American Experience Show Summary, Upcoming Episodes and TV Guide

American Coup: Wilmington 1898 tells the little-known story of a deadly race massacre and carefully orchestrated insurrection in North Carolina's largest city in 1898 — the only coup d'état in the history of the US. Stoking fears of 'Negro Rule,' self-described white supremacists used intimidation and violence to destroy Black political and economic power and overthrow Wilmington's democratically-elected, multi-racial government. Black residents were murdered and thousands were banished. The story of what happened in Wilmington was suppressed for decades until descendants and scholars began to investigate. Today, many of those descendants — Black and white — seek the truth about this intentionally buried history.

When Black neighborhoods in scores of cities erupted in violence during the summer of 1967, President Lyndon Johnson appointed the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders––informally known as the Kerner Commission––to answer three questions: What happened? Why did it happen? And what could be done to prevent it from happening again? The bi-partisan commission's final report, issued in March of 1968, would offer a shockingly unvarnished assessment of American race relations––a verdict so politically explosive that Johnson not only refused to acknowledge it publicly, but even to thank the commissioners for their service. The Riot Report explores this pivotal moment in the nation's history and the fraught social dynamics that simultaneously spurred the commission's investigation and doomed its findings to political oblivion.

The Trailblazers who landed the first blow against cancer.

The story of how the life-saving cervical cancer test became an ordinary part of women's lives is as unusual and remarkable as the coalition of people who ultimately made it possible: a Greek immigrant, Dr. George Papanicolau; his intrepid wife, Mary; Japanese-born artist Hashime Murayama; Dr. Helen Dickens, an African American OBGYN in Philadelphia; and an entirely new class of female scientists known as cyto-screeners. But the test was just the beginning. Once the test proved effective, the campaign to make pap smears available to millions of women required nothing short of a total national mobilization. The Cancer Detectives tells the untold story of the first-ever war on cancer and the people who fought tirelessly to save women from what was once the number one cancer killer of women.

In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a 'Pro-American Rally.' Images of George Washington hung next to swastikas and speakers railed against the 'Jewish controlled media' and called for a return to a racially 'pure' America. The keynote speaker was Fritz Kuhn, head of the German American Bund. Nazi Town, USA tells the largely unknown story of the Bund, a 1930s pro-Nazi group which had scores of chapters in suburbs and big cities across the country and represented what many believe was a real threat of fascist subversion in the United States. The Bund held joint rallies with the Ku Klux Klan and ran dozens of summer camps for children centered around Nazi ideology and imagery. Its melding of patriotic values with virulent anti-Semitism raised thorny issues that we continue to wrestle with today.

In The Harvest, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Douglas A. Blackmon looks back at how school integration transformed his hometown of Leland, Mississippi. After the 1954 Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, little more than token efforts were made to desegregate Southern schools. That changed dramatically on October 29, 1969, when the high court ordered Mississippi schools to fully — and immediately — desegregate. As a result, a group of children, including six-year-old Blackmon, became part of the first class of Black and White children who would attend all 12 grades together in Leland.

Set against vast historic and demographic changes unfolding across America, The Harvest follows a coalition of Black and white citizens working to create racially integrated public schools in a cotton town in the middle of the Mississippi Delta, the most rigidly segregated area in America. It tells the extraordinary story of how that first class became possible, then traces the lives of Blackmon and his classmates, teachers, and parents from the first day through high school graduation in 1982. It is a riveting portrait of how those children's lives were transformed and how the town — and America — were changed. But as the film follows the lives of those children into the present, it is also a portrait of what our society has lost in its failure to finish the work begun a generation ago.

In the 1950s and '60s, an underground network of transgender women and cross-dressing men found refuge at a modest house in the Catskills region of New York. Known as Casa Susanna, the house provided a safe place to express their true selves and live for a few days as they had always dreamed—dressed as and living as women without fear of being incarcerated or institutionalized for their self-expression. 

