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Woodrow Wilson

Aired January 6, 2002

President Woodrow Wilson led America during World War I, created the Federal Reserve, and helped create the League of Nations. Part of the award-winning collection The Presidents.

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War Letters

Aired November 11, 2001

From the Revolutionary War to Operation Desert Storm - newly discovered letters read by celebrity actors tell of courage, longing, and sacrifice.

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Stephen Foster was the first great American songwriter. His melodies are so much a part of American history and culture that most people think they're folk tunes. All in all he composed some 200 songs, including "Oh! Susanna" "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," and "Camptown Races." Though he virtually invented popular music as we recognize it today, Foster's personal life was tragic and contradiction-riddled. His marriage was largely unhappy, he never made much money from his work and he died at the age of 37 a nearly penniless alcoholic on the Bowery in New York.

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Fatal Flood

Aired August 22, 2023 | 53 min

In 1927, the Mississippi River flooded from New Orleans to Illinois, leaving a million people homeless and leading to a major black migration to the North.

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Fatal Flood (español)

Aired September 19, 2023 | 53 min

En 1927, la inundación del río Misisipi desde Nueva Orleans hasta Illinois dejó a 1 millón de personas sin hogar provocando una importante migración negra hacia el norte.

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Scottsboro: An American Tragedy

Aired April 2, 2001

In 1931, two white women made a shocking accusation: they had been raped by nine black teenagers on a train. The trial of the nine falsely accused teens would draw North and South into their sharpest conflict since the Civil War.

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Abraham and Mary Lincoln: A House Divided

Aired February 19, 2001 | 3 hrs 46 min

The six-part story of a frontiersman farmer and a wealthy Confederate slave-owner's daughter.

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Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind

Aired February 12, 2001

He was both a visionary and a manipulator, a brilliant orator and a pompous autocrat. In just ten years following his emigration to the United States as a laborer in 1917, Marcus Garvey rose to lead the largest black organization in history, was taken to prison in handcuffs, and was eventually deported. Marcus Garvey is the dramatic story of the rise and fall of an African American leader who influenced politics and culture around the world.

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Streamliners: America's Lost Trains

Aired February 5, 2001

Although fleets of these high speed trains crisscrossed the country by the 1940s, their success was short-lived. The dramatic story of the streamliners is one of remarkable achievements and opportunities lost.

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Return With Honor

Aired November 13, 2000

"Return with Honor" is the story of American fighter pilots held as prisoners of war in North Vietnam. More than 20 veterans describe their captivity and their struggle to survive mentally and physically, and return with honor. Their moving accounts are combined with archival footage from Vietnam and the United States to create an inspiring tale of personal heroism.

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Secrets of a Master Builder

Aired October 30, 2000 | 58 min

A self-made man and one of America’s greatest engineers, James Buchanan Eads led a life inextricably intertwined with the nation’s most important waterway, the Mississippi River. He explored the river bottom in a diving bell of his own design; made a fortune salvaging wrecks; in the 1870s built the world's first steel bridge over the Mississippi at St. Louis; then deepened the river at its mouth, turning New Orleans into the second largest port in the nation. By the time of his death in 1887, Eads was widely acknowledged to be one of the most influential men of his day.

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The Rockefellers

Aired October 16, 2000

Head of the most powerful family in America, billionaire John D. Rockefeller's vast philanthropy changed his family's reputation.

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