American Experience
A series showcasing documentaries on American history.
Genre: Documentary, Biography, History
Cast:David McCullough , David Ogden Stiers , Michael Murphy , Oliver Platt , Joe Morton , Linda Hunt , Campbell Scott , Liev Schreiber , Will Lyman , Philip Bosco , Blair Brown , Brendan Gill , Eli Wallach , John Steele Gordon , Robert A. Caro , George Plimpton , Callie Thorne , Robert A.M. Stern
S1.E1 ∙ The Great San Francisco Earthquake
An account of the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent effort to rebuild.
S1.E2 ∙ Radio Bikini
It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a nuclear test. Shows great footage from these times and tells the story of the US Navy Sailors who were exposed to radioactive fallout. One interviewed sailor suffered grotesquely swollen limbs and he is shown being interviewed with enormous left arm and hand.
S1.E3 ∙ Indians, Outlaws, and Angie Debo
A profile of historian Angie Debo and her exposure of the governmental conspiracy to steal mineral-rich lands from their tribal owners.
S1.E4 ∙ Eric Sevareid's Not So Wild a Dream
Journalist Eric Sevareid recounts his experiences growing up during the Great Depression and World War II.
S1.E6 ∙ Do You Mean There Are Still Real Cowboys?
A look at modern-day cowboys in the Wyoming Rockies.
S1.E7 ∙ Kennedy vs. Wallace: A Crisis Up Close
Filmmaker Robert Drew updates his 1963 documentary Crisis: Behind a Presidential Commitment (1963) which followed the confrontation between President Kennedy and Alabama governor George Wallace.
S1.E8 ∙ Geronimo and the Apache Resistance
The life of Geronimo, as told by the Chiricahua Apaches.
S1.E9 ∙ Let Us Now Praise Famous Men: Revisited
Writer James Agee and photographer Walker Evans revisit the Alabama tenant system depicted in their 1936 book "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men".
S1.E11 ∙ The Radio Priest
The story of Father Charles Coughlin who, during the Depression, used the radio to protest against what he saw as society's ills.
S1.E12 ∙ Hearts and Hands
The historical events of nineteenth-century America as depicted in the quilts of the country's women.
S1.E13 ∙ Views of a Vanishing Frontier
An exploration of the Native Americans of 1830s western America, as seen through the eyes of European travelers Prince Maximilian of Bavaria and Swiss artist Karl Bodmer.
S1.E14 ∙ Eudora Welty: One Writer's Beginnings
A profile on American writer Eudora Welty.
S1.E15 ∙ The World That Moses Built
Documentary about architect Robert Moses who is responsible for public works projects like the Lincoln Center and the United Nations in New York.
S1.E16 ∙ Sins of Our Mothers: The Story of Emeline
The story of Emeline Bachelder, an early 19th-century New Englander who married a younger man - only to discover that he was the son she had give up when she was fourteen.
S2.E1 ∙ The Great Air Race of 1924
Follows the 1924 attempt by four U.S. Army Air Corps biplanes to circumnavigate the globe.
S2.E2 ∙ Demon Rum
The spread of Prohibition from Henry Ford's Detroit factories nationwide
S2.E3 ∙ A Family Gathering
Lise Yasui explores three generations of her Japanese-American family - from their immigration to Oregon in the early 1900s through their imprisonment in internment camps during World War Two.
S2.E5 ∙ Forever Baseball
A nostalgic treatment of the national pastime and its meaning in history.
S2.E6 ∙ Mr. Sears' Catalogue
The story behind the mail order tome that brought merchandise (or dreams of it) within reach of Americans far and wide.
S2.E7 ∙ Yosemite: The Fate of Heaven
The story of Yosemite told through the diary of one of the first white Americans to visit the California valley.
S2.E8 ∙ Adam Clayton Powell
Documentary on the life of civil rights advocate Powell, including his career as a Harlem minister and a US Congressman.
S2.E9 ∙ Journey to America
A tribute to the over 12 million immigrants entering the United States between 1890-1920.
S2.E10 ∙ Ballad of a Mountain Man: The Story of Bascom Lamar Lunsford
Story of a folklore historian who sought to preserve the traditional music of the Appalachians for posterity.
S2.E11 ∙ Ida B. Wells: A Passion for Justice
The work of a notable civil rights crusader in the late 19th and early 20th century.
S2.E13 ∙ Forbidden City, USA
The Americanization of Chinese people in the 1920s and 30s, including public roles that ran counter to their cultural history.
S2.E15 ∙ Roots of Resistance: The Story of the Underground Railroad
A chronicle of the organized efforts to help slaves find freedom in the north.
S3.E1 ∙ Lindbergh
After his famous flight, Charles Lindbergh becomes known to all the world but struggles with life in the limelight.
S3.E2 ∙ Nixon: Part I
Richard M. Nixon was one of American history's most powerful figures. Recalling events etched in U.S. memory, this three-hour program explores a fateful mix of strength and weakness that made him president, and then brought him down. Events revealing Nixon's distinctive signature in American politics, from a meteoric rise to Congress to the presidency and the morass of Watergate, unfold in three parts: The Quest, Triumph, and The Fall. This is the first of three parts.
S3.E3 ∙ Richard Nixon: Part II
Richard M. Nixon was one of American history's most powerful figures. Recalling events etched in U.S. memory, this three-hour program explores a fateful mix of strength and weakness that made him president, and then brought him down. Events revealing Nixon's distinctive signature in American politics, from a meteoric rise to Congress to the presidency and the morass of Watergate, unfold in three parts: The Quest, Triumph, and The Fall. This is the second of three parts.
S3.E4 ∙ Nixon: Part III
Richard M. Nixon was one of American history's most powerful figures. Recalling events etched in U.S. memory, this three-hour program explores a fateful mix of strength and weakness that made him president, and then brought him down. Events revealing Nixon's distinctive signature in American politics, from a meteoric rise to Congress to the presidency and the morass of Watergate, unfold in three parts: The Quest, Triumph, and The Fall. This is the third of three parts.
S3.E5 ∙ God Bless America and Poland, Too
Polish immigration in the 1910s and the contributions of Poles to the United States.
S3.E6 ∙ Insanity on Trial
The assassination of President James Garfield in 1880 by Charles Guiteau, who believed his actions were ordained by God, resulted in a trial where the plea "innocent by reason of insanity" was used for the first time.
S3.E8 ∙ The Crash of 1929
Examines the stock market crash of 1929 with interviews from descendants of several Wall Street insiders.
S3.E9 ∙ The Iron Road
The building of the railroad between Sacramento, California and Omaha, Nebraska.
S3.E10 ∙ French Dance Tonight
The distinctive music of Louisiana including Cajun and Zydeco performances.
S3.E11 ∙ Wildcatter: A Story of Texas Oil
Oil exploration and the fortunes and failures of the independent opportunists who searched for it.
S3.E14 ∙ Coney Island
The film explores the beginnings of America's first amusement park and takes us through its good times all the way up to its end. The show was originally produced for PBS's American Experience.
S4.E1 ∙ LBJ: Part 1 - Beautiful Texas
Award winning filmmaker David Grubin profiles one of the most controversial U.S. presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of power, only to suffer disillusionment and defeat. Witness the events that brought LBJ from Texas to Washington, the White House, and a landslide election in 1964. Follow his triumphs in passing a wave of social legislation then his downward spiral which ends in withdrawal from politics. This is the first of two parts.
S4.E2 ∙ LBJ: Part 2 - My Fellow Americans
Award winning filmmaker David Grubin profiles one of the most controversial U.S. presidents, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who rose from obscurity to the pinnacle of power, only to suffer disillusionment and defeat. Witness the events that brought LBJ from Texas to Washington, the White House, and a landslide election in 1964. Follow his triumphs in passing a wave of social legislation then his downward spiral which ends in withdrawal from politics. This is the second of two parts.
S4.E3 ∙ The Massachusetts 54th Colored Infantry
A story of the formation and service of the first all-Black military unit in the United States during the Civil War.
S4.E4 ∙ Scandalous Mayor
The story of the corrupt political dominance of Mayor James Curley and its effect on the city of Boston in the early 20th century.
S4.E5 ∙ The Johnstown Flood
Exploding dam kills thousands in massive flood catastrophe in Pennsylvania in 1889.
S4.E6 ∙ Pearl Harbor: Surprise and Remembrance
Recounting the historic attack of 1941, including the planning and military outlook of both the United States and Japan at the time.
S4.E7 ∙ G-Men: The Rise of J. Edgar Hoover
To understand J. Edgar Hoover's rise to power is to understand the America of the 1920s and 1930s and the building of both the power and the mythology of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.
S4.E9 ∙ The Quiz Show Scandal
America's love affair with the quiz show is dealt a blow when it's revealed that the games are fixed.
S4.E10 ∙ Love in the Cold War
The story of Eugene Dennis and his wife Peggy, communist activists in the post-World War II era.
S4.E12 ∙ Barnum's Big Top
Story of P.T. Barnum and his role in developing the American Circus into a large business and a cultural force.
S4.E13 ∙ In the White Man's Image
In 1875, Captain Richard Pratt ordered 72 Indian warriors suspected who had fought white colonists to Fort Marion in St. Augustine, Florida. Once there, Pratt began an experiment which involved teaching Indians to read and write, making them learn English and forcing them to be Christians, barring Native languages and religions, and putting even children as young as five in uniforms and drilling them like soldiers. "Kill the Indian and the save the man," was Pratt's brutal motto. A film about cultural genocide that Richard Pratt began to forcibly assimilate Native Americans into white culture with the creation of the Carlilse School for Indians in 1879. Pratt's school, and others like it, claimed noble intentions. The death toll was high from physical abuse and disease. Similar efforts in Australis and Canada are considered genocide, leading to investigations and official government apologies. These forced assimilation efforts lasted well into the 1930s, when they were abandoned as destructive and worsening poverty, unemployment, and suicide rates.