Told through the memories of those whose visits to the house would change their lives, the film provides a moving look back at a secret world where the persecuted and frightened found freedom, acceptance, and, often, the courage to live their lives out of the shadows.

The Movement and the 'Madman' shows how two antiwar protests in the fall of 1969 — the largest the country had ever seen — pressured President Nixon to cancel what he called his 'madman' plans for a massive escalation of the U.S. war in Vietnam, including a threat to use nuclear weapons. At the time, protestors had no idea how influential they could be and how many lives they may have saved.

Told through remarkable archival footage and firsthand accounts from movement leaders, Nixon administration officials, historians, and others, the film explores how the leaders of the antiwar movement mobilized disparate groups from coast to coast to create two massive protests that changed history.

Raised in the small all-Black Florida town of Eatonville, Zora Neale Hurston studied at Howard University before arriving in New York in 1925. She would soon become a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance, best remembered for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. But even as she gained renown in the Harlem literary circles, Hurston was also discovering anthropology at Barnard College with the renowned Franz Boas. She would make several trips to the American South and the Caribbean, documenting the lives of rural Black people and collecting their stories. She studied her own people, an unusual practice at the time, and during her lifetime, became known as the foremost authority on Black folklore. This episode is an in-depth biography of the influential author whose groundbreaking anthropological work would challenge assumptions about race, gender, and cultural superiority that had long defined the field in the 19th century.

Unfolding like a political thriller, Taken Hostage tells the story of the Iran hostage crisis, when 52 American diplomats, Marines, and civilians were held hostage at the American Embassy in Tehran on November 4, 1979. For the next 444 days, the world watched as the United States received a daily barrage of humiliation, vitriol, and hatred from a country that had long been one of our closest allies. Told through the candid, personal testimony of those whose lives were upended by the action, the crisis would transform both the U.S. and Iran and forever upend the focus and direction of American foreign policy.

The film is told mainly through the lens of the remarkable love story of former hostage Barry Rosen and his wife Barbara, who was suddenly thrust into the public eye as the crisis dragged on. Other key figures are Hilary Brown and Carole Jerome, two pioneering female foreign correspondents who risked their lives to uncover the truth of what was happening in Iran; Gary Sick, a senior member of President Carter's national security team and longtime Iran expert; and Colonel James Q. Roberts, a member of the top-secret American commando unit, who recounts details of the failed attempt to rescue the hostages in a daring Special Forces operation. Taken Hostage uses their candid, personal testimonies to tell the story of these dramatic, history-making events.

Over 100 years before the deadly COVID-19 pandemic set off a nationwide wave of fear and anti-Asian sentiment, an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco's Chinatown unleashed a similar crisis. The death of a Chinese immigrant in 1900 would have likely gone unnoticed if a sharp-eyed medical officer hadn't discovered a swollen black lymph node on his body — evidence of one of the world's most feared diseases, bubonic plague. It was the first time in history that civilization's most feared disease, the infamous Black Death, made it to North America. When others started dying, health officials and business leaders were torn about how to stave off an epidemic without causing panic and derailing the city's booming economy. 

Two doctors — vastly different in temperament, training, and experience — used different methods to lead the seemingly impossible battle to contain the disease before it could engulf the country. In addition to overwhelming medical challenges, they faced unexpected opposition from business leaders, politicians, and even the President of the United States. Fueling the resistance would be a potent blend of political expediency, ignorance, greed, racism, and deep-rooted distrust of not only federal authority but science itself. Scapegoated as the source of the disease early on, the Chinese-American community fought back against unjust, discriminatory treatment. Based on David K. Randall's Black Death at the Golden Gate, the film features interviews with various medical experts, authors, and Asian-American historians.

The American Diplomat explores the lives and legacies of three African American ambassadors — Edward 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, the three men were asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home. Oft reputed 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 left a lasting impact on the content and character of the Foreign Service and changed American diplomacy forever. Building lives of opportunity and influence, they advocated for a nation that did not always advocate for them. 

