Segment 1: From Abilene to KC: The history of Sprint.
It's a multi-billion dollar company with thousands of local employees. But did you know that Sprint got its start in Abilene, Kansas? Over a century ago, a farmer-turned-businessman started stringing lines through town and bought up local independent telephone companies. Hear how the company grew from there.
- Michael Hook, Director, Dickinson County Heritage Center
- John Hoffman, author of That Was a Pin? and retired Senior Vice President of External Affairs at Sprint
Segment 2, beginning at 24:47: How many people populated the Americas?
A KU professor has determined that just 250 people made up the original founding population of the Americas. How he and his collaborators did their research to come up with that number.
- Michael Crawford, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Kansas
Segment 3, beginning at 40:56: Fingerprinting and modern criminal forensics.
Fingerprinting has been around since the time of the ancient Egyptians. But in the U.S., we've only been using fingerprints to identify criminals for just over 100 years. In this encore presentation, we take a look at how the technique developed in the KC area.
- Stephen Spence, National Archives at Kansas City, Missouri
- Kenneth LaMaster, author, historian and retired prison guard at the United States Penitentiary, Leavenworth