S5.E3 ∙ The Donner Party
In 1846, a large wagon train left Springfield, Illinois for California. In July of that year, following the advice of The Emigrants' Guide to Oregon and California written by a pro-emigration promoter named Lansford Hastings, the Donner party left the main body of emigrants to take a never before tried "shortcut" across the Great Basin. The Donner Party arrived at the foot of the Sierra Nevada, the last mountain pass before California, weeks behind schedule and short of food. The first blizzard of the season started only one day before they planned to head up and over the Sierra Nevada. With 95% of their journey already completed, they would be forced to wait months to make the final push, enduring the most unfavorable Sierra Nevada winter in history. The group was trapped on the eastern side of the Sierra for five months, culminating in death and cannibalism. Of the 87 men, women, and children in the Donner Party only 46 survived to reach California.
S5.E5 ∙ George Washington: The Man Who Wouldn't Be King
The personal development of George Washington is the focus as Producer David Sutherland brings to life a uniquely human Washington who transformed himself from social climber into a patriot willing to give up everything for a higher cause.
S5.E6 ∙ Last Stand at Little Big Horn
The historic battle discussed from the perspective of both sides that participated in the conflict.
S5.E7 ∙ If You Knew Sousa
The story of "march king" John Philip Sousa and the connections between his music and the mood of the nation during his time.
S5.E8 ∙ Simple Justice
The NAACP and future Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall build a Supreme Court case against the policy of segregation.
S5.E9 ∙ Knute Rockne and His Fighting Irish
The short but notable career of the coach and his team with stories from some of those who remember him.
S5.E10 ∙ Sit Down and Fight
The story of Walter Reuther and the struggle to unionize the automobile workers of the US in the 1930s.
S5.E12 ∙ Goin' Back to T-Town
A profile of the Greenwood neighborhood of Tulsa, Oklahoma - once a flourishing but segregated community.
S6.E1 ∙ Amelia Earhart: The Price of Courage
Profiling the pioneering aviator whose plane disappeared during her 1937 attempt to circumnavigate the Earth.
S6.E5 ∙ The Hurricane of '38
Survivors recall the hurricane that devastated Rhode Island and New York's Long Island.
S6.E6 ∙ Ishi: The Last Yahi Indian
The last member of a diminished Native American tribe from California makes himself known at the beginning of the 20th century.
S6.E8 ∙ America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference
As the campaign to force Jews out of Germany ramps up, the American government blocks efforts to help rescue many of these displaced persons, and Americans' antisemitism only seems to get worse.
S6.E9 ∙ D-Day Remembered
An award-winning documentary of the invasion of Normandy in World War II, using rare archival films and pictures from British, American, and German archives. The narrator provides the overall continuity, but the voices of over 50 participants who were involved in the staging of the invasion in Britain or were on the beaches of France bring the images to life.
S7.E1 ∙ FDR: Part I
Polio at age 39, president at age 50. Explore the public and private life of a determined man who steered this country through two monumental crises: the Depression and World War II. FDR served as president longer than any other, and his legacy still shapes our understanding of the role of government and the presidency. A film by award winning filmmaker David Grubin. This is the first of two parts.
S7.E2 ∙ FDR: Part II
Polio at age 39, president at age 50. Explore the public and private life of a determined man who steered this country through two monumental crises: the Depression and World War II. FDR served as president longer than any other, and his legacy still shapes our understanding of the role of government and the presidency. A film by award winning filmmaker David Grubin. This is the second of two parts.
S7.E3 ∙ Telegrams from the Dead
Nineteenth-century Spiritualism. Life after death proved by "science."
S7.E4 ∙ Midnight Ramble
A documentary about the history of African American race films during the Golden Age of Hollywood.
S7.E5 ∙ The Battle of the Bulge: World War II's Deadliest Battle
Documentary chronicling the history of World War II's "Battle of the Bulge", when the German army launched a major surprise counteroffensive against the American forces that caught them almost completely off-guard, sweeping away major portions of the front line, pushing deep into the rear areas and causing tens of thousands of casualties before it was finally halted.
S8.E1 ∙ Murder of the Century
A documentary chronicling the events surrounding the murder of famed architect Stanford White by millionaire Harry Thaw over the affections of showgirl Evelyn Nesbitt in New York in 1906.
S8.E2 ∙ Edison's Miracle of Light
The story of Thomas Edison's creation of a safe electric light system.
S8.E3 ∙ Chicago 1968
American Experience looks at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago where Vice President Hubert Humphrey won his party's nomination for president amid massive civil unrest and violence perpetrated by Chicago Police and anti-Vietnam War protesters.
S8.E4 ∙ The Orphan Trains
In the 1850s, thousands of homeless children roamed New York City streets in search of food and shelter. The Children's Aid Society sent the children on trains to rural areas, where families would take in the orphans.
S8.E7 ∙ The Battle Over Citizen Kane
Documentary about the battle between Orson Welles and William Randolph Hearst over Welles' Obywatel Kane (1941). Features interviews with Welles' and Hearst's co-workers also as a relative complete bio of Hearst.
S9.E1 ∙ T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (Part I)
An assassin's bullet ended the life of William McKinley in 1901, making his vice president, Theodore Roosevelt, an "accidental" president at the age of 42.
S9.E2 ∙ T.R.: The Story of Theodore Roosevelt (Part II)
The film of the ships in New York harbor at the time of T.R.'s return is run backwards, as the smoke is seen going back into the smoke stacks.
S9.E5 ∙ The Telephone
The telephone was first introduced at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 and was an instant success. Although first rented only to "persons of good breeding" and seen as an expensive luxury for doctors and businessmen, the telephone soon transformed American life. Trees gave way to telephone poles as operators known as "hello girls" began to connect a sprawling continent.
S9.E6 ∙ Big Dream, Small Screen
A biography of Philo Farnsworth, an inventor of the television.
S9.E7 ∙ New York Underground
Follows the construction of the New York City subway system in the early 1900s.
S9.E8 ∙ Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern
Struggling to keep the family farm in the family.
S9.E9 ∙ Around the World in 72 Days
The story of the female investigative reporter, Nellie Bly and her race around the world in less than 80 days.
S9.E14 ∙ Vietnam: Parts VII & VIII - Vietnamizing the War/Cambodia and Laos
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S10.E2 ∙ Truman: Part II
He was a farmer, a businessman, an unknown politician who suddenly found himself president. Of all the men who had held the highest office, Harry Truman was the least prepared, but would prove to be a surprise. Acclaimed filmmaker David Grubin recounts his struggles and success as an army captain and marriage to his lifelong sweetheart, Bess. When he landed the vice presidency in 1944 he had no idea that his world was about to change forever. This is the second of two parts.
S10.E3 ∙ A Midwife's Tale
A docudrama adaptation of Ulrich's Pulitzer-winning book, which was based on thousands of entries in the journal of Martha Ballard, a Maine midwife, in the late 1700's and early 1800's. The movie intercuts between reenactments of Ballard doing her Maine midwifery and related tasks, and Ulrich in her eight years of research on her book; in the end, clear comparisons are made between the work of the two women.
S10.E4 ∙ Mr. Miami Beach
The story of Carl Graham Fisher, an Indiana entrepreneur who created Miami Beach out of the Florida swamps.
S10.E5 ∙ Influenza 1918
The great influenza pandemic of 1918 - the worst epidemic ever seen in the United States.
S10.E6 ∙ Reagan: Part I
When he left the White House in 1989, Ronald Reagan was one of the most popular presidents of the century. A former Hollywood star and seemingly simple man, Reagan was consistently underestimated by his opponents. One by one, he overcame them all. Incorporating interviews with key political insiders, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, and members of the Reagan family, "Reagan" explores the man who saw America as a "shining city on a hill" and himself as its heroic defender. The program follows Reagan's life from his itinerant boyhood in Illinois to his battle with "communist agitators" in the Screen Actors Guild and his dramatic 1980 victory over Jimmy Carter. Only 70 days into his presidency, a would-be assassin's bullet left him more debilitated than anyone knew. Reagan's massive military buildup and bold challenges to the Soviet Union caused his critics to portray him as a trigger-happy cowboy. But he negotiated deep cuts in nuclear weapons and resolved to end the Cold War. Five years after leaving office, Reagan announced he had Alzheimer's disease and dropped from public view. [info from DVD container]
S10.E7 ∙ Reagan: Part II
Solidarity thrived in Poland; Soviets faced military pressure in Afghanistan, but Congress cut funding for Nicaragua. In 1986 Reagan met Mikhail Gorbachev, but missile reduction talks failed over SDI research. The Iran-Contra scandal broke. Gorbachev signed a missile reduction treaty. Reagan visited Moscow in 1988, but his dream of ending the Soviet Union came after retirement in 1989. Soon after, he was diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. This is the third of four parts.
S10.E8 ∙ Surviving the Dust Bowl
In 1931 the rains stopped and the "black blizzards" began. Powerful dust storms carrying millions of tons of stinging, blinding black dirt swept across the Southern Plains--the panhandles of Texas and Oklahoma, western Kansas, and the eastern portions of Colorado and New Mexico. Topsoil that had taken a thousand years per inch to build suddenly blew away in only minutes. One journalist traveling through the devastated region dubbed it the "Dust Bowl." This American Experience film presents the remarkable story of the determined people who clung to their homes and way of life, enduring drought, dust, disease--even death--for nearly a decade. Less well-known than those who sought refuge in California, typified by the Joad family in John Steinbeck's "The Grapes of Wrath," the Dust Bowlers who stayed overcame an almost unbelievable series of calamities and disasters.
S10.E9 ∙ Riding the Rails
The story of young teens who hopped freight trains in search of work and adventure during the Great Depression.
S11.E1 ∙ America 1900
Exploration of life in America in the first year of the 20th century, using archive film footage and photographs.
S11.E2 ∙ Race for the Superbomb
History of the American and Soviet development of the H-bomb.
S11.E3 ∙ Hoover Dam
Rising more than 700 feet above the raging waters of the Colorado River, it was called one of the greatest engineering works in history. The Hoover Dam, built during the Great Depression, drew men desperate for work to a remote and rugged canyon near Las Vegas. There they struggled against heat, choking dust and perilous heights to build a colossus of concrete that brought electricity and water to millions and transformed the American Southwest.
S11.E6 ∙ Meltdown at Three Mile Island
The worst nuclear-power-plant accident in U.S. history.
S11.E8 ∙ MacArthur
Biography of U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur. Part one looks at his early life and service in World War I.
S11.E9 ∙ MacArthur: Part 2
Biography of U.S. Army General Douglas MacArthur. Part two focuses on his return to the Philippines in 1944, his post WWII years in Japan as Supreme Allied Commander and his military command during the Korean War.