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, transforming 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.

When Ronald Reagan nominated Sandra Day O'Connor as the Supreme Court's first female justice in 1981, the announcement dominated the news. Time Magazine's cover proclaimed 'Justice At Last,' and she received unanimous Senate approval. Born in 1930 in El Paso, Texas, O'Connor grew up on a cattle ranch in Arizona in an era when women were expected to become homemakers. After graduating near the top of her class at Stanford Law School, she could not convince a single law firm to interview her, so she turned to volunteer work and public service. A Republican, she served two terms in the Arizona state senate, then became a judge on the state court of appeals. During her 25 years on the Supreme Court, O'Connor was the critical swing vote on cases involving some of the 20th century's most controversial issues, including race, gender, and reproductive rights — and she was the tiebreaker on Bush v. Gore. Forty years after her confirmation, this biography recounts the life of a pioneering woman who both reflected and shaped an era.

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, transforming 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.

Billy Graham explores the life and career of one of the best-known and most influential Christian 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 by age 30 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.  

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 jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement. 

Based on the book The Woman Who Smashed Codes: A True Story of Love, Spies, and the Unlikely Heroine Who Outwitted America's Enemies, The Codebreaker reveals the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst whose painstaking work to decode thousands of messages for the U.S. government would send infamous gangsters to prison in the 1930s and bring down a massive, near-invisible Nazi spy ring in WWII. Her remarkable contributions would come to light decades after her death, when secret government files were unsealed. But together with her husband, the legendary cryptologist William Friedman, Elizebeth helped develop the methods that led to the creation of the powerful new science of cryptology and laid the foundation for modern codebreaking today.


One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment,The Votetells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the most significant expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.

In its final decade, from 1909 to 1920, movement leaders wrestled with contentious questions about the most effective methods for affecting social change. They debated the use of militant, even violent tactics, as well as hunger strikes and relentless public protests. The battle for the vote also upended previously accepted ideas about the proper role of women in American society and challenged the definitions of citizenship and democracy.

Exploring how and why millions of 20th-century Americans mobilized for — and against — women's suffrage, The Vote brings to life the unsung leaders of the movement and the deep controversies over gender roles and race that divided Americans then — and continue to dominate political discourse today.

Part Two opens with the ensuing war in Iraq and continues through Bush's second term, as the president confronts the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina and the most serious financial crisis since the Great Depression.

In 1966, drought and an exploding population confronted India with the imminent threat of a severe famine that many scientists and intellectuals feared was a harbinger of global catastrophes to come, as the world's population outstripped its ability to produce food. India turned to Norman Borlaug, an unassuming plant breeder from Iowa whose combination of scientific knowledge and raw determination had made him a legend among a small handful of fellow specialists.

The Man Who Tried to Feed the World recounts the story of the man who would not only solve India's famine problem but would go on to lead a 'Green Revolution' of worldwide agriculture programs, saving countless lives. He was awarded the 1970 Nobel Peace Prize for his work but spent the rest of his life watching his methods and achievements come under increasing fire.

McCarthy chronicles the rise and fall of Joseph McCarthy, the Wisconsin Republican senator who came to power after a stunning victory in an election no one thought he could win. Once in office, he declared that there was a vast Communist conspiracy threatening America — emanating not from a rival superpower, but from within. Free of restraint or oversight, he conducted a crusade against those he accused of being enemies of the state, a chilling campaign marked by groundless accusations, bullying intimidation, grandiose showmanship, and cruel victimization. With lawyer Roy Cohn at his side, he belittled critics, spinning a web of lies and distortions while spreading fear and confusion. After years in the headlines, he was brought down by his own excesses and overreach. But his name lives on linked to the modern-day witch hunt we call 'McCarthyism.'

