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Vietnam: A Television History

Aired May 26, 1997

A six-year project from conception to completion, Vietnam: A Television History carefully analyzes the costs and consequences of a controversial but intriguing war. From the first hour through the last, the series provides a detailed visual and oral account of the war that changed a generation and continues to color American thinking on many military and foreign policy issues.

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Gold Fever

Aired May 12, 1997 | 53 min

In July 1897, reporters from around the world gathered at Seattle's port as a steamship carrying passengers from Canada's frozen wasteland arrived. Word was out that many aboard had struck it rich and were carrying home sacks — even crates — of gold.

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Around the World in 72 Days

Aired April 28, 1997

At the age of nineteen, Nellie Bly talked her way into an improbable job on a newspaper, then went on to become known as "the best reporter in America." The daring Bly continually risked her life to grab headlines. To expose abuse of the mentally ill, she had herself committed. When she traveled around the world in just 72 days, beating Jules Verne's fictional escapade, she turned herself into a world celebrity.

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Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern

Aired April 14, 1997

By the late 1980s, Iowa farmers Russ and Mary Jane Jordan had accumulated a large debt. Faced with losing their farm, The Jordans came up with a dramatic solution to hold onto their family farm as massive foreclosures swept the nation.

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New York Underground

Aired February 17, 1997

In March 1888, a ferocious blizzard ground the city to a halt. Mountains of snow twenty feet high filled the streets, horse-drawn streetcars and omnibuses lay abandoned, the entire city was paralyzed. The snow left no doubt that New York needed an underground rail system and in 1894, after years of political obstacles, a plan was approved. Construction began in 1900.

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Big Dream Small Screen

Aired February 10, 1997

In 1921, a 14-year-old boy working in a potato field in Idaho had a vision of sending pictures in waves over the air, like sound waves for radio.

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The Telephone

Aired February 3, 1997

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.

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Andrew Carnegie: The Richest Man in the World

Aired January 20, 1997

Andrew Carnegie built a fortune in telegraphy, railroads, and steel. And then began, systematically, to give it all away.

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TR

Aired October 6, 1996

Author, soldier, scientist, outdoorsman and caring father, he was the youngest man to become president. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.

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The Wright Stuff

Aired February 12, 1996 | 60 min

On August 8, 1908, at a racetrack outside Paris, Wilbur Wright executed what was, for him, a routine flight: a smooth take-off banking into a couple of tight circles, ending in a perfect landing. The flight took less than two minutes, but it left spectators awestruck.

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The Battle Over Citizen Kane

Aired January 29, 1996

It was a clash of the titans. William Randolph Hearst, the lord and ruler of San Simeon. And Orson Welles, the ambitious young man with a golden touch, who set out to dethrone him. It was a fight from which neither man ever fully recovered.

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The Orphan Trains

Aired November 27, 1995

The story of this ambitious and finally controversial effort to rescue poor and homeless children begins in the 1850s, when thousands of children roamed the streets of New York in search of money, food and shelter—prey to disease and crime.

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