S11.E10 ∙ Fly Girls
The story of the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASP) in World War II.
S12.E1 ∙ New York: Part I - The Country and the City
Episode one begins in 1609 and chronicles the arrival of the Dutch.
S12.E2 ∙ New York: Part II - Order and Disorder
Episode two looks at New York's rise as a burgeoning cultural center and multi-ethnic port.
S12.E3 ∙ New York: Part III - Sunshine and Shadow
Episode three turns the spotlight on greed and wealth.
S12.E4 ∙ New York: Part IV - The Power and the People
Episode four follows New York into a new century.
S12.E5 ∙ New York: Part V - Cosmopolis
Episode five tells the African-American experience and the birth of the new media industries.
S12.E6 ∙ Eleanor Roosevelt
For more than thirty years, Eleanor Roosevelt was America's most powerful woman. Millions adored her, but her FBI file was thicker than a stack of phone books. She spoke out fearlessly for civil rights, and the KKK put a price on her head. She helped Franklin D. Roosevelt rise to power and was one of his most valuable political assets, but the media satirized her as an ugly busybody. Drawing on interviews with her closest relatives, friends, and biographers, as well as rare home movie footage, the film reveals the hidden dimensions of one of the century's most influential women. She was born to wealth and power but orphaned at the age of 10. Her private life was marked by tragedy, infidelity, and a never-ending search for intimacy. Yet she persevered, fighting tirelessly for social justice for all and taking a lead role in the United Nations landmark Declaration of Human Rights.
S12.E9 ∙ The Duel
This episode analyzes the reasons for and the consequences of the duel between Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr.
S12.E10 ∙ John Brown's Holy War
Documentary on the life of American abolitionist John Brown.
S12.E13 ∙ Jubilee Singers: Sacrifice and Glory
A group of former slaves tries to save its bankrupt school, Fisk University, by performing concerts as the Jubilee Singers. They toured along the path of the Underground Railroad in the United States, as well as England and throughout Europe.
S13.E1 ∙ The Rockefellers: Part 1
The controversial rise of John D. Rockefeller and his Standard Oil multinational, the largest and most powerful company in the world at the time.
S13.E2 ∙ The Rockefellers: Part 2
Faced with growing public odium and frequent lawsuits, the Rockefeller family is forced to change with the times as John D. Rockefeller's son and his descendants seek to rebrand the family name by focusing on philanthropy and politics.
S13.E6 ∙ Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind
Life story of the controversial African-American leader Marcus Garvey.
S13.E7 ∙ Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided Part 1 - Ambition
The story of the Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln's childhoods - his in a remote backwoods log cabin, hers in a wealthy Kentucky home - and describes their courtship.
S13.E8 ∙ Abraham and Mary Lincoln, A House Divided Part 2 - We Are Elected
The Lincoln marriage is both tempestuous and passionate: she has a temper; he suffers bouts of depression. But they share a powerful political ambition.
S13.E9 ∙ Abraham and Mary Lincoln, A House Divided Part 3 - Shattered
When the Lincolns arrive in Washington in 1861, the country is breaking apart. The country's president-elect is unknown, untested and mistrusted.
S13.E10 ∙ Abraham and Mary Lincoln, a House Divided Part 4 - The Dearest of All Things
Tormented by her grief and losing grip on sanity, Mary Lincoln turns to spiritualists for comfort. Though bowed down with sorrow, her husband never loses sight of the tragedy consuming the nation and issues the Emancipation Proclamation.
S13.E11 ∙ Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided Part 5 - This Frightful War
As 1863 begins, Northerners resent fighting to free black slaves; others are furious with Abraham Lincoln for the devastating Union casualties. Mary Lincoln, worried about her husband, spends money compulsively.
S13.E12 ∙ Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided Part 6 - Blind with Weeping
Following the Union victory at Gettysburg, and the surrender at Appomattox, the president tells Mary Lincoln they can find some happiness again. Just days later, he is shot to death.
S13.E14 ∙ Fatal Flood
In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from Cairo, Illinois to New Orleans, Louisiana, inundating hundreds of towns, killing as many as a thousand people and leaving a million people homeless. In Greenville, Mississippi, efforts to contain the river pitted the majority black population against an aristocratic white plantation family, the Percys. It also pitted the Percys against themselves. This is a dramatic true story of greed, power and race during one of America's greatest natural disasters.
S13.E15 ∙ Stephen Foster
Story of the first great American song writer, composer of "My Old Kentucky Home," "Camptown Races," "Listen to the Flower People" and more.
S14.E1 ∙ New York: Part 6 - The City of Tomorrow
Reveals the immense new forces that were unleashed in New York.
S14.E2 ∙ New York: Part 7 - The City and the World
Episode seven chronicles the history of New York from the end of the Second World War to the present.
S14.E3 ∙ War Letters
A documentary based on the book "War Letters; Extraordinary Correspondence From American Wars" by Andrew Carroll.
S14.E6 ∙ Mount Rushmore
The grand vision of sculptor Gutzon Borgum and the logistics behind the massive monument located in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
S14.E8 ∙ Zoot Suit Riots
On August 1, 1942, a 22-year-old Mexican American man was stabbed to death at a party. To white Los Angelenos, the murder was just more proof that Mexican American crime was spiraling out of control. The police fanned out across LA, netting 600 young Mexican American suspects. Almost all those taken into custody were wearing the distinctive uniform of their generation: zoot-suits. The tragic murder and the injustice of the trial that followed, coupled with sensational news coverage of both, fanned the flames of the racial hostility that was already running rife in the city. Within months of the verdict, Los Angeles was in the grip of some of the worst violence in its history.
S14.E9 ∙ Monkey Trial
In 1925 a Tennessee high school teacher is arrested for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. A momentous trial ensues, pitting fundamentalist preaching against freedom of thought and speech.
S14.E11 ∙ Ansel Adams: A Documentary Film
Few American artists have reached a wider audience, or enjoyed more widespread popularity in their own lifetime, than Ansel Adams. None has had more profound an impact on how Americans grasp the majesty of their continent, or done more to transform how people think and feel about the meaning of the natural world. A visionary photographer, a pioneer in photographic technique and a crusader for the environment, Adams would take part in an extraordinary revolution: in photography, and ways of seeing what he called "the continuous beauty of the things that are." His greatest photographs would seek to capture "the instant of revelation -- of timelessness" amidst the evanescence of the natural world. Ansel Adams is the intimate portrait of a great artist and ardent environmentalist -- for whom life and art, photography and wilderness, creativity and communication, love and expression, were inextricably connected. ANSEL ADAMS, a ninety-minute documentary film written and directed by Ric Burns, and broadcast on national public television in April 2002, provides an elegant, moving and lyrical portrait of this most eloquent and quintessentially American of photographers.
S14.E101 ∙ Lady Bird
Lady Bird Johnson spent 39 years serving, honoring, and protecting one of the biggest galoots Texas has ever produced. Now she's lived nearly 29 years without him, making her the dean of America's presidential widows.
S15.E1 ∙ Jimmy Carter (Part I)
Jimmy Carter ran for president on a wave of post-Watergate disaffection with Washington politics. But inexperience, inflation, recession, and the Iran hostage crisis, derailed his presidency dramatically. His crowning achievement, the Camp David Accords, created a framework for Middle East peace, inspiring his life since. The film traces his ascent from Plains, Georgia, to the Oval Office and explores the role of religion in his career. This is the first of two parts.
S15.E2 ∙ Jimmy Carter: Part 2
Jimmy Carter ran for president on a wave of post-Watergate disaffection with Washington politics. But inexperience, inflation, recession, and the Iran hostage crisis, derailed his presidency dramatically. His crowning achievement, the Camp David Accords, created a framework for Middle East peace, inspiring his life since. The film traces his ascent from Plains, Georgia, to the Oval Office and explores the role of religion in his career. This is the second of two parts.
S15.E3 ∙ Chicago: City of the Century: Part 1
Tells how in just 60 years Chicago grew from a remote, swampy frontier town into one of the most explosively alive cities in the world.
S15.E6 ∙ The Murder of Emmett Till
A documentary examining the 1955 murder of a 14-year-old boy from Chicago while visiting relatives in Mississippi, and the broad impact of his death, his funeral, and the subsequent trial and acquittal of his white killers.
S15.E8 ∙ Partners of the Heart
During World War II and the era of staunch racial segregation, a Black carpenter's son named Vivien Thomas, who had a talent for surgery, along with a white surgeon named Dr. Alfred Blalock, who defied the medical establishment created a partnership that changed the course of cardiac surgery. With only a high school diploma, Thomas became a leading cardiac pioneer and educator of two generations of the United States' premiere heart surgeons. This moving documentary tells the story of Thomas and his relationship with Blalock, one that ushered in advances in surgery that are still in existence today.
S15.E9 ∙ The Pill
A documentary recounting the development of the birth control pill.
S15.E10 ∙ Daughter from Danang
A woman taken to America during Operation Babylift returns to Vietnam in order to meet her birth mother.
S15.E11 ∙ Seabiscuit
He was boxy, with stumpy legs that wouldn't completely straighten a short straggly tail and an ungainly gait; though he didn't look the part, Seabiscuit was one of the most remarkable thoroughbred racehorses in history. In the 1930s, when Americans longed to escape the grim realities of Depression-era life, four men turned Seabiscuit into a national hero. They were his fabulously wealthy owner Charles Howard, his famously silent and stubborn trainer Tom Smith and the two hard-bitten, gifted jockeys who rode him to glory. By following the paths that brought these four together and in telling the story of Seabiscuit's unlikely career, this film illuminates the precarious economic conditions that defined America in the 1930s and explores the fascinating behind-the-scenes world of thoroughbred racing. Scott Glenn narrates.
S16.E1 ∙ New York: Center of the World
This final chapter provides a powerful portrait of the events leading up to and following 9/11, reaching back to when the idea of a "world trade center" was first conceived and the towers were constructed. Explore the physical, economic, and symbolic aftermath of the attack and what Americans can learn from the recovery effort.
S16.E2 ∙ Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, Part 1 - Revolution
Part one focuses on people and events from 1865-68.
