and the fanatics of others. Jarad Bahir Browsh, director of the Critical Sports Studies program in the �ֲ��ý Department of Ethnic Studies, explains that while U.S. soccer fandom may lack the passion and devotion seen in many other parts of the world, there are signs it’s catching up.

Jared Bahir Browsh is the Critical Sports Studies program director in the CU �ֲ��ý Department of Ethnic Studies.

Just tape and some rubber bands

Browsh points to the United Kingdom as an example of this national difference: “So many small towns (in the U.K.) have soccer teams, and so you have this kind of passionate connection (to the local team). Wrexham is a perfect example.”

Wrexham Association Football Club is a Welsh club soccer team founded in 1864 that started out just below the professional divisions of the English Football League (EFL). In 2020, actors Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney took over the team, beginning a success streak that saw the Wrexham team move into the EFL, just below the top tier, the Premier League.

The number of leagues and teams in U.K. divisions makes moving up incredibly challenging for smaller teams, so when it happens, it brings a great sense of community to each fan base. Wrexham is a post-industrial Welsh town that had little pop culture notoriety until Reynolds and McElhenney took over. Since the new ownership and the club’s fairy tale success, it’s meant a great deal to the community and is a prominent unifying factor in the small town of Wrexham.

Smaller-town clubs also highlight the accessibility of soccer—not just watching it as a fan, but playing it, Browsh notes.

“It just takes a ball, but even then people are creating balls out of tape and rubber bands. So, people figure out a way to play the sport,” he says. “Our comparable sport (in the United States) is basketball, and basketball is the second most popular sport globally, but it doesn’t have that kind of system (of global leagues and divisions that soccer does).”

One U.S. sports community that comes close to the fervor of global soccer fandom is NCAA Southeastern Conference football. Fans of college teams like Alabama, Auburn, Georgia and Kentucky are known nationwide for their passion for their teams. But, Browsh adds, football has a short season while “soccer is year-long when you factor in these cup tournaments and the international club tournaments. Soccer is constant in many places.”

Catching up

U.S. soccer is gradually moving toward the year-round schedule seen in a lot of the world, Browsh says. For example, North American Major League Soccer and the NCAA are adapting their schedules to align with European schedules.

"We're trying to tap into that fandom, which is over a century in the making,” Browsh says. Even the United States’ oldest sports—specifically baseball—don’t “have that same community connection as some of the smaller teams in Europe and other countries have.”

And when it comes to the World Cup, Browsh says, “You get the combination of fandom along with the national connection that leads to this fanaticism we see at all the celebrations.” In some ways, it just means more for these nations than it does for the United States because of this immense build up and passion for the sport, he explains. Also, the World Cup only happens every four years, which means there’s just that much more on the line.

Plus, many Americans whose families emigrated from other countries don’t tend to root for the United States, either, Browsh says. “I have friends who are Italian, Irish or Scottish, and so they root for those national teams partly because the U.S. has not been as good on the men’s side in (soccer), and some of that is because of the cultural connections and it’s passed down from other family members,” he says.

Soccer and politics

Despite the United States trailing the rest of the world in soccer participation and fandom, hosting the World Cup is still significant for the nation, Browsh says.

A fan watches the June 23 Uzbekistan v. Colombia match at the 2026 FIFA Fan Fest in Mexico City. (Photo: ProtoplasmaKid/Wikimedia Commons)

“It means a lot right now. The tough thing is it’s hard to ignore that the political climate is impacting it,” he says. He cites a lot of negative news about certain players or referees in the lead up to the World Cup—including a Somalian referee who was forced to return to Somalia after being denied entry to the United States—which made international headlines.

Browsh also mentions that the Iranian national team had to immediately return to Mexico, where members were based, after playing in the United States. “It was even a question if Iran was going to show up,” he says.

Geopolitical realities like these can make it hard for fans of these teams to experience the joy that soccer brings them. And beyond the politics, Browsh cites another wedge that has hindered the U.S. World Cup hospitality: FIFA-set ticket prices.

In particular, Browsh cites FIFA President Gianni Infantino’s seemingly dismissive comments about the visa issues, with Infantino “saying, ‘Chill out’ and ‘relax.’ There’s a growing divide between the leadership of FIFA and the fans, and we’re coming head to head with it this World Cup.”

Browsh says the 2030 World Cup, which will be hosted in Spain, Portugal and Morocco with a special game in Uruguay—in what will be the 100th anniversary of the first World Cup—may be a litmus test. “It will be interesting to see if they can take care of (ticket pricing and alientation with fans),” he explains.

And while FIFA decided ticket pricing, the U.S. ticket market—dominated as it is by Live Nation and its subsidiary Ticketmaster, which a Manhattan jury declared a monopoly earlier this year along with the resale market—aren’t helping, Browsh says.

Do up-and-comers have a chance?

Despite the issues, though, the 2026 World Cup has still delivered many of the things fans hope for, including underdog stories. Cabo Verde’s June 15 draw against Spain—an international soccer powerhouse and a favorite to win the World Cup—as well as Ghana’s recent tie against England, demonstrate how teams from the African Federation are taking on heavily funded teams from Europe and Latin America.

“I think we underestimated the African Federation,” Browsh says, “and they have grown leaps and bounds. It keeps their players coming back to the national team after getting high-level training from European clubs.”

Part of African Federation teams’ ascendancy, Browsh adds, may be due in part to FIFA increasing the number of teams in World Cup competition from 32 to 48.

“Some of these bigger teams were not quite prepared for how good these up-and-coming federations are,” he says. “It’s interesting, too, because in a way the United States is actually an up-and-coming federation on the men’s side.”

Finally, a U.S. soccer star

As something of an up-and-coming soccer federation, the U.S. men’s team is working to catch up with its international colleagues in one area that global teams have long excelled: producing stars. Christian Pulisic, a multi-position player, is being broadly credited with bringing a certain stardom to the U.S. men’s team and being a player that even non-fans know by name.

Browsh does, however, advise caution in the process of star-making: “I think we should also be promoting other players. Nothing against Pulisic, but it’s always a danger, especially with some of his injury history, to be like, ‘This is the player you should focus on,’” he says, adding that it makes Pulisic a target.

Maybe because the United States is one of three World Cup host nations this year, U.S. soccer fandom does seem stronger this year, Browsh says. “We’re actually at least going to be competitive this year; we’re in a winnable group.”

The U.S. team’s winning potential is a departure from 2018, when the team didn’t even qualify for the World Cup, to 2022, when its run for the cup ended in a tie against England. But as for whether the United States will ever be a nation of soccer fanatics on the level of European, Latin American or African fans, Browsh says, time and this World Cup will tell.

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As the ongoing FIFA World Cup is showing, says CU �ֲ��ý sports scholar Jared Bahir Browsh, nationalism and longtime loyalties set soccer fans apart.

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Top photo: Ecuador fans during Côte d'Ivoire v Ecuador match on June 14 at the 2026 FIFA World Cup. (Photo: Bryan Belrin/Wikimedia Commons)

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