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susan.soto@asu.edu | 480-965-3506 – New guest co-host Eduardo Pagán, professor of history at Arizona State University – A PBS audience favorite, critical success and armchair historians’ must-see, History Detectives debuts its seventh season this month. Returning are the four History Detectives: Wesley Cowan, independent appraiser and auctioneer; Elyse Luray, independent appraiser and expert in art history; Gwendolyn Wright, historian and professor of architecture, Columbia University; and Tukufu Zuberi, professor of sociology and the director of the Center for Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania. Joining the team this season is new guest co-host Eduardo Pagán, professor of history at Arizona State University. For his first story, Professor Pagán leads an expedition that reveals an especially wild chapter of the American West. History Detectives “Pancho Villa Watch Fob” airs Monday, June 22, 2009 at 9 p.m. on Eight/KAET.― Just before he died, a man gave his neighbors a most unusual gift: a watch fob commemorating Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s murderous raid on the border town of Columbus, New Mexico. The man says he was a boy when the raid occurred in 1916, and he and his parents survived by hiding under a train car. The new owners want to know more about this watch fob. Who made it? Did their friend indeed witness this infamous raid? Professor Pagán investigates Francisco “Pancho” Villa’s reputed raid on the New Mexico town. Also in the first episode, the detectives research a story about a machine that may have been intended to record messages from the dead and explore the war dogs program during WWII. Season seven of History Detectives features a broad range of historical periods, multiple cultures and fascinating personalities. Among the questions the detectives will answer this summer are:
History Detectives is truly interactive television: three-quarters of the items featured on the series are culled from thousands of viewers’ submissions and chosen for their potential historical significance. Of these, close to 30 items a season are investigated by the History Detectives, who travel coast-to-coast using forensic technology and detective work to uncover an item’s origin, validity and worth. Bottom line — is it the real thing or a fake? This summer, the History Detectives will prove once again that an object found in an attic or backyard might be anything but ordinary.
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