S16.E3 ∙ Reconstruction: The Second Civil War, Part 2 - Retreat
Part two follows several blacks and whites in the south between 1867 and 1877.
S16.E4 ∙ Citizen King
A documentary that draws on input from a broad cross-section of people to examine to last five years of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s life.
S16.E7 ∙ Emma Goldman: An Exceedingly Dangerous Woman
Russian immigrant Emma Goldman verbally attacked the U.S. government, big business and World War I before becoming expatriated in 1919.
S17.E1 ∙ RFK
Part One: The Garish Sun: Robert F. Kennedy devotes himself to his brother John, then deals with the pain of the assassination.
S17.E2 ∙ The Fight
Documentary on the boxing match between American Joe Louis and German Max Schmeling, which captured the world's attention on June 22, 1938.
S17.E4 ∙ Building the Alaska Highway
The creation of the 1,500-mile Alaska-Canada Highway.
S17.E5 ∙ Kinsey
Documentary examining the impact and continuing influence of 'Alfred Kinsey''s groundbreaking research on human sexuality.
S17.E6 ∙ Mary Pickford
Through interviews with film historians and biographers, and through archival footage, the rise and fall of the professional life of actress and businessperson Mary Pickford (1892-1979) - born Gladys Smith - and the associated ebbs and flows in her personal life, are presented. At the height of her fame, she was dubbed "America's Sweetheart" despite being born in Canada. Mary's widowed mother, Charlotte Smith, got herself, Mary and Mary's two siblings into the somewhat disreputable profession of acting - first on the stage, then into the emerging form of moving pictures - as a means of economic survival, but it soon became clear of Mary's star quality compared to her other family members. Mary and Charlotte's foray into the business side of show business was in a means to take control of Mary's own career, against the actions of impresarios and studio executives who may not have had Mary's best interests at heart. Arguably the biggest maneuver in Mary's business life was the formation of United Artists in 1919 with director D.W. Griffith, fellow actor Charles Chaplin and who would become her second of three husbands, fellow actor Douglas Fairbanks, that marriage the most famous of the three despite not being the longest. United Artists was not only a means to distribute the movies made under their production company under their control, but to provide an outlet for all creative artists in the motion picture business some financial security. Mary's slide began in the late 1920s having overextended herself in her own human resource on the business side, and her adoring fans not allowing her to grow up on screen, the advent of talking pictures only one of the many aspects which showed a Mary with who the public could not relate. Mary's Academy Award win as Best Actress in 1930 for Coquette (1929), not a typical Pickford role and the first speaking role to win the award, is largely seen as an award to her contributions to the film industry as opposed to an award for this particular role.
S17.E7 ∙ The Great Transatlantic Cable
The story of Cyrus Field and the creation of the transatlantic telegraph line.
S17.E8 ∙ The Massie Affair
In 1931, Honolulu's tropical tranquility was shattered when a young Navy wife made an allegation of rape against five islanders.
S17.E11 ∙ The Carter Family: Will the Circle Be Unbroken
The life and times of The Carter Family, one of the earliest and most-influential group in American country and roots music.
S17.E12 ∙ Guerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
A documentary on the curious American domestic terrorist group, infamous for the 1974 kidnapping of Patty Hearst.
S18.E1 ∙ Two Days in October
A documentary about the Battle of Ong Thanh and the protest at the University of Wisconsin-Madison during the Vietnam War.
S18.E6 ∙ The Nuremberg Trials
The story of the Nuremberg Trials and Robert Jackson, the chief prosecutor.
S18.E9 ∙ Eugene O'Neill: A Documentary Film
The life and career of American playwright Eugene O'Neill.
S18.E12 ∙ Annie Oakley
This one hour documentary examines the life of the famed Sharp Shooter and Wild West performer, Annie Oakley from her birth in mid nineteenth century rural Pennsylvania to her death in 1926. Many myths are overturned and the program also features a little known trial when Annie Oakley had to sue The Hearst Newspaper chain all throughout the country for libel when they reported the activities of someone who was impersonating the famed sharpshooter and besmirching her reputation.
S19.E2 ∙ Eyes on the Prize: Parts 3 & 4 - Ain't Scared of Your Jails/No Easy Walk
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S19.E3 ∙ Eyes on the Prize: Parts 5 & 6 - Is This America?/Bridge to Freedom
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S19.E4 ∙ Test Tube Babies
The world's first successful in-vitro fertilization takes place in Great Britain resulting in a live birth on July 25,1978.
S19.E8 ∙ The Living Weapon
Soon after the United States entered World War II, President Roosevelt received information that Germany and Japan were developing biological weapons. In response, the U.S. and its allies rushed to develop their own germ warfare program, enlisting some of America's most promising scientists in the effort. This program examines the race to develop biological weapons in the 40s and 50s, and the challenges and moral dilemmas the scientists faced
S19.E10 ∙ Sister Aimee
Sister Aimee tells the dramatic life story Aimee Semple McPherson, the controversial, charismatic, wildly popular evangelist who was instrumental in bringing conservative Protestantism into mainstream culture and American politics.
S19.E11 ∙ Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple
Todays theme is Jonestown: The Life and Death of the Peoples Temple.
S19.E12 ∙ Summer of Love
Thousands of young people flock to San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district in the summer of 1967.
S19.E13 ∙ The Mormons: Part I
The following topics are covered: history of Joseph Smith based almost entirely on 2nd and 3rd person accounts, Haun's Mill massacre, early polygamy, modern polygamy as practiced by excommunicated Mormons, Mountain Meadows massacre with arguments blaming church leadership, the action-less Mormon militia, and the burning of an anti-Mormon press, and delay in giving the priesthood to non-whites until the 1970's.What isn't covered: 1st person accounts by members of the early days of the church, percentages of how many were involved in the topics covered, building of the Nauvoo (the largest city in Illinois) out of a swamp, 1000+ deaths that resulted from building Nauvoo (mostly malaria), the extermination from Kirtland, the extermination from Nauvoo, the 1000's that died on the trek to Salt Lake City as required by the Extermination Order by Gov. Boggs, the ensuing volunteer-staffed Mormon battalion of the US Government and their 2000 mile march, the rape and expulsion of nearly all Mormons and repossession of their property in the mid-west, the influx of 100,000's of Mormons from England where most of the converts originated, the church welfare system that abolished poverty among Mormons during the great depression, and anything about the years from 1900 through 1970 or from 1980 to present.
S19.E14 ∙ The Mormons: Part II
Somewhat different than part 1, which was a selective treatment of Mormon history, part 2 explores the lives of many different kinds of Mormons, going for more breadth than depth. As such only one family interviewed represented the bulk of actively participating Mormons, while the rest of those interviewed represented mostly fringe members, inactive members, ex-members.
S19.E15 ∙ Alexander Hamilton
From his humble beginnings as an immigrant, to his infamous death, the life and legacy of Alexander Hamilton is explored.
S20.E2 ∙ The Lobotomist
This program tells the gripping tale of medical intervention gone awry.
S20.E3 ∙ Eyes on the Prize II (Parts I & II): The Time Has Come/Two Societies
"The Time Has Come 1964-1966": Explores Black militancy and the roots of the Black power movement. Also tracks the influence of ideas of Black separatism and Black nationalism on a new generation of Blacks and analyzes the long-term impact they had on whites who supported the freedom movement. "Two Societies 1965-1968": Northern cities served as the backdrop for confrontations on a scale the civil rights movement had never seen before the mid-1960s. Scarred by widespread discrimination, Black inner-city neighborhoods became sites of crumbling houses, poverty and street violence. Although the Black-led movement for social change and equality in the North had a long history, it had not received the same media attention the struggle in the South had.
S20.E4 ∙ Grand Central
On January 8, 1902, a commuter train traveling through a tunnel in New York City's Grand Central Depot ran into another train, killing 17 people. An engineer's innovative response to the crisis gave birth to one of America's greatest establishments: Grand Central Terminal.
S20.E5 ∙ Eyes on the Prize II (Parts III & IV): Power!/The Promised Land
"Power. 1966-1968": Explores the influence of the idea of Black power on freedom movement. Follows leaders of three Black communities in their efforts to gain political and economic power that would enable advancements in employment, housing and education. "The Promised Land 1967-1968": Martin Luther King, Jr. stakes out new ground for himself and the rapidly fragmenting civil rights movement. He is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee at the Lorraine Motel.
S20.E6 ∙ Eyes on the Prize II (Parts V & VI): Ain't Gonna' Shuffle No More/A Nation of Law?
"Ain't Gonna Shuffle No More 1964-1972": Explores a call to pride and a push for unity to galvanize Blacks. Cassius Clay challenges America to accept him as Muhammad Ali, who refuses to fight in Vietnam. Students at the traditionally Black Howard University fight to bring the growing Black consciousness movement and their African heritage inside the walls of the institution. "A Nation of Law? 1968-1971": Black activism is increasingly met with violent and unethical response from local and federal law enforcement. A five-day inmate takeover at Attica Prison calls the public's attention to conditions there leaves 43 dead, of which 39 were killed by police.
S20.E8 ∙ Eyes on the Prize II (Parts VII & VIII): The Keys to the Kingdom/Back to the Movement
"The Keys to the Kingdom 1974-1980": In the 1970s, anti-discrimination rights are put to the test. Boston Whites violently resist the federal school desegregation order. Atlanta's mayor Jackson proves affirmative action can work, but Bakke decision challenges that policy. "Back to the Movement 1979-Mid 1980s": Explores new and old challenges that Black communities faced 25 years after civil rights struggle began. Also explores Black communities in Miami and Chicago and chronicles their dramatically different responses to these challenges.
S20.E9 ∙ Buffalo Bill
In 1886, Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show played to over one million people in New York City. It was one of the most elaborate shows on earth. There were cowboys and Indians, sharp shooters including the famed Annie Oakley, hundreds of horses, buffalo, elk and donkeys, with more than 200 cast members, all moving about in a sweeping western landscape of mountains and plains. It would go on to dazzle crowds in London, Paris, Rome and Barcelona, cementing the legend of the Wild West in the minds of people around the globe. Behind the extravaganza was one man -- a meager plainsman turned international celebrity and frontier hero, whose meteoric rise to fame was made possible only by his genius, and his hucksterism. His name was William Cody, better known to the world as Buffalo Bill.
