The World's greatest fair
Documentary on the 1904 World's Fair in Saint Louis, using archival images and interviews with historians to highlight various aspects of the event.
Why we fight
Explores a half-century of U.S. foreign policy from World War II to the Iraq War, revealing how, as Dwight Eisenhower had warned in his 1961 Farewell Address, political and corporate interests have become alarmingly entangled in the business of war. On a deeper level, what emerges is a portrait of a nation in transition--drifting dangerously far from her founding principles toward a more imperial and uncertain future.
Alexander Graham Bell
His drive to help his deaf mother communicate led to one of the most important inventions of the 20th century. Alexander Graham Bell left his mark on the world with the invention of the telephone. Biography traces the life of the famed inventor.
Baseball
It is an epic overflowing with heroes and hopefuls, scoundrels and screwballs. It is a saga spanning the quest for racial justice, the clash of labor and management, the transformation of popular culture, and the unfolding of the national pastime. Here is the story of a nation at work and play. Experience it in ten thrilling "innings" from master storyteller and award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns.
Brooklyn Bridge
This award-winning program by filmmaker Ken Burns recaptures all the drama, the struggles and the personal tragedies behind this greatest of all achievements of America's industrial age. As this fascinating program reveals, it was the largest bridge of its era, marked by enormous construction problems and ingenious solutions.
Building the Alaska highway
In May 1942, thousands of American soldiers began one of the biggest and most difficult construction projects ever undertaken. This program tells how they battled to push a 1,520-mile road across one of the world's harshest landscapes.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee: the epic fall of the American Indian
Begins powerfully with the Sioux triumph over General Custer at Little Big Horn and goes on to center around three powerful men. Charles Eastman is a young, Dartmouth-educated Sioux doctor. Sitting Bull is the proud Lakota chief who refuses to submit to U.S. government policies designed to strip his people of thier identity, dignity and sacred land. Senator Henry Dawes is one of the men responsible for the government policy on Indian affairs. While Eastman and schoolteacher Elaine Goodale work to imporve live for the Sioux on the reservation, Senator Dawes lobbies President Grant for kinder Indian treatment.
Chicago: city of the century
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.
Clarence Darrow
In a rarely seen filmed version of his acclaimed one man show, Henry Fonda stars as controversial lawyer Clarence Darrow. Follow Darrow's reflections on his life, his passions, his personal disappointments, and his professional triumphs.
Citizen King
This story begins on the steps on the Lincoln Memorial in August 1963 when a 34-year-old preacher galvanized millions with his dream for an America free of racism. It comes to a bloody end almost five years later on a motel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee. In the years since those events unfolded, the man at the center, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., has become a mythic figure, a minister whose oratory is etched into the minds of millions of Americans, a civil rights activist whose words and image are more hotly contested, negotiated and sold than almost anyone else's in American history.
The Civil War
An epic documentary bringing life to America's most destructive - and defining - conflict. Here is the saga of celebrated generals and the ordinary soldiers. A heroic and transcendent president and a country that had to divide itself in two in order to become one again.
A Class apart: a Mexican American civil rights story
In the small town of Edna, Texas, in 1951, field hand Pete Hernández killed a tenant farmer after exchanging words in a cantina. From this murder emerged a landmark civil rights case that would change the lives and legal standing of ten of millions of Americans. Tells the story of an underdog band of Mexican American lawyers who took their case all the way to the Supreme Court, where they challenged Jim Crow-style discrimination against Mexican Americans. Lawyers forged a daring legal strategy, arguing that Mexican Americans were "a class apart" from a legal system that recognized only blacks and whites.
Colonial house
Contemporary Americans and Britons spend five months on an isolated stretch of the Maine coast recreating the life of American colonists in the year 1628. The modern colonists struggle to create a functioning and profitable colony using only the tools and technology of that era. Extensive research went into recreating this 17th-century environment in which the colonists negotiate personal and communal challenges as they deal with the demoralizing weather, rustic living conditions, and backbreaking labor. Among the points of dissension that arise in the colony are: the rigid class and gender roles, mandatory religious observance, and the puritanical civil laws of the era, particularly those pertaining to profanity.
