During the American Revolution, smallpox was rampant in the American colonies. George Washington, who had contracted smallpox when he was 19, knew that something had to be done to protect his troops, so he ordered a crude form of inoculation for the soldiers.

Sean C. Halverson, a specialist in Early American military history, will speak about this little-known aspect of the American Revolution as part of the Phi Alpha Theta Speaker Series. The talk, “Washington, Smallpox, and How Inoculation Saved the Revolution,” will be via Zoom at 6 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 10.

Halverson is an assistant professor of history at Alabama A&M University. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in history at the University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh, a Master of Arts in history from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, and a doctorate in U.S. history from Mississippi State University.

He specializes in Early American history in the Atlantic world and has published articles in peer-reviewed journals. Some of his most recent articles have appeared in the journals Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal, the Huntsville Historical Review, and Intelligence and National Security.

Watch via Zoom.

Phi Alpha Theta is an honor society for undergraduate and graduate students and history professors, with more than 400,000 members nationwide.

The event is sponsored by the Department of History and the Prothro-Yeager College of Humanities and Social Sciences. Admission is free and open to the public. Contact Associate Professor of History Whitney Snow at whitney.snow@msutexas.edu or 940-397-8917 for more information.