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Browse the entire American Experience series featuring over 200 films. Watch full films online, download teacher’s guides, go behind the scenes, and learn more about your favorite films.
An 800-mile pipeline transports crude from the largest oil field in North America. Native Alaskans, oil company representatives, environmentalists, geologists, politicians, and others tell the story of its construction.
The story of a founding father who laid the groundwork for the nation's modern economy -- including the banking system and Wall Street. He was also a primary author of the Federalist Papers.
America's first superstar, Oakley was the main attraction of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. She thrilled audiences with her sharpshooting, and fueled nostalgia for the American frontier West.
After the Soviet blockade of West Berlin, British and American pilots delivered tons of food and fuel to the German city by airplane for nearly a year in the first battle of the Cold War.
When David Vetter died at age 12, he was already world famous - played by John Travolta in a TV movie. His unusual life, lived permanently inside a germ-free environment due to severe combined immunodeficiency, fueled medical ethics debates.
William "Buffalo Bill" Cody's legendary exploits helped create the myth of the American West that still endures today.
Following the attacks on Pearl Harbor and America's entry into World War II, the US government feared an Alaskan invasion and constructed one of the biggest and most difficult homeland defense projects ever.
The influential musical pioneers from Appalachia whose recordings ("Wildwood Flower", "Keep on the Sunny Side") lifted spirits during the Great Depression. Their songs and style laid the foundations for American folk, country and bluegrass music.
An African American minister whose dream of ending racism galvanized millions of Americans in the civil rights movement, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968 but left an enduring legacy.
The story of a Russian immigrant and anarchist who is said to have inspired the assassination of President William McKinley. "The most dangerous woman in America" was exiled in 1919.
A great playwright's turbulent story: from childhood through the years of his Nobel Prize-winning career (including "The Iceman Cometh" and "Long Day's Journey Into Night") to his lonely, painful death.
This acclaimed 14-hour series covers all of the major events of the civil rights movement from 1954-1985, tracing African Americans' struggle for equality and justice.
Ten years after American troops arrived in South Vietnam, communists seized Saigon in an attack that brought the war to a startling conclusion. The final chapter in American Experience's 11-hour series, Vietnam.
Cuba's Communist leader defied the odds, surviving his Soviet benefactors, the wrath of U.S. presidents, the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and several assassination attempts.
Joe Louis became a symbol of African American equality and democracy. Max Schmeling represented Hitler's Aryan racial theories and fascism. The two boxers fought in 1938 -- on the eve of World War II.
A biography of the 41st U.S. president, from his service in World War II to his days in the Oval Office with the fall of the Berlin Wall, the race riots in Los Angeles and the breakup of the Soviet Union.
Discovery of a precious metal inspired worldwide migration by Forty-Niners, the eager gold-seekers who settled the westernmost state and turned California into a land of opportunity and fierce competition.
San Francisco built one of the "Seven Wonders of the Modern World" during the Great Depression while battling wind, fog, ocean currents, and earthquake-prone land.
The dramatic story of the construction of New York City's Grand Central Terminal in 1913, lauded as the greatest railroad terminal in the world, with electrified train service under the city streets.
In 1900 Major Walter Reed proved that mosquitoes spread yellow fever. The discovery halted an outbreak during the construction of the Panama Canal, and led to the disease's eventual eradication.
The laying of the transatlantic telegraph cable - an underwater communications link between North America and Europe - is a remarkable story of mid-19th century ingenuity and perseverance.
The bizarre saga of the Symbionese Liberation Army, Patty Hearst's kidnapping, Hearst's conversion to her captors' cause, and the bank robberies and shootouts that followed.
In September 1970, militants from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine hijacked five commercial airplanes, giving birth to a new era of terrorism.
Meet the Confederate guerrilla who helped invent his own myth after the Civil War as a Western Robin Hood. In reality, Jesse James was a brutal thief and murderer.
The second U.S. president, John Adams, was arguably the most influential of the founding fathers. Using letters John and his wife Abigail exchanged, this film explores their tumultuous times.
In 1978 over 900 people led by Rev. Jim Jones died in the largest mass murder-suicide in history, at Jonestown, Guyana. The