Wednesday, April 5, 12, 19 & 26 12:00-2:00 pm. South Coast Senior College Class- Persia, now Iran. Most of what Americans know about Persia comes from the Greeks via the Persian wars — Thermopylae, Pheidippides and the Battle of Marathon, the naval battle at Salamis, Cyrus the Great, Xerxes, and Darius. We know little or nothing of what a great empire ancient Persia was. Most of the rest of what we know flows from post-1979 when Iranians seized the U.S. embassy in Teheran and held 52 foreign service officers hostage for 444 days. We are taught little or nothing of Persia’s place in the world from the ancients to the moderns, or of its critical location which constantly tempted Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and more recently the West during the Cold War and the Age of Oil. We will start this class, not at the beginning of time, but now, with the rise of the Islamic Republic of Iran in 1979. Only then will we return to the beginning. Instructed by Lou Salome, Lou is the author of “Violence, Veils, and Bloodlines: Reporting from War zones in Europe, Asia, and Africa”. He earned a BS from the College of the Holy Cross and a MA from Boston College. He is a retired COX Newspapers reporter who has covered the conflicts in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. Online registration is required to do this, please visit https://south-coast-senior-college.coursestorm.com or call South Coast Senior College at 274-3105. Payment and registration for the class are through South Coast Senior College. The Louis T. Graves Memorial Public Library is located at 18 Maine Street, Kennebunkport, visit our website at www.graveslibrary.org.