Conquistadors
One of history's most fateful chapters and greatest adventures. The exploration of the America's by Spanish soldier-explorers, and the experiences and tragedies they had once there.
Destination America: the people and cultures that created a nation
Destination America looks at the driving forces that have compelled individuals to immigrate to America and, in particular, the immigration of women who have come to this country in search of opportunity and basic human rights denied them in their homelands.
The Donner Party
Chronicles the tale of the pioneer group that set out for California in the spring of 1846 and ended in disaster in the snows of the Sierra Nevada Mountains the following winter.
Empire of the air: the men who made radio
Story of radio from 1906-1955 and the three men who made it happen: Lee de Forest, Edwin Howard Armstrong, and David Sarnoff. Combines archival photographs, newsreels of the period, interviews, and radio soundtrack.
Enola Gay
Enola Gay: Get a look inside the bomber that helped bring WWII to a stop, development of the atomic bomb, and the aftermath. Hiroshima: Fifty years after America dropped the first atomic bomb, this documentary looks at the events leading up to its use in the light of new information about a hidden agenda. Did top military officials order the attack despite knowing that Japan was willing to surrender? Did a political motivation drive Truman to defy his closest advisors? These and other questions are investigated.
Eyes on the prize
Vols. 1-3 tell the story of America's civil rights years from 1954 to 1965; vols. 4-7 examine the new America from 1966 to 1985, from community power to the human alienation of urban poverty.
FDR
Learn the story of one of America's most beloved Presidents. Includes rare archival footage and home movies as well as fascinating interviews with family members, friends, biographers, and eyewitnesses to the Roosevelt saga.
FDR: years of crisis
Follow the life and career of the famed politician in the years before he became president and explore the forces that shaped his vision.
Flags of our fathers
The story of the five Marines and one Navy corpsman that were forever immortalized as a symbol of WWII by raising the American flag at the battle of Iwo Jima. When Joe Rosenthal's photograph of the event becomes a symbol of hope for the families at home, the three surviving men are pulled from combat and sent on a tour across America to raise desperately-needed bond money. It is a trip that brings out the truths of both that symbolic act, and their lives during war.
The fog of war: eleven lessons from the life of Robert S. McNamara
The story of America as seen through the eyes of the former Secretary of Defense, under President Kennedy and President Johnson, Robert S. McNamara. McNamara was one of the most controversial and influential political figures of the 20th century. Now, he offers a candid and intimate journey through some of the most seminal events in contemporary American history. He offers new and often surprising insights into the 1945 bombing of Tokyo, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the effects of the Vietnam War.
The greatest speeches of all time. Volume 1
Seen and heard in this original footage are the dramatic speeches from world leaders that changed the course of history and inspired millions worldwide. Featuring speeches of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Sir Winston Churchill, General Douglas MacArthur, Harry S. Truman, John F. Kennedy, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., Robert F. Kennedy, Malcom X, Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan.
Horatio's drive: America's first road trip
Tells the story of Horatio Nelson Jackson, an eccentric doctor from Vermont, who in 1903 became the first person to drive an automobile across the United States. Follows Jackson's adventurous journey in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car from San Francisco to New York City when the automobile was still a novelty and before most roads were paved.
Huey Long
No modern politician has captured the American imagination as has the Kingfish--Huey Long. Two years in the making, Ken Burns' documentary traces Long's spectacular career from the 1920s when he burst out of Louisiana's red clay hills to smash the state's power structure under the banner "Every Man a king."
Influenza, 1918
In the spring of 1918, an army private reported to a hospital in Kansas. He was diagnosed with the flu, an illness that doctors knew little about. By the end of WWI, America was ravaged by a flu epidemic that killed 675,000 people.
John Adams
While our new nation was suffering attacks from both within and without, John Adams had a vision of a nation of liberty and justice for all. He guided his peers--General George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson--in setting the values and agenda for a glorious, free America. Adams and his wife Abigail refined these ambitious democratic ideals, and their partnership became one of the most moving love stories in American history.
