Can you store iPhoto events on an external hard drive?

I am a professional photographer and work in iPhoto (yes, also use Photoshop, Aperture, etc.), but organize all my photos by the events in iPhoto for quick and easy viewing, e-mailing, sharing with other applications, etc.
All my photography events are eating up my hard drive memory quite fast and I also backup everything on a 1TB external WD Hard Drive.
I'm curious to know if there is a way I can delete my events from iPhoto on my computer's hard drive and have it read only from my external drive?  I'd like to have my personal photos available on my computer's hard drive and event photos in iPhoto on my external drive (and not eat up a ton of memory).  Essentially, every time I open up iPhoto with my external hard drive plugged in, I'd like to see all my photos by events. 
Is there a way I can do this?
Thank you in advance!!!

Interesting - and thank you for the speedy reply John!
So if I wanted all my wedding photography on a different 'library' on my external hard drive I would simply hold down "option" when opening up iPhoto and create a new library on my external drive?  This way, I can easily switch between my professional work and my personal work?  Every time I wanted to switch I would simply hold down "option" when loading up iPhoto? 
Would my Time Machine Back-up also back-up my library on my external hard drive?  I presume that the answer here is no, however, thought I would ask anyway.  Not sure how comfortable I feel about leaving all my photos only on an external drive not backed up in anyway. 
If you are able, please do let me know your thoughts - thanks!

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