The Univeristy of Tulsa's free-to-the-public Presidential Lecture Series, sponsored by the Darcy O'Brien Endowed Chair, will soon get underway here on the TU campus. The first lecture in this annual series, scheduled for tomorrow night (Wednesday the 3rd) at 7:30pm at the Donald W. Reynolds Center, will feature the acclaimed author and journalist Charles C. Mann, whose work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Vanity Fair, National Geographic, The Atlantic Monthly, and elsewhere. Mann, who's our guest on this edition of ST, is perhaps best known for his bestselling history books, "1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus" and "1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus Created." And so he participates in a fascinating chat with us today about the world that existed before (and after) Columbus arrived in New World -- and about how that arrival (and its aftermath) was so deeply misunderstood for so many years. And further, as has been noted at the TU website, Mann's upcoming lecture "also sets the stage for the Sept. 6-7 grand opening of Gilcrease Museum's Helmerich Center for American Research by providing an overview of the pre-Columbus Americas."