American Experience (1988)
American Experience (1988)
TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

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23x01 God in America: A New Adam (1)

12 October, 2010 5:00 am
God in America comprises six 60-minute episodes. 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.

23x02 God in America: A New Eden (2)

12 October, 2010 5:00 am
God in America comprises six 60-minute episodes. A New Eden explores how an unlikely alliance between evangelical Baptists and enlightenment figures like Thomas Jefferson served as the foundation of American religious liberty.

23x03 God in America: A Nation Reborn (3)

13 October, 2010 5:00 am
God in America comprises six 60-minute episodes. During the 19th century, the forces of modernity challenged traditional faith and drove a wedge between liberal and conservative believers.

23x04 God in America: A New Light (4)

13 October, 2010 5:00 am
God in America comprises six 60-minute episodes. Isaac Mayer Wise embraces change and establishes Reform Judaism in America. Presbyterian biblical scholar Charles Briggs seeks to wed his evangelical faith with modern biblical scholarship, and is tried for heresy. In the 1925 Scopes trial, Christian fundamentalist William Jennings Bryan faces off against freethinker Clarence Darrow in a battle between scientific and religious truth.

23x05 God in America: Soul of a Nation (5)

14 October, 2010 5:00 am
God in America comprises six 60-minute episodes. Hour five 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.

23x06 God in America: Of God and Caesar (6)

14 October, 2010 5:00 am
God in America comprises six 60-minute episodes. Conservative evangelicals' embrace of presidential politics ends in disappointment and questions about mixing religion and politics. New waves of immigrants from Asia, the Middle East and Latin America make the United States the most religiously diverse nation on earth. In the 2008 presidential election, a religious voice reemerges in the Democratic Party.

23x07 Robert E. Lee

04 January, 2011 5:00 am
Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains a source of fascination and, for some, veneration.

23x08 Dinosaur Wars

18 January, 2011 5:00 am
In the late 19th century, paleontologists Edward Cope and O.C. Marsh uncovered the remains of hundreds of prehistoric animals in the American West, including dozens of previously undiscovered dinosaur species. But the rivalry that developed between them would spiral out of control, permanently damaging their careers and threatening the future of American paleontology.

23x09 Panama Canal

25 January, 2011 5:00 am
The 1904-1914 construction of the Panama Canal, the 50-mile link between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, is recalled via archival footage, photos and interviews with workers, as well as insights from historians. The undertaking cost the U.S. about $375 million and 5609 workers (out of 56,307), who perished from both accidents and disease. The documentary also explores what life was like for the workers, who were a mix of Americans, Europeans and West Indians. On August 15th, 1914, the Panama Canal opened, connecting the world’s two largest oceans and signaling America’s emergence as a global superpower. American ingenuity and innovation had succeeded where, fifteen years earlier, the French had failed disastrously. But the U.S. paid a price for victory: a decade of ceaseless, grinding toil, an outlay of more than 350 million dollars -- the largest single federal expenditure in history to that time -- and the loss of more than 5,000 lives. Along the way, Central America witnessed

23x10 The Greely Expedition

01 February, 2011 5:00 am
In 1881, 25 men led by Adolphus Greely set sail from Newfoundland to Lady Franklin Bay in the high Arctic, where they planned to collect a wealth of scientific data from a vast area of the world’s surface that had been described as a "sheer blank." Three years later, only six survivors returned, with a daunting story of shipwreck, starvation, mutiny and cannibalism. The film reveals how poor planning, personality clashes, questionable decisions and pure bad luck conspired to turn a noble scientific mission into a human tragedy.

23x11 Triangle Fire

01 March, 2011 5:00 am
It was the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history. A dropped match on the 8th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sparked a fire that killed over a hundred innocent people trapped inside. The private industry of the American factory would never be the same.

23x12 The Great Famine

12 April, 2011 5:00 am
The little-known story of the American effort to relieve starvation in the new Soviet Russia in 1921, The Great Famine is a documentary about the worst natural disaster in Europe since the Black Plague in the Middle Ages. Five million Soviet citizens died. Half a world away, Americans responded with a massive two-year relief campaign, championed by Herbert Hoover, director of the American Relief Administration.

23x13 Stonewall Uprising

26 April, 2011 5:00 am
The event that launched a worldwide rights movement -- a story told by those who took part, from drag queens and street hustlers to police detectives, journalists and a former mayor of New York. The Stonewall Inn, a Mafia-run gay bar in Greenwich Village, was raided by police on June 28, 1969. Gay men and women fought back, and the streets of New York erupted in street demonstrations, announcing that the gay rights movement had arrived.

23x14 Soundtrack for a Revolution

10 May, 2011 5:00 am
The story of the American civil rights movement told through the freedom songs protesters sang on picket lines, in mass meetings, in paddy wagons and in jail cells as they fought for justice and equality. The music enabled African-Americans to sing words they could not say and helped protesters face brutal aggression with dignity. With heart-wrenching interviews, dramatic images and contemporary performances by top artists, including John Legend, Joss Stone, Wyclef Jean and The Roots.

23x15 Freedom Riders

17 May, 2011 5:00 am
The story behind a courageous band of civil rights activists called Freedom Riders who in 1961 challenged segregation in the American South.

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