Johnstown flood
Rumors and fears that the Conemaugh Lake Reservoir had reached its summit and the South Fork Dam might burst were widespread for many years. By Friday, May 31, 1889, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, it had been raining for a week. Finally at 3:10 pm the center of the dam gave way. Considered the worst flood disaster in the nation's history - 2,209 persons were killed, a countless number of bodies were never found.
The Kennedys
The Kennedys explores the building of the Kennedy legend, a story in part created and then brilliantly promoted by the family itself. A story whose afterglow still captures the American imagination.
Kinsey
Part of the PBS American Experience series. Through interviews with Alfred Kinsey's research assistants, his children, people who took his sex questionnaire, and historians, this documentary assesses Kinsey's remarkable achievements.
Letters from Iwo Jima
Sixty-one years ago, the United States and Japanese armies met on Iwo Jima. Decades later, hundreds of letters are unearthed from that stark island's soil. The letters give faces and voices to the men who fought there, as well as the extraordinary general who led them. Leading the defense is Lt. General Tadamichi Kuribayashi. With little defense other than sheer will and the volcanic rock of the island itself, Gen. Kuribayashi's unprecedented tactics transform what was predicted to be a quick and bloody defeat into nearly 40 days of heroic and resourceful combat.
Liberty! The American Revolution
Liberty! is a exuberant documentary about the American Revolution and our fight for freedom. It chronicles the events leading up to the declaration of war and the lasting effects these events had on shaping our country today.
Man on the moon
"Man on the moon, " a collection of films from CBS and NASA, highlights the nine-day Apollo 11 mission and features an overview of the manned space program, both before and after Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon. In "Houston, we have a problem, " the drama of the Apollo 13 mission follows what had begun as a routine flight that abruptly changed when an explosion aboard the command module rocked the ship nearly 200,000 miles from the earth. The heroic efforts of the team at Mission Control, as well as those of astronauts Jim Lovell, John Swigert and Fred Haise, are captured in a brilliant demonstration of human capability under almost unbearable stress. "Space shuttle" features the launch and maiden voyage of the orbiter Columbia on April 12, 1981, with astronauts John Young and Robert Crippen aboard. The voyage heralded a new era in space expolration. Although the mission was a complete success, descriptions of the solid fuel rockets used to propel the shuttle into orbit and the heat dissipating tiles that protect the orbiter upon re-entry add an eerie reminder of what would happen in light of subsequent system failures.
Monkey trial
The trial of John Scopes, a Tennessee biology teacher arrested in 1925 for teaching Darwin's theory of evolution. The Scopes trial was America's first major media event.
The National Parks: America’s Best Idea
Traces the birth of the national park idea in the mid-1800s and follows its evolution for nearly 150 years. Using archival photographs, first-person accounts of historical characters, personal memories and analysis from more than 40 interviews, the series chronicles the steady addition of new parks through the stories of the people who helped create them and save them from destruction.
New York: a documentary
This series chronicles the history of New York City from its beginnings in 1609 as a Dutch trading post, through the depression, onto the turbulent years of change in the following decades after WWII, to its present day status as one of the most important and influencial cities in the world. The final episode was created in response to the destruction of the World Trade Center.
Not for ourselves alone: the story of Elizabeth Cady Stanton & Susan B. Anthony
Presents the history of women's suffrage in the United States through the dramatic, often turbulent friendship of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan Anthony. Part 1 covers the years from their youth up to the establishment of the National Woman Suffrage Association in 1868. Part 2 spans the period from 1868 to the passage in 1919 of the 19th amendment to the Constitution which gave women the vote.
One woman, one vote
Documents the 72-year struggle for women's suffrage which culminated in the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment in 1920. It illuminates the alliances, infighting, betrayals and defeats that paved the way for victory in the battle for women's right to vote. Historical footage is enhanced with vocal performances, and interviews with historians provide the viewer with both current and historical perspectives.