S20.E10 ∙ Minik, the Lost Eskimo
This installment provides a provocative look at the collision of race, culture and the burgeoning science of anthropology as it recounts the life of Minik, later named Minik Wallace, a Greenland Inuit who came to America in 1897 courtesy of explorer Robert Peary. Considered an uncommon species at the time, 7-year-old Minik and four other Eskimos were taken to New York City for study at the American Museum of Natural History.
S20.E11 ∙ Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman (1819-1892) is today one of the most-recognized figures in American literary history: poet, patriot and faithful advocate of democracy. His name graces shopping malls, highway rest stops, and local high schools.
S20.E12 ∙ Roberto Clemente
Roberto Clemente is an in-depth look at an exceptional baseball player and committed humanitarian who challenged racial discrimination to become baseball's first Latino superstar. Featuring interviews with Pulitzer Prize-winning authors David Maraniss and George F. Will; Clemente's wife Vera; Baseball Hall of Famer Orlando Cepeda; and former teammates, the documentary presents an intimate and revealing portrait of a man whose passion and grace made him a legend.
S20.E13 ∙ George H.W. Bush: Part I
Follow George H.W. Bush from his childhood into war as a combat pilot in the U.S. Navy. Later, the Bushes moved to the oil fields of Texas where he became a Republican leader, the party that he would lead - and struggle with - as President.
S20.E14 ∙ George H.W. Bush: Part II
George H.W. Bush: Part II -- President Bush was a pivotal player during a critical moment in world history. But despite soaring approval ratings following victory in the Persian Gulf, his years as president after the war were marked by almost unrelieved decline.
S21.E1 ∙ The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer
This biography presents a complex and revealing portrait of one of America's most influential scientists.
S21.E2 ∙ The Polio Crusade
This film interweaves the personal accounts of polio survivors with the story of an ardent crusader who tirelessly fought on their behalf while scientists raced to eradicate this dreaded disease
S21.E4 ∙ A Class Apart
In 1951 in the town of Edna, Texas, a field hand named Pedro Hernandez murdered his employer after exchanging words at a gritty cantina. From this seemingly unremarkable small-town murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would forever change the lives and legal standing of tens of millions of Americans. A team of unknown Mexican American lawyers took the case, Hernandez v. Texas, all the way to the Supreme Court, where they successfully challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican Americans.In his law office in San Antonio, a well-known attorney named Gus Garcia listened to the desperate pleas of Pedro Hernandezs mother, who traveled more than one-hundred-and-fifty miles to ask him to defend her son. Garcia quickly realized that there was more to this case than murder; the real concern was not Hernandezs guilt, but whether he could receive a fair trial with an all-Anglo jury deciding his fate. Garcia assembled a team of courageous attorneys who argued on behalf of Hernandez from his first trial at the Jackson County Courthouse in Texas all the way to Washington, DC. It would be the first time a Mexican American appeared before the Supreme Court. The Hernandez lawyers decided on a daring but risky legal strategy, arguing that Mexican Americans were a class apart and did not neatly fit into a legal structure that recognized only black and white Americans. As legal skirmishes unfolded, the lawyers emerged as brilliant, dedicated, humorous, and at times, terribly flawed men.
S21.E5 ∙ We Shall Remain: Part I - After the Mayflower
In March of 1621, in what is now southeastern Massachusetts, Massasoit (actor Marcos Akiaten, Chiricauha Apache), the leading sachem of the Wampanoag, sat down to negotiate with a ragged group of English colonists. Hungry, dirty, and sick, the pale-skinned foreigners were struggling to stay alive; they were in desperate need of native help. Massasoit faced problems of his own. His people had lately been decimated by unexplained sickness, leaving them vulnerable to the rival Narragansett to the west. The Wampanoag sachem calculated that a tactical alliance with the foreigners would provide a way to protect his people and hold his native enemies at bay. He agreed to give the English the help they needed. A half-century later, as a brutal war flared between the English colonists and a confederation of New England Indians, the wisdom of Massasoit's diplomatic gamble seemed less clear. Five decades of English immigration, mistreatment, lethal epidemics, and widespread environmental degradation had brought the Indians and their way of life to the brink of disaster. Led by Metacom, Massasoit's son (actor Annowon Weeden, Mashpee Wampanoag), the Wampanoag and their native allies fought back against the English, nearly pushing them into the sea.
S21.E6 ∙ We Shall Remain: Part II - Tecumseh's Vision
Each of the episodes focuses on important historical events and concludes with a short contemporary story that links the past to the present.
S21.E7 ∙ We Shall Remain: Part III - Trail of Tears
The Cherokee would call it Nu-No-Du-Na Tlo-Hi-Lu, "The Trail Where They Cried." On May 26, 1838, federal troops forced thousands of Cherokee from their homes in the Southeastern United States, driving them toward Indian Territory in Eastern Oklahoma. More than 4,000 died of disease and starvation along the way. For years the Cherokee had resisted removal from their land in every way they knew. Convinced that white America rejected Native Americans because they were "savages," Cherokee leaders established a republic with a European-style legislature and legal system. Many Cherokee became Christian and adopted westernized education for their children. Their visionary principal chief, John Ross, would even take the Cherokee case to the Supreme Court, where he won a crucial recognition of tribal sovereignty that still resonates. The Supreme Court ruling proved no deterrent to President Andrew Jackson's demands that the Cherokee leave their ancestral lands. A complex debate divided the Cherokee Nation, with Chief Ross urging the Cherokee to stay, and Major Ridge, a respected tribal leader, urging the tribe to move West and rebuild, going so far as to sign a removal treaty himself without the authority to do so. Though in the end the Cherokee embrace of "civilization" and their landmark legal victory proved no match for white land hunger and military power, the Cherokee people were able, with characteristic ingenuity, to build a new life in Oklahoma, far from the land that had sustained them for generations.
S21.E8 ∙ We Shall Remain: Part IV - Geronimo
In February of 1909, the indomitable Chiricahua Apache warrior and war shaman Geronimo lay on his deathbed. He summoned his nephew to his side, whispering, "I should never have surrendered. I should have fought until I was the last man alive." It was an admission of regret from a man whose insistent pursuit of military resistance in the face of overwhelming odds confounded not only his Mexican and American enemies, but many of his fellow Apaches as well. Born around 1820, Geronimo grew into a leading warrior and healer. But after his tribe was relocated to an Arizona reservation in 1872, he became a focus of the fury of terrified white settlers, and of the growing tensions that divided Apaches struggling to survive under almost unendurable pressures. To angry whites, Geronimo became the archfiend, perpetrator of unspeakable savage cruelties. To his supporters, he remained the embodiment of proud resistance, the upholder of the old Chiricahua ways. To other Apaches, especially those who had come to see the white man's path as the only viable road, Geronimo was a stubborn troublemaker, unbalanced by his unquenchable thirst for vengeance, whose actions needlessly brought the enemy's wrath down on his own people. At a time when surrender to the reservation and acceptance of the white man's civilization seemed to be the Indians' only realistic options, Geronimo and his tiny band of Chiricahuas fought on. The final holdouts, they became the last Native American fighting force to capitulate formally to the government of the United States.
S21.E9 ∙ We Shall Remain: Part V - Wounded Knee
On the night of February 27, 1973, fifty-four cars, horns blaring, rolled into a small hamlet on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Within hours, some 200 Oglala Lakota and American Indian Movement activists had seized the few major buildings in town and police had cordoned off the area. The occupation of Wounded Knee had begun. The protesters were demanding redress for grievances-some going back more than 100 years-and the expulsion of Pine Ridge tribal leader Dick Wilson, who governed the reservation through corruption and intimidation. In Wounded Knee, the gripping and controversial story of the armed standoff between American Indian activists and the federal government that captured the world's attention for 71 suspenseful days is brought to life.
S21.E10 ∙ The Kennedys
The chronicle, which features home movies, and photos, includes patriarch Joseph Kennedy's business and political dealings, his 1960 presidential election and the tragic 1968 campaign, as well as Edward M. Kennedy's failed 1980 bid.
S22.E1 ∙ Civilian Conservation Corps
American Experience celebrates the 75th anniversary of the Civilian Conservation Corps. Founded by Roosevelt during the Great Depression, the CCC put over 3 million men to work improving the countries infrastructure and national parks.
S22.E2 ∙ Wyatt Earp
Wyatt Earp has been portrayed in countless movies and television shows but these popular fictions belie the complexities and flaws of a man whose life is a lens on politics, justice and economic opportunity on the American frontier. He was a caricature of the Western lawman, and after his death in 1929, distressed Americans transformed him into a folk hero: a central figure in how the west was won, a man who took control of his own destiny.
S22.E3 ∙ The Bombing of Germany
On September 1, 1939 the first day of World War II in Europe President Franklin D. Roosevelt appealed to the warring nations to under no circumstances undertake the bombardment from the air of civilian populations. Just six years later, British and American Allied forces had carried out a bombing campaign of unprecedented might over Germany s cities, claiming the lives of nearly half a million civilians. The Bombing of Germany examines the defining moments of the offensive that led the U.S. across a moral divide. Weaving together interviews with WWII pilots and historians, and stunning archival footage of the bombing and its aftermath, this AMERICAN EXPERIENCE film is a haunting reminder of the dilemma imposed by war's civilian casualties.
S22.E4 ∙ Dolley Madison
Dolley Madison lived through the two wars that established the U.S., was friends with the first 12 Presidents, and watched America evolve from a struggling young republic to the first modern democracy in the world.
S22.E5 ∙ Earth Days
Director Robert Stone traces the origins of the modern environmental movement through the eyes of nine Americans who propelled the movement from its beginnings in the 1950s.
S22.E6 ∙ My Lai
American Experience investigates the My Lai massacre an atrocity during the Vietnam War that killed more than 300 unarmed civilians.
S22.E7 ∙ Roads to Memphis
This film tells the story of an assassin, James Earl Ray, his target, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the seething, turbulent forces in American society that led these two men to their violent and tragic collision in Memphis in April 1968.
S22.E8 ∙ Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World
The American Experience looks at the history of American whaling from its off-shore origins in the 17th century to the golden age of deep water whaling and the eventual decline in the decades after the Civil War.