In August 1969, nearly half a million people gathered at a farm in upstate New York to hear music. What happened over the next three days, however, was far more than a concert. It would become a legendary event, one that would define a generation and mark the end of one of the most turbulent decades in modern history. Occurring just weeks after an American set foot on the moon, the Woodstock music festival took place against a backdrop of a nation in conflict over sexual politics, civil rights, and the Vietnam War. A sense of an America in transition—a handoff of the country between generations with far different values and ideals—was tangibly present at what promoters billed as 'An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace and Music.'

Woodstock turns the lens back at the audience, at the swarming, impromptu city that grew up overnight on a few acres of farmland. What took place in that teeming mass of humanity — the rain-soaked, starving, tripping, half-a-million strong throng of young people — was nothing less than a miracle of teamwork, a manifestation of the 'peace and love' the festival had touted and a validation of the counterculture's promise to the world. Who were these kids? What experiences and stories did they carry with them to Bethel, New York that weekend, and how were they changed by three days in the muck and mire of Yasgur's farm?

Part three, which covers 1969–1970, takes Americans to the moon and back. Dreams of space dramatically intersect with dreams of democracy on American soil, raising questions of national priorities and national identity. The final episode also considers what happens to scientific and engineering programs—and to a country—after ambitious national goals have been achieved.

'Chasing the Moon,' a film by Robert Stone, reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, upending much of the conventional mythology surrounding the effort. The series recasts the Space Age as a fascinating stew of scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle, visionary impulses, and personal drama. Utilizing a visual feast of previously overlooked and lost archival material — much of which has never before been seen by the public — the film features a diverse cast of characters who played critical roles in these historic events. Among those included are astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Frank Borman and Bill Anders; Sergei Khrushchev, son of the former Soviet premier and a leading Soviet rocket engineer; Poppy Northcutt, a 25-year old 'mathematics whiz' who gained worldwide attention as the first woman to serve in the all-male bastion of NASA's Mission Control; and Ed Dwight, the Air Force pilot selected by the Kennedy administration to train as America's first black astronaut.

Part two covers 1964–1968, four heady, dangerous years in the history of the space race, focusing on the events surrounding the Apollo 1 and Apollo 8 missions. As Americans moved through the 60s and reflect on the challenges ahead, many begin to wonder: What exactly is it going to take to beat the Soviets to the moon?

'Chasing the Moon,' a film by Robert Stone, reimagines the race to the moon for a new generation, upending much of the conventional mythology surrounding the effort. The series recasts the Space Age as a fascinating stew of scientific innovation, political calculation, media spectacle, visionary impulses, and personal drama. Utilizing a visual feast of previously overlooked and lost archival material — much of which has never before been seen by the public — the film features a diverse cast of characters who played critical roles in these historic events. Among those included are astronauts Buzz Aldrin, Frank Borman and Bill Anders; Sergei Khrushchev, son of the former Soviet premier and a leading Soviet rocket engineer; Poppy Northcutt, a 25-year old 'mathematics whiz' who gained worldwide attention as the first woman to serve in the all-male bastion of NASA's Mission Control; and Ed Dwight, the Air Force pilot selected by the Kennedy administration to train as America's first black astronaut.

On a February day in 1969, off the shore of northern California, a US Navy crane carefully lowered 300 tons of metal into the Pacific Ocean. The massive tubular structure was an audacious feat of engineering — a pressurized underwater habitat, complete with science labs and living quarters for an elite group of divers who hoped to spend days or even months at a stretch living and working on the ocean floor. The Sealab project, as it was known, was the brainchild of Captain George Bond, a country doctor turned naval pioneer who dreamed of pushing the limits of ocean exploration the same way NASA was pushing the limits of space exploration. As Americans were becoming entranced with the effort to land a man on the moon, these Navy 'Aquanauts,' including one of NASA's most famous astronauts, Scott Carpenter, were breaking depth barrier records underwater. 'Sealab' tells the little-known story of the daring program that tested the limits of human endurance and revolutionized the way humans explore the ocean.

