The event, titled “America @ 250: Celebrating Freedom’s Giant Leap,” is at 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 16, in Stewart Center’s Fowler Hall. The event is free and open to the general public, but a ticket is required. For tickets and additional details, go here. This event will mark the first for Daniels since he returned to Purdue as interim president in July. Daniels launched the lecture series in 2014, his first full year as Purdue’s president.

Atkinson is the author of the New York Times bestselling “The British Are Coming: The War for America, Lexington to Princeton, 1775-1777,” the first volume of his acclaimed Revolution Trilogy. The second volume in the planned trilogy, “The Fate of the Day: The War for America, Fort Ticonderoga to Charleston, 1777-1780,” was the New York Times No. 1 nonfiction bestseller when published in 2025. The book continued Atkinson’s sweeping narrative of the Revolution, capturing the conflict’s critical middle years with vivid storytelling and deep historical insight.

Atkinson served as a historical advisor and an on-camera commentator for Ken Burns’ PBS documentary series “The American Revolution,” which commemorates the nation’s 250th anniversary.

Launched in 2014, the Presidential Lecture Series exposes Purdue students and the broader community to inspiring ideas, courageous leadership, and models of civic engagement and civil discourse. The Presidential Lecture Series has hosted some of the great intellectual, business and civic leaders of our time.

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