S23.E1 ∙ God in America: A New Adam (1) & A New Eden (2)
God in America: A New Adam (1) and A New Eden (2) : A New Adam explores the origins of Christian religion in America and examines how the New World changed the faiths that the settlers brought with them. A New Eden explores how an unlikely alliance between evangelical Baptists and enlightenment figures such as Thomas Jefferson served as the foundation of American religious liberty.
S23.E2 ∙ God in America: A Nation Reborn (3) & A New Light (4)
God in America: A Nation Reborn (3) and A New Light (4): During the 19th century, the forces of modernity challenged traditional faith and drove a wedge between liberal and conservative believers. "A Nation Reborn" explores slavery, and how it splits the nation as abolitionists and slaveholders find justification in the Bible. Frederick Douglass condemns Christianity; President Lincoln struggles to make sense of the war's carnage and the death of his young son. Lincoln, who previously had favored reason over revelation, embarks on a spiritual journey that transforms his ideas about God and the Civil War's ultimate meaning. "A New Light" explores the intellectual and cultural conflicts between traditional religious beliefs and the forces of modernity, which reached a crescendo in the 1925 trial of John Scopes, a Tennessee teacher arrested for teaching evolution.
S23.E3 ∙ God in America: Soul of a Nation (5) & Of God and Caesar (6)
God in America: Soul of a Nation (5) and Of God and Caesar (6): "Soul of a Nation" explores the post-World War II era, when rising evangelist, Billy Graham, tried to inspire a religious revival that fused faith with patriotism in a Cold War battle with "Godless Communism." As Americans flocked in record numbers to houses of worship, non-believers and religious minorities appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court to test the constitutionality of religious expression in public schools. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. emerged as a modern-day prophet calling upon the nation to honor both biblical teachings and the founders' democratic ideals of equal justice. "Of God and Caesar" explores the religious and political aspirations of conservative evangelicals' moral crusade over divisive social issues such as abortion and gay marriage. Across America, the religious marketplace expanded as new waves of immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America made the United States the most religiously diverse nation. The 2008 presidential election brought the re-emergence of a religious voice in the Democratic Party, bringing the country to a new plateau in its struggle to reconcile faith with politics. The 6-hour series closes with reflections on the role of faith in the public life of the country.
S23.E4 ∙ Robert E. Lee
From PBS and American Experience - Robert E. Lee is celebrated by handsome equestrian statues in countless cities and towns across the American South and by no less than five postage stamps issued by the government he fought against during the four bloodiest years in American history.
S23.E5 ∙ Dinosaur Wars
From PBS and American Experience - In the summer of 1868, paleontologist Othniel Charles Marsh boarded a Union Pacific train for a sightseeing excursion through the heart of the newly opened American West. While most passengers simply saw magnificent landscapes, Marsh soon realized he was traveling through the greatest dinosaur burial ground of all time.
S23.E6 ∙ Panama Canal
From PBS and American Experience - On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world's two largest oceans and signaling America's emergence as a global superpower.
S23.E7 ∙ The Greely Expedition
From PBS and American Experience - Using scientific accounts, diaries, photographs and letters, this film reveals how poor planning, personality clashes, questionable decisions and pure bad luck conspired to turn a noble scientific mission into a human tragedy.
S23.E8 ∙ Triangle Fire
The 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York's Greenwich Village resulted in legislation ensuring the most comprehensive workplace safety laws in the U.S.
S23.E9 ∙ The Great Famine
The American Experience looks at Hebert Hoover's American Relief Administration and its efforts to distribute food during the Great Russian Famine of 1921.
S23.E10 ∙ Stonewall Uprising
This documentary, part of American Experience (1987) series, examines the events leading up to what is now seen as the defining moment in the establishment of the gay rights movement in the United States: the riot at the Stonewall Inn in New York City in the summer of 1969. At that time, homosexuality was not only illegal, it was classified as mental illness. Bars like Stonewall were controlled by the mob and the police were paid to either look the other way or conduct their raids early in the day. On this night however, the police arrived when the bar was full. The reaction was swift with crowds quickly forming outside the bar. The next night, a crowd estimated in the thousands again confronted the police. As a result of these actions, the gay community made themselves known for the first time. A year later, in the summer of 1970, many of those involved staged the first Gay Pride parade.
S23.E11 ∙ Soundtrack for a Revolution
The story of the US civil rights movement and its music. Freedom music evolved from slave chants and black church. It helped people sing words they couldn't say. It was crucial helping protesters as they faced down aggression with dignity.
S23.E13 ∙ Freedom Riders
From PBS and American Experience - This inspirational documentary is about a band of courageous civil-rights activists calling themselves the Freedom Riders.
S23.E101 ∙ Jimmy Carter
A profile of former president Jimmy Carter. In 1980, after one term, he lost in a landslide to Ronald Reagan, receiving 41 percent of the popular vote. In the following years, however, he forged a new legacy as a respected statesman and humanitarian. The documentary charts his ascent during the turbulent 1970s; explores the role of his wife Rosalynn as his confidant and adviser; and details his successful post-presidency years.
S23.E102 ∙ U.S. Grant: Warrior
A profile of Ulysses S. Grant, chronicling how he rose from obscurity to become a Civil War hero who earned the admiration of the Northern public while, in the South, his hard-nosed tactics led him to be labeled a butcher.
S24.E1 ∙ Billy the Kid
On April 28, 1881, just days from being hanged for murder, 21-year-old Henry McCarty, alias Billy the Kid, outfoxed his jailors and electrified the nation with the last in a long line of daring escapes.
S24.E2 ∙ Custer's Last Stand
Follow General George Armstrong Custer from his memorable, wild charge at Gettysburg to his lonely, untimely death on the windswept Plains of the West. On June 26, 1876, Custer, a reputation for fearless and often reckless courage ordered his soldiers to drive back a large army of Lakota and Cheyenne warriors. By day's end, Custer and nearly a third of his army were dead.
S24.E3 ∙ Clinton, Part 1
Hour 1 follows their bumpy road to the 1992 presidential victory, an amazing triumph over repeated scandals and setbacks. Although they have won the presidency, the Clintons have not yet won the country. In their moment of triumph, the first couple has no way of imagining the turmoil that lies ahead.
S24.E4 ∙ Clinton, Part 2
Clinton wins the 1996 election in a landslide, pulling off one of the greatest turnarounds in political history. But events have been set in motion that will soon divide the country and nearly destroy Clinton's presidency.
S24.E5 ∙ The Amish
Lyrical and meditative, The Amish answers many questions Americans have about this insistently insular religious community, whose intense faith and adherence to five hundred year-old traditions have by turns captivated and repelled, awed and irritated, inspired and confused for more than a century. With unprecedented access to the Amish built on patience and hard-won trust, the film is the first to deeply penetrate and explore this profoundly attention-averse group. In doing so, it paints an extraordinarily intimate portrait of contemporary Amish faith and life. It questions why and how the Amish, an insistently closed and communal culture, have thrived within one of the most open, individualistic societies on earth.
S24.E6 ∙ Grand Coulee Dam
When Grand Coulee Dam was being built during the depths of the Great Depression, everything about it--generators, powerhouses, pumps--was the biggest in the world. Grand Coulee was more than a dam; it was a proclamation: America could still do great things. The mile-long behemoth was the largest hydroelectric power-producing facility in the world when it was completed in March 1941--just in time to power the nation's defense plants and the atomic reactors for the Manhattan Project.
S24.E7 ∙ Jesse Owens
On April 2, 1936, when the 22-year-old son of a sharecropper entered the Olympic Stadium in Berlin, he was barely able to control his anger in the face of Nazi racism. But instead of letting himself be distracted, the young athlete channeled his raw emotions into one of the most remarkable achievements in athletic history: four gold medals in two days.
S25.E1 ∙ Death and the Civil War
Based on the best-selling book by Drew Gilpin Faust, this film will explore how the American Civil War created a "republic of suffering" and will chart the far-reaching social, political, and social changes brought about by the pervasive presence and fear of death during the Civil War.
S25.E2 ∙ The Abolitionists: Part 1
The stories of the major figures of the pre-American Civil War political movement to eliminate slavery.
S25.E3 ∙ The Abolitionists: Part 2
The divide between North and South deepens, touching off a crisis that is about to careen out of control.
S25.E4 ∙ The Abolitionists: Part 3
The battle between pro-slavery and free-soil contingents rises to fever pitch.
S25.E5 ∙ Henry Ford
HENRY FORD paints a fascinating portrait of a farm boy who rose from obscurity to become the most influential American innovator of the 20th century.
S25.E6 ∙ Silicon Valley
SILICON VALLEY tells the story of the pioneering scientists who transformed rural Santa Clara County into the hub of technological ingenuity we now know as Silicon Valley.
S26.E1 ∙ War of the Worlds
An account of Orson Welles' 1938 radio drama broadcast that inadvertently started a mass panic.
S26.E2 ∙ JFK: Part 1
JFK's campaign for president is the first to be waged on television, a distinct advantage for the telegenic candidate. Despite his lack of legislative achievements and his Catholicism -- which many Americans see as a negative -- Kennedy wins the election on the promise that he will stand up to the Soviets and protect American preeminence in the world.
S26.E3 ∙ JFK: Part 2
This episode follows Kennedy into the White House, offering fresh assessments of the successes and failures of his tenure. In 1961, the most challenging issue facing the new administration is the spread of communism and continuing Cold War fears. Only a few months into his first term, Kennedy launches the Bay of Pigs invasion, an unmitigated disaster that teaches him a powerful lesson. Nikita Khrushchev proves a stubborn foe, and Kennedy takes a stand against the spread of communism in a country few Americans had ever heard of--Vietnam. On the domestic front, civil rights prove tricky for the administration, as they rely heavily on the support of Southern Democrats. Forced to intervene when Freedom Riders take direct action in Southern states, the administration sends in federal marshals to ensure their safety. Health issues continue to plague the president and pain is a constant companion. Glamorous first lady Jackie captivates the world on her travels, while rumors of the president's womanizing continue in Washington.
S26.E6 ∙ The Poisoner's Handbook
From PBS and AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: In the early 20th century, the average American medicine cabinet was a would-be poisoner's treasure chest, with radioactive radium, thallium, and morphine in everyday products. The pace of industrial innovation increased, but the scientific knowledge to detect and prevent crimes committed with these materials lagged behind until 1918. New York City's first scientifically trained medical examiner, Charles Norris, and his chief toxicologist, Alexander Gettler, turned forensic chemistry into a formidable science and set the standards for the rest of the country.