A hybrid derived from the Greek words meaning 'well' and 'born,' the term eugenics was coined in 1883 by Sir Francis Galton, a British cousin to Charles Darwin, to name a new 'science' through which human beings might take charge of their own evolution. The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– campaign to breed a 'better' American race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the fledgling scientific theory of heredity into a powerful instrument of social control. Perhaps more surprising still, American eugenics was neither the work of fanatics nor the product of fringe science. The goal of the movement was simple and, to its disciples, laudable: to eradicate social ills by limiting the number of those considered to be genetically 'unfit' –– a group that would expand to include many immigrant groups, the poor, Jews, the mentally and physically disabled, and the 'morally delinquent.' At its peak in the 1920s, the movement was in every way mainstream, packaged as a progressive quest for 'healthy babies.' Its doctrines were not only popular and practiced, but codified by laws that severely restricted immigration and ultimately led to the institutionalization and sterilization of tens of thousands of American citizens. Populated by figures both celebrated and obscure, The Eugenics Crusade is an often revelatory portrait of an America at once strange and eerily familiar.

This four-hour mini-series tells the story of one of the most popular and influential forms of entertainment in American history. Through the intertwined stories of several of the most innovative and influential impresarios of the late nineteenth century, this series reveals the circus was a uniquely American entertainment created by a rapidly expanding and industrializing nation; that it embraced and was made possible by Western imperialism; that its history was shaped by a tension between its unconventional entertainments and prevailing standards of respectability; and that its promise for ordinary people was the possibility for personal reinvention. For many Americans, the circus embodied the improbable and the impossible, the exotic and the spectacular. Drawing upon a vast and richly visual archive and featuring a host of performers, historians and aficionados, The Circus follows the rise and fall of the gigantic, traveling tented railroad circus and brings to life an era when Circus Day would shut down a town and its stars were among the most famous people in the country. It explores the colorful history of this popular, influential and distinctly American form of entertainment, from the first one-ring show at the end of the 18th century to 1956, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey big top was pulled down for the last time.

On September 16, 1920, as hundreds of Wall Street workers headed out for lunch, a horse-drawn cart packed with dynamite exploded in front of Morgan Bank - the world's most powerful banking institution. The blast turned the nation's financial center into a bloody war zone and left 38 dead and hundreds more seriously injured. As financial institutions around the country went on high alert, many wondered if this was the strike against American capitalism that radical agitators had threatened for so long. A mostly forgotten act of terror that remains unsolved today, the bombing helped launch the career of a young J. Edgar Hoover and sparked a bitter national debate about how far the government should go to protect the nation from acts of political violence. Based on Beverly Gage's The Day Wall Street Exploded: A Story of America in its First Age of Terror.

In the fall of 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill ordered a small team of scientists on a clandestine transatlantic mission to deliver his country's most valuable military secret — a revolutionary radar component — not to the U.S. government, but to a mysterious Wall Street tycoon, Alfred Lee Loomis. Using his connections, his money, and his brilliant scientific mind, Loomis and his team of scientists developed radar technology that would arguably play a more decisive role than any other weapon in the war. The Secret of Tuxedo Park tells a long-overlooked story of an individual who helped alter the course of history in World War II.

Drawing on the latest scholarship, including unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters, 'The Great War' tells the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators and the American troops who came to be known as 'doughboys.' The series explores the experiences of African-American and Latino soldiers, suffragists, Native American 'code talkers' and others whose participation in the war to 'make the world safe for democracy' has been largely forgotten. The Great War explores how a brilliant PR man bolstered support for the war in a country hesitant to put lives on the line for a foreign conflict; how President Woodrow Wilson steered the nation through years of neutrality, only to reluctantly lead America into the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen, thereby transforming the United States into a dominant player on the international stage; and how the ardent patriotism and determination to support America's crusade for liberty abroad led to one of the most oppressive crackdowns on civil liberties at home in U.S. history. It is a story of heroism and sacrifice that would ultimately claim 15 million lives and profoundly change the world forever. Part 3 of 3

