Although more than 2000 years of history is impossible to compact into a 45-minute PowerPoint, students said Dr. Paul Teverow’s brown bag event delivered.

Teverow, professor of history, gave the first brown bag luncheon Wed., Sept. 6, when he broke down the 12 most important turning points of French History in his French History for Dummies lecture.

The lecture, which had limited seats available, was a full house.

Every ticket available was reserved the day before the event. And that is part of the reason why tickets for next week’s event are already available for reservations the day after Teverow’s lecture.

Teverow covered everything from the beginnings of French dialects to the Napoleonic years through current day events. He focused on his selected turning points, skipping some things that students may have found important but understandable.

“It was a pretty good overview of French history,” said John Conrace, sophomore international studies major. “He left out a lot but that was expected because of the time restraints.

“It’s the year 2006 and he started in pre-historic times with the Celts and the Romans.”

Conrace said he attended the event because it is part of the requirements for his international semester perspectives class but he would have attended anyways.

“There was free food,” Conrace said. “And since I just went to France and knew most this stuff anyway I was interested in learning anything I didn’t already know. Like the name of the first king of France.”

Even students who knew nothing about French history before attending the luncheon said they learned something.

Preston Smith, junior biochemistry major, said he only attended the event because his girlfriend was attending and the two always eat lunch together.

He said the only thing he knew about French history before was that France had been through several political changes in the last 200 years. But after the event, he has broadened considerably his knowledge of French history.

For more information on upcoming France semester events or to reserve your tickets for next week’s brown bag event, Downright Swine and Proud of it, a presentation by Dr. Ann Wyman, assistant professor of political science, please contact Dr. Chad Stebbins, Director of the Institute of International Studies.