S26.E7 ∙ 1964
The pivotal year that essentially ushered in the true 1960s is explored.
S26.E8 ∙ The Amish: Shunned
From pbs.org What is it like to be cut off from your faith and your family? The Amish: Shunned follows seven people who have chosen to leave their closed and tightly-knit communities for the outside world, knowing they can never return. Each has paid deeply for their decision. Estranged from loved ones, these former Amish find themselves struggling to make their way in modern America.
S26.E9 ∙ Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
The historical account of outlaws Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, whose turn of the last century exploits made headlines, led them to be pursued by Pinkerton detectives hired by the railroads, and inspired a hit 1969 film.
S26.E10 ∙ The Rise and Fall of Penn Station
In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished an enormous engineering feat: knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States by building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and, eventually, to New England. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Designed by renowned architect Charles McKim, and inspired by the Roman baths of Caracalla, Pennsylvania Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station's opening, the unthinkable happened. What was supposed to herald and represent the American Empire was slated to be destroyed. The financially strapped Pennsylvania Railroad announced it would tear down what had once been its crowning jewel to build Madison Square Garden. It took three years to dismantle Alexander Cassatt's monumental station. In the wake of the destruction, New York City established the Landmarks Preservation Commission, sparing Grand Central Terminal a similar fate.
S26.E11 ∙ Freedom Summer
This documentary recalls the confrontational, violent summer of 1964 in Mississippi, when student volunteers from around the country joined with local activists in an effort to register to vote as many African-Americans as possible.
S27.E1 ∙ Cold War Roadshow
The 1959 tour of the U.S. by the Soviet Premier Khrushchev.
S27.E2 ∙ Ripley: Believe It or Not
Robert Ripley - an odd everyman whose uncommon interests in oddities and odd facts catapulted him unexpectedly into public renown and lasting fame.
S27.E3 ∙ Klansville U.S.A.
Investigate the reasons North Carolina, long seen as the most progressive state in the South, became home to the largest Klan organization in the country, with more members than all the other Southern states combined, during the 1960s.
S27.E4 ∙ Edison
Amazing biography and introspective on the boy, the man, the husband, the father, the entrepreneur and the businessman as well as the inventor and his genius.
S27.E5 ∙ The Big Burn
From PBS - Inspired by Timothy Egan's best-selling book, The Big Burn is the dramatic story of an unimaginable wildfire that swept across the Northern Rockies in the summer of 1910. The fire devoured more than three million acres in 36 hours, confronting the fledgling U.S. Forest Service with a catastrophe that would define the agency and the nation's fire policy for the rest of the 20th century and beyond. As America tries to manage its fire-prone landscapes in the 21st century, The Big Burn provides a cautionary tale of heroism and sacrifice, arrogance and greed, hubris and, ultimately, humility, in the face of nature's frightening power.
S27.E6 ∙ The Forgotten Plague
Tuberculosis is the deadliest killer in human history, responsible for one in four deaths for almost two centuries. While it shaped medical pursuits, social habits, economic development and public policy, TB and its impact are poorly understood.
S27.E8 ∙ Blackout
Look back at what happened in New York City the night the lights went out in summer 1977, plunging seven million people into darkness.
S28.E1 ∙ Walt Disney - Part 1
A look at Walt Disney's career from early films to Disneyland to ideas for a new community (EPCOT) that was not realized before his death. A great insight into his motivations and values.
S28.E2 ∙ Walt Disney - Part 2
Explore the complex life and enduring legacy of the creative genius as he made films such as Cinderella and Mary Poppins and realized his dream project, Disneyland.
S28.E3 ∙ American Comandante
U.S. citizen William Morgan rises to power in Cuba during the Cuban Revolution.
S28.E4 ∙ The Pilgrims
Recounts the founding (1620) and early years of the Plymouth Colony in the 17th century. Includes the real story of the "First Thanksgiving".
S28.E5 ∙ Bonnie & Clyde
Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow embark on a two-year crime spree during the Great Depression and become known as the most famous criminal couple in U.S. history.
S28.E6 ∙ Mine Wars
Efforts of the United Mine Workers, led by Mother Jones, to organize coal miners in southern West Virginia at the beginning of the 20th century leads to violence and insurrection.
S28.E7 ∙ Murder of a President
The life of President James Garfield, including his rise to power and the aftermath of his assassination.
S28.E8 ∙ The Perfect Crime
The trial of wealthy college students Leopold and Loeb, who murder a 14-year-old boy in 1924, sets off a national firestorm about morality and capital punishment.
S28.E9 ∙ Space Men
U.S. Air Force pilots and scientists lay the groundwork for the U.S. space program through project "Man High".
S28.E10 ∙ The Boys of '36
The story of how a team of underdog American rowers became gold medalists in the 1936 Olympics.
S29.E1 ∙ Tesla
Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world. His fertile but undisciplined imagination was the source of his genius but also his downfall, as the image of Tesla as a mad scientist came to overshadow his reputation as a brilliant innovator.
S29.E2 ∙ The Battle of Chosin
The Battle of Chosin Reservoir, a crucial battle in the Korean War.
S29.E3 ∙ Command and Control
An account of an incident at a Titan II missile complex in Damascus, Ark., in 1980 that almost caused the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead 600 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The near-calamity was kicked off when a socket fell from the wrench of an airman performing maintenance in a Titan II silo and punctured the missile, releasing a stream of highly explosive rocket fuel. Included: first-person accounts of USAF personnel on the scene.
S29.E4 ∙ Rachel Carson
A profile of scientist and writer Rachel L. Carson (1907-64), whose 1962 book "Silent Spring" helped launch the modern environmental movement.
S29.E5 ∙ The Race Underground
Engineers overcome challenges to construct America's first subway system in Boston.
S29.E6 ∙ Oklahoma City
Oklahoma City explores the intertwined narratives of the worst domestic terrorist attack in the U.S. and the anti-government movement that inspired the actions of Timothy McVeigh, including two standoffs with law enforcement with tragic outcomes - Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. On April 19, 1995, McVeigh, a former soldier deeply influenced by the literature and ideas of the radical right, set off a truck bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people and injuring 675 others. Oklahoma City traces the events that led McVeigh to that day and recounts the stories of the survivors, first-responders, U.S. Marshals, FBI investigators and journalists who covered the events. The film provides an in-depth and provocative exploration of the white supremacist, extremist militia movement that rose to prominence in the early 1990s and still makes news today.
S29.E7 ∙ Ruby Ridge
Shortly before dawn on August 21, 1992, six heavily armed U.S. marshals made their way up to the isolated mountaintop home of Randy Weaver, his wife Vicki and their three children on Ruby Ridge in Northern Idaho. Charged with selling two illegal sawed-off shotguns to an undercover agent, Weaver had failed to appear in court and law enforcement was tasked with bringing him in. For months, the Weavers had been holed up on their property with a cache of firearms, including automatic weapons. When the federal agents doing surveillance on the property killed the barking dog of the family, a firefight broke out. The standoff that mesmerized the nation would leave Weaver injured, his wife and son dead, and some convinced that the federal government was out of control. Drawing upon eyewitness accounts, including interviews with Weaver's daughter, Sara Weaver, and federal agents involved in the confrontation, Ruby Ridge is a riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement.
S29.E8 ∙ The Great War: Part 1
Explore America's tortured, nearly three-year journey to war. In August 1914, a war unprecedented in size and violence broke out on the European continent. Ever the idealistic diplomat, Wilson vowed to keep his country out of "the Great War." His neutrality was supported but reports from Europe began to challenge America's delicate position. From behind the battle lines came reports detailing German atrocities in Belgium and France: history's first chemical attack and the sinking of the British liner Lusitania, killing 128 Americans. But Wilson stood firm, asserting that America would not fight - this was not her war. Despite Wilson's pleas, American men and women, volunteered in the hospitals and on the fighting fields of France, and by 1916, there was a growing sense that the war was coming closer to home. On April 2, Wilson asked a joint session of Congress for a declaration of war against Germany, proclaiming that "the world must be made safe for democracy."
S29.E9 ∙ The Great War: Part 2
Americas entry into World War 1 is recalled, including the speed of mobilization.
S29.E10 ∙ The Great War: Part 3
Chart the ways in which the bloodiest battle in American history, and the ensuing peace, forever changed a president and a nation. In the fall of 1918, the deadly flu swept through cities at home and at the front. When the tide of war turned, the Germans wanted a cease-fire on Wilson's terms. On November 11, 1918, the war was over, but for Wilson, the last fight remained. He negotiated the terms of the peace treaty and won the world over to his League of Nations, but felled by a stroke, he failed to convince the Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles, with tragic consequences. While Wilson had heralded the triumph of American values abroad, many were worried about democracy at home; with citizens persecuted, "aliens" interned, and cities torn apart by race riots. The Great War changed the country forever. African Americans who had fought in the war found ways to continue to push for change. Women's suffrage gained converts, including Wilson. And America stepped onto the world stage.
S30.E1 ∙ Into the Amazon
A very special video segment featuring one of the Acclaimed president and spokesperson around Theodore Roosevelt.
S30.E2 ∙ The Secret of Tuxedo Park
Tells the story of the role played by American tycoon and physicist Alfred Lee Loomis and a team of British scientists at Loomis's home laboratory outside New York City in countervailing Nazi advances in nuclear fission during World War II.
S30.E3 ∙ The Gilded Age
As national wealth expands in the U.S. disparities among the nation's population spark debates that continue to rage in modern day America.
S30.E4 ∙ The Bombing of Wall Street
The Wall Street bombing occurred at 12:01 pm on September 16, 1920, in the Financial District of Manhattan, NYC. The blast killed 30 people immediately and another eight died later of wounds sustained in the blast.
S30.E6 ∙ The Chinese Exclusion Act
The origin, history, and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already there to become U.S. citizens.
S31.E1 ∙ The Circus: Part 1
The history of the performing entertainment form in American history.
S31.E3 ∙ The Eugenics Crusade
Tracing the movement to breed a "better" American race, which turned the science of heredity into an instrument of social control that led to forced sterilization campaigns.