Reconstruction: the second Civil War
The story of the tumultuous years after the Civil War during which America grappled with how to rebuild itself, how to successfully bring the South back into the Union and at the same time, how former slaves could be brought into the life of the country.
Remember the alamo
In the early 1830s Texas was about to explode. Although under Mexican rule, the region was home to more than 20,000 U.S. settlers agitated by what they saw as restrictive Mexican policies. Mexican officials, concerned with illegal trading and immigration in Texas, were prepared to fight hard to keep the province under their control. Caught in the middle were the area's 4,000 Mexican Texans or Tejanos who were forced to choose a side. The conflict pitted brother against brother and devastated the community. This film shows the Tejano gamble for a more prosperous future in an independent Texas proved tragic.
The Revolution
From the roots of the rebellion and the signing of the Declaration of Independence to victory on the battlefield at Yorktown and the adoption of the United States Constitution, this program tells the remarkable story of this important era in history. Venturing beyond the conventional list of generals and politicians, The History Channel introduces the full range of individuals who helped shape this great conflict, including some of the war's most influential unsung heroes. Through cinematic recreations, intimate biographical investigations, and provacative political, military, and economic analysis, 'The Revolution' breathes new life into one of the most pivotal periods in American history.
Salem witch trials
In 1693, the village of Salem, Massachusetts was overcome with superstitious hysteria. At the peak of the madness someone hundred fifty people, male and female, were accused of being witches. Twenty of them were executed.
Scottsboro: an American tragedy
In March 1931, two white women stepped from a box car in Paint Rock, Alabama to make a shocking accusation: they had been raped by nine black teenagers on the train. So began one of the most significant legal fights of the 20th century. The trial of the nine falsely accused teens would draw North and South into their sharpest conflict since the Civil War, yield two momentous Supreme Court decisions and give birth to the civil rights movement.
The Shakers: hands to work, hearts to God
This revealing and poignant film by Ken Burns portrays 200 years of Shaker life in America, guided by the recollections of the three surviving members of the faith, along with a wealth of archival material from over 40 collections. Explore every aspect of this strange and noble sect that produced some of the greatest architecture and furniture in American history.
Sisters of Selma: bearing witness for change
A look back at 1965 and the unsung soldiers of the voting rights marches. Catholic nuns from across the country answered Martin Luther King's call to join the protests in Selma, Alabama. Examine their story and how the experience changed them forever.
Statue of Liberty
Filmmaker Ken Burns presents the definitive portrait of this great lady of the American imagination, in a program that won nominations for both an Academy Award and an Emmy. Follow her life, from her creation by French sculptor Auguste Bartholdi, through her painstaking construction and accident-prone dedication in 1886. Interviews with ordinary Americans reveal a deep understanding of the unique place the statue holds in our hearts.
Tesla: master of lightning
Recount the life of scientist, inventor, and visionary Nikola Tesla, often remembered as more of an eccentric cult figure than an electrical engineering genius. Tesla's surprising inventions are revealed in his autobiographical and scientific writings.
They made America
This series examines innovation in America through the stories of some resourceful men and women whose ideas and inventions have transformed the world.
Thomas A. Edison. Father of invention
Without Thomas Edison's innovative and groundbreaking inventions, modern-day life as we know it would be unimaginable.
Thomas Jefferson
Examines the life of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States and author of the Declaration of Independence.
TR
Documentary about Theodore Roosevelt. Explores the influence of Rossevelt's childhood, his rise to the U.S. Presidency, and the years after he left office.
Two days in October
Examines the critical events that took place in the fall of 1967, from the ambush of an American battalion by the Viet Cong that led to skepticism of whether the Vietnamese conflict was winnable, to the first violent anti-war demonstration on a campus in Wisconsin.
Ulysses S. Grant: warrior, president
Reappraises Grant's career, from his pre-civil war days as a failed soldier, to his transformation into the greatest Union hero of the Civil War, to his presidency, rocked by scandal and economic depression, and to his last days, when he raced to finish his war memoirs as he was dying of cancer.
Unforgivable blackness: the rise and fall of Jack Johnson
The in-depth and intimate story of one of the most important African Americans to live in the first half of the 20th century. Tells the story of Jack Johnson, who was the first African American boxer to win the most coveted title in all of sports - Heavyweight Campion of the World. Includes his struggles in and out of the ring and his desire to live his life as a free man.
U.S.-Mexican War, 1846-1848
This documentary tells the dramatic story of a war in which Mexico lost almost half of its national territory to the United States. Although the war lasted only two years, its outcome not only transformed the boundaries of these neighboring countries, but it also shifted the balance of world powers and shaped the destinies of each nation. This series explores the events surrounding the conflict between the two neighboring nations struggling for land, power and identity. The educational package covers the dramatic sweep of the war from the multiple perspectives of Americans, Mexicans, and Native Americans, examining the social, cultural, and economic forces that shaped each country and its peoples during that crucial era. The war's events, personalities and themes are explored in a binational, multicultural context.
The War of 1812
The first episode, "First invasion : the War of 1812, " depicts how only 30 years after winning the independence, the upstart United States waged another war with Great Britain. Motivated by the high-seas capture of American sailors and the desire to annex Canadian lands, President Madison declared war. Thanks to the aim of a lone sniper, the skill of Andrew Jackson, the fortitude of the people of Baltimore, and the events of September 11, 1814, America would triumph again, ensuring the survival of the fledgling nation. "Save our history: The Star-Spangled Banner" recaptures the events that led Francis Scott Key to write the song which would become our national anthem. This song was written at the Battle of Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. In volume two, "The Battle of New Orleans" shows how General Andrew Jackson led a motley group of Creoles, freeborn blacks, local Native Americans and poorly armed frontiersmen to defeat the British army effectively ending the War of 1812, while "Andrew Jackson: A Man for the People" explores the life of Andrew Jackson, known as "Old Hickory", during his Presidency, which he won on the strength of a reputation earned during the War of 1812. "The Ironclads" examines the development of the iron clad warship, which represented a radical advance over all earlier ships, effectively rendering the wooden navies of the world obsolete overnight. "Surviving an 1812 Battleship" provides a look at what ordinary sailors faced when engaging the enemy inside an 1812 battleship.
The War that made America
The French and Indian War pitted French forces for almost a decade against the British, yet few Americans realize its historic contribution to the revolutionary fervor which swept the continent in 1776. The critical and sophisticated role of Native Americans in this conflict is highlighted.
WWII Memorial: a testament to freedom
Host/narrator, Tim Russert.
Special features: Bonus footage from the World War II Memorial dedication ceremony.
The way West: how the West was lost and won
Chronicles the final decades of the American frontier from the time of the Gold Rush until after the last gasp of the Indian wars at Wounded Knee.
We shall remain: America through native eyes
They were charismatic and forward thinking, imaginative and courageous, compassionate and resolute, and, at times, arrogant, vengeful and reckless. For hundreds of years, Native American leaders from Massasoit, Tecumseh, and Tenskwatawa, to Major Ridge, Geronimo, and Fools Crow valiantly resisted expulsion from their lands and fought the extinction of their culture. Sometimes, their strategies were militaristic, but more often they were diplomatic, spiritual, legal and political ... These five documentaries spanning almost four hundred years tell the story of pivotal moments in U.S. history from the Native American perspective, upending two-dimensional stereotypes of American Indians as simply ferocious warriors or peaceable lovers of the land
The West
Spanning from the first European advance into the wilderness to the dawn of the 20th century, this series portrays the profound, often devastating impact the onrushing white settlers, adventurers and exploiters had on Native Americans and the land.
Why the towers fell
For most people the image of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers on Sept. 11, 2001, was not only a scene of unforgettable horror, it was a moment of unimaginable consequence. This follows a blue ribbon team of forensic engineers as they begin searching for clues that would tell them why the towers fell. From detailed examination of the buildings original design to the relentless process of searching the scrap steel yards and Ground Zero itself for evidence.