Drawing on the latest scholarship, including unpublished diaries, memoirs and letters, 'The Great War' tells the rich and complex story of World War I through the voices of nurses, journalists, aviators and the American troops who came to be known as 'doughboys.' The series explores the experiences of African-American and Latino soldiers, suffragists, Native American 'code talkers' and others whose participation in the war to 'make the world safe for democracy' has been largely forgotten. The Great War explores how a brilliant PR man bolstered support for the war in a country hesitant to put lives on the line for a foreign conflict; how President Woodrow Wilson steered the nation through years of neutrality, only to reluctantly lead America into the bloodiest conflict the world had ever seen, thereby transforming the United States into a dominant player on the international stage; and how the ardent patriotism and determination to support America's crusade for liberty abroad led to one of the most oppressive crackdowns on civil liberties at home in U.S. history. It is a story of heroism and sacrifice that would ultimately claim 15 million lives and profoundly change the world forever. Part 1 of 3

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a former soldier deeply influenced by the literature and ideas of the radical right, parked a Ryder truck with a five-ton fertilizer bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. Moments later, 168 people were killed, and 675 were injured in the blast. Oklahoma City traces the events — including the deadly encounters between American citizens and law enforcement at Ruby Ridge and Waco — that led McVeigh to commit the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history. With a virulent strain of anti-government anger still with us, the film is both a cautionary tale and an extremely timely warning. 

When Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published in 1962, the book became a phenomenon. A passionate and eloquent warning about the long-term dangers of pesticides, the book unleashed an extraordinary national debate and was greeted by vigorous attacks from the chemical industry. But it would also inspire President John F. Kennedy to launch the first-ever investigation into the public health effects of pesticides — an investigation that would eventually result in new laws governing the regulation of these deadly agents.

Featuring the voice of Mary-Louise Parker as the influential writer and scientist, Rachel Carson is an intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world. Drawn from Carson's own writings, letters and recent scholarship, this film illuminates both the public and private life of the woman who launched the modern environmental movement and revolutionized how we understand our relationship with the natural world.

On Thanksgiving Day 1950, American-led United Nations troops were on the march in North Korea. U.S. Marine and Air Force pilots distributed holiday meals, even to those on the front lines. Hopes were high that everyone would be home by Christmas. But soon after that peaceful celebration, American military leaders, including General Douglas MacArthur, were caught off guard by the entrance of the People's Republic of China, led by Mao Zedong, into the five-month-old Korean War. Twelve thousand men of the First Marine Division, along with a few thousand Army soldiers, suddenly found themselves surrounded, outnumbered and at risk of annihilation at the Chosin Reservoir, high in the mountains of North Korea. The two-week battle that followed, fought in brutally cold temperatures, is one of the most celebrated in Marine Corps annals and helped set the course of American foreign policy in the Cold War and beyond. Incorporating interviews with more than 20 veterans of the campaign, 'The Battle of Chosin' recounts this epic conflict through the heroic stories of the men who fought it.

The story of nine working-class young men from the University of Washington who took the rowing world and America by storm when they captured the gold medal at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin. Their unexpected victory, against not only the Ivy League teams of the East Coast but Adolf Hitler's elite German rowers, gave hope to a nation struggling to emerge from the depths of the Great Depression.

When Nathan Leopold and Richard Loeb, two well-educated college students from a wealthy suburb of Chicago, confessed to the brutal murder of 14-year-old Bobby Franks, the story made headlines across the country. The unlikely killers not only admitted their guilt, but also bragged that they had committed the crime simply for the thrill of it. As the sensational case unfolded during the summer of 1924, with famed defense attorney Clarence Darrow and Cook County Prosecutor Robert Crowe debating the death penalty and scores of commentators weighing in from the sidelines, the question of motive would be turned over and over again. What first seemed like a simple matter of evil gradually would give way to a complex assessment of the murderers' minds and a searing indictment of the forces that had shaped them, and set off a national debate about morality and capital punishment.

Go inside the bitter battle to unionize coal miners at the dawn of the 20th century. Coal was the fuel that powered the nation. Yet few Americans thought much about the men who blasted the black rock from underground and hauled it to the surface. The Mine Wars tells the overlooked story of the miners in the mountains of southern West Virginia — native mountaineers, African American migrants, and European immigrants — who came together in a protracted struggle for their rights. Decades of violence, strikes, assassinations, and marches accompanied their attempts to form a union, culminating in the Battle of Blair Mountain in 1921, the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War. The West Virginia mine wars raised profound questions about what freedom and democracy meant to working people in an industrial society.

Arguably one of the most fateful and resonant events of the last half millennium, the Pilgrims journey west across the Atlantic in the early 17th century is a seminal, if often misunderstood episode of American and world history. The Pilgrims explores the forces, circumstances, personalities, and events that converged to exile the English group in Holland and eventually propelled their crossing to the New World - a story universally familiar in broad outline, but almost entirely unfamiliar to a general audience in its rich and compelling historical actuality.

Discover the harrowing and brutal truths behind the Pilgrims' arrival in the New World and the myths of Thanksgiving. Director Ric Burns explores the history of our nation's beginnings in this epic tale of converging forces.

Walt Disney's life and legacy, from 'Cinderella' to 'Mary Poppins' and his vision and realization of Disneyland.

As Wednesday, July 13, 1977 dawned hot and humid, New Yorkers prepared themselves for another sweltering day. It was the first day of a nine-day heat wave that would become the hottest in New York City history. The once-booming city had been suffering years of economic decline. It was on the verge of bankruptcy; both unemployment rates and crime rates were high; police and firefighters had been laid off; municipal services, including sanitation and after-school programs, had been cut; and a serial killer named Son of Sam was still on the loose, keeping everyone on edge.

When a severe thunderstorm hit, the lights went out, and some eight million people plunged into darkness in New York City and surrounding areas. By the time the power was fully restored more than a day later, more than 1,600 businesses had been looted, more than 3,000 people had been arrested, and firefighters had battled more than 1,000 fires. The affected neighborhoods would never be the same.

By the dawn of the 19th century, the deadliest killer in human history, tuberculosis, had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived. The disease struck America with a vengeance, ravaging communities and touching the lives of almost every family. The battle against the deadly bacteria had a profound and lasting impact on the country. It shaped medical and scientific pursuits, social habits, economic development, western expansion, and government policy. Yet both the disease and its impact are poorly understood: in the words of one writer, tuberculosis is our 'forgotten plague.'

By the time he died in 1931, Thomas Edison was one of the most famous men in the world. The holder of more patents than any other inventor in history, Edison had amassed a fortune and achieved glory as the genius behind such revolutionary inventions as sound recording, motion pictures, and electric light. When Edison died on October 18, he lay in state for two days in the library of his West Orange complex, as thousands of people lined up to pay their final respects. On the third night, at the request of President Herbert Hoover, radio listeners across the country switched off their lights as a reminder of what life would have been like without Edison.

Edison explores the complex alchemy that accounts for the enduring celebrity of America's most famous inventor, offering new perspectives on the man and his milieu, and illuminating not only the true nature of invention, but its role in turn-of-the-century America's rush into the future.

Robert Ripley's obsession with the odd and keen eye for the curious made him one of the most successful men in America during the Great Depression, transforming himself from a skinny loner into a flashy entertainer who presented to the nation a blend of freakish oddities, colorful exotica, and homespun Americana. Over three decades, his Believe It or Not! franchise grew into an entertainment empire, expanding from newspapers to radio, film and, ultimately, television. Americans not only loved his bizarre fare, but were fascinated by the man himself, and the eccentric, globetrotting playboy became an unlikely national celebrity. This is the story of the man who popularized the iconic phrase, and proof of why we still can't resist his challenge to 'Believe it — or not!'