S31.E4 ∙ The Swamp
The history of the Florida Everglades and the efforts to reclaim, control and preserve the vast area once viewed as a wasteland.
S31.E5 ∙ Sealab
The U.S. Navy's SEALAB, a pressurized underwater habitat complete with science labs and living quarters for divers, helps advance deep sea diving and rescue.
S31.E6 ∙ Chasing the Moon: A Place Beyond the Sky
Tracking the early years of the space race beginning in 1957 as the U.S. struggles to catch up with the Soviet Union.
S31.E7 ∙ Chasing the Moon: Earthrise
On 27 January 1967, the disastrous failure of Apollo 1 risked the cancellation of America's space program altogether. Within two years of the Apollo 1 fire, Apollo 8 became the first manned mission to escape the Earth's gravity and orbit the moon.
S31.E8 ∙ Chasing the Moon: Magnificent Desolation
The years 1969-1970 take Americans to the moon and back; what happens to scientific and engineering programs after goals are achieved.
S31.E9 ∙ Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Woodstock, the 1969 three-day music and art fair at a farm in New York that marked the end of one of the most turbulent decades in American History.
S32.E1 ∙ The Feud
Exploring the Hatfield-McCoy feud through the years 1863-1891, which involved two rural families of the West Virginia-Kentucky area along the Tug Fork of the Big Sandy River.
S32.E3 ∙ McCarthy
This documentary surveys the rise and fall of the notorious Communist-hunting Republican senator from Wisconsin, who helped spread a climate of suspicion and fear in early 1950s America.
S32.E4 ∙ The Poison Squad
Chemist Dr. Harvey Wiley takes on food manufacturers to banish dangerous substances threatening the health of consumers, laying the groundwork for U.S. consumer protection laws and the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.
S32.E5 ∙ The Man Who Tried to Feed the World
Plant breeder Norman Borlaug solves India's famine problem and leads a "Green Revolution" of agriculture programs around the world, saving 1 billion lives and winning a 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.
S32.E6 ∙ George W. Bush: Part 1
Biography and political career of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States.
S32.E7 ∙ George W. Bush: Part 2
Biography and political career of George W. Bush, the 43rd President of the United States.
S32.E8 ∙ Mr. Tornado
Japanese American researcher Tetsuya Theodore Fujita, aka Mr. Tornado, created the Fujita scale of tornado intensity and damage and is credited with advancing modern understanding of severe weather phenomena.
S32.E9 ∙ The Vote, Part 1
100 years after the 19th Amendment passed, The Vote tells the dramatic story of the hard-fought and transformative campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, resulting in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
S32.E10 ∙ The Vote, Part 2
Second of 2 2-hour episodes. Final few years of the struggle for woman suffrage, focusing substantially on the efforts of Alice Paul. Also sometimes airs as 4 one-hour episodes.
S33.E1 ∙ The Codebreaker
The work of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, America's first female cryptanalyst, brings down Al Capone, breaks up a Nazi spy ring in South America, and lays the foundation for the National Security Agency (NSA).
S33.E2 ∙ Voice of Freedom
On Easter Sunday, 1939, contralto Marian Anderson stepped up to a microphone in front of the Lincoln Memorial. Inscribed on the walls of the monument behind her were the words "all men are created equal." Barred from performing in Constitution Hall because of her race, Anderson would sing for the American people in the open air. Hailed as a voice that "comes around once in a hundred years" by maestros in Europe and widely celebrated by both white and black audiences at home, her fame hadn't been enough to spare her from the indignities and outright violence of racism and segregation. Voice of Freedom interweaves Anderson's rich life story with this landmark moment in history, exploring fundamental questions about talent, race, fame, democracy and the American soul.
S33.E3 ∙ The Blinding of Isaac Woodard
The Blinding of Isaac Woodard: How a horrific incident of racial violence became a powerful catalyst for the civil rights movement. In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel's book "Unexampled Courage", the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court's landmark 1954 "Brown v. Board of Education" decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jump-started the modern civil rights movement.
S33.E4 ∙ American OZ
The life of author L. Frank Baum, creator of the classic novel "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," which has inspired films, books and musicals.
S33.E5 ∙ Billy Graham
Billy Graham explores the life and career of one of the best-known and most influential religious leaders of the 20th century. From modest beginnings on a North Carolina farm, Graham rose to prominence with a fiery preaching style, movie-star good looks and effortless charm. His early fundamentalist sermons harnessed the apocalyptic anxieties of a post-atomic world, exhorting audiences to adopt the only possible solution: devoting one's life to Christ. Graham became an international celebrity who built a media empire, preached to millions worldwide, and had the ear of tycoons, royalty and presidents. At age 99, he died a national icon, estimated to have preached in person to 210 million people. Billy Graham examines the evangelist's extraordinary influence on American politics and culture, interweaving the voices of historians, scholars, witnesses, family, and Graham himself, to create a kaleidoscopic portrait of a singular figure in the American experience.
S33.E7 ∙ Citizen Hearst: Part 1
In the 1930s, William Randolph Hearst's media empire included 28 newspapers, a movie studio, a syndicated wire service, radio stations and 13 magazines. Nearly one in four American families read a Hearst publication. His newspapers were so influential that Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Winston Churchill all wrote for him. The first practitioner of what is now known as "synergy," Hearst used his media stronghold to achieve unprecedented political power, then ran for office himself. After serving two terms in Congress, he came in second in the balloting for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1904. Perhaps best known as the inspiration for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and his lavish castle in San Simeon, Hearst died in 1951 at the age of 88, having transformed the media's role in American life and politics. The two-part, four-hour film is based on historian David Nasaw's critically acclaimed biography, 'The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst.'
S33.E8 ∙ Citizen Hearst (Part 2)
In the 1930s, William Randolph Hearst's media empire included 28 newspapers, a movie studio, a syndicated wire service, radio stations and 13 magazines. Nearly one in four American families read a Hearst publication. His newspapers were so influential that Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Winston Churchill all wrote for him. The first practitioner of what is now known as "synergy," Hearst used his media stronghold to achieve unprecedented political power, then ran for office himself. After serving two terms in Congress, he came in second in the balloting for the Democratic presidential nomination in 1904. Perhaps best known as the inspiration for Orson Welles' Citizen Kane and his lavish castle in San Simeon, Hearst died in 1951 at the age of 88, having transformed the media's role in American life and politics. The two-part, four-hour film is based on historian David Nasaw's critically acclaimed biography, 'The Chief: The Life of William Randolph Hearst.'
S33.E10 ∙ Goin' Back to T-Town
Goin' Back to T-Town tells the story of Greenwood, an extraordinary Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma, that prospered during the 1920s and 30s despite rampant and hostile segregation. Torn apart in 1921 by one of the worst racially-motivated massacres in the nation's history, the neighborhood rose from the ashes, and by 1936 boasted the largest concentration of Black-owned businesses in the U.S., known as "Black Wall Street." Ironically, it could not survive the progressive policies of integration and urban renewal of the 1960s. Told through the memories of those who lived through the events, the film is a bittersweet celebration of small-town life and the resilience of a community's spirit.
S34.E1 ∙ Riveted: The History of Jeans
The history of jeans, from their roots in slavery to the Wild West, hippies, high fashion and hip-hop.
S34.E2 ∙ The American Diplomat
The American Diplomat explores the lives and legacies of three African-American ambassadors, Edward R. Dudley, Terence Todman and Carl Rowan, who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. At the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, they were asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home. Colloquially referred to as "pale, male, and Yale," the U.S. State Department fiercely maintained and cultivated the Foreign Service's elitist character and was one of the last federal agencies to desegregate. Through rare archival footage, in-depth oral histories, and interviews with family members, colleagues and diplomats, the film paints a portrait of three men who created a lasting impact on the content and character of the Foreign Service and changed American diplomacy forever.
S34.E3 ∙ Flood in the Desert
Flood in the Desert tells the dramatic story of the March 1928 collapse of the St. Francis Dam and its aftermath, which was the second deadliest disaster in California history. The resulting flood killed over 400 people, destroyed millions of dollars of property, and washed away the reputation of one of the most celebrated men in Southern California, William Mulholland. A self-taught engineer, Mulholland had ensured Los Angeles' remarkable growth by building a cement aqueduct that piped water from the Owens Valley across the Mojave Desert and into the arid city, 233 miles away. He had good intentions, but the bursting of his St. Francis Dam, the city's largest single reservoir, was a colossal engineering and human failure.
S34.E4 ∙ Plague at the Golden Gate
The bubonic plague outbreak in San Francisco's Chinatown in 1900 and the hunt to identify its source leads to a spate of violent anti-Asian sentiment.
S34.E5 ∙ Taken Hostage: Part One
Revisit the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, through stories of those whose ordeal riveted the world.
S34.E6 ∙ Taken Hostage: Part Two
Revisit the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, through stories of those whose ordeal riveted the world.
S35.E1 ∙ The Lie Detector
Discover the story of the polygraph, the controversial device that transformed modern police work, seized headlines and was extolled as an infallible crime-fighting tool. A tale of good intentions, twisted morals and unintended consequences.
S35.E2 ∙ Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming a Space
An in-depth biography of the influential author whose ground-breaking anthropological work would challenge assumptions about race, gender and cultural superiority that had long defined the field in the 19th century.
S35.E3 ∙ Ruthless: Monopoly's Secret History
Monopoly is America's favorite board game, a love letter to unbridled capitalism and our free market society. But behind the myth of the game's creation is an untold tale of theft, obsession and corporate double-dealing.
S35.E4 ∙ The Movement and the 'Madman'
Two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 cause President Richard Nixon to cancel his "madman" plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam.
S35.E5 ∙ The Sun Queen
Scientist Mária Telkes dedicated her career to harnessing the power of the sun. Though undercut and thwarted by her male colleagues, she persevered to design the first successfully solar-heated house in 1948 and held more than 20 patents.
S35.E6 ∙ Casa Susanna
In the '50s and '60s, deep in the American countryside at the foot of the Catskills, a small wooden house with a barn behind it was home to the first clandestine network of cross-dressers.
S35.E7 ∙ The Busing Battleground
Court-mandated social integration unleashes racial unrest throughout Boston in the 1970s as Black and White students are bussed together.
S35.E8 ∙ The Harvest
A look at attempts to desegregate schools in Leland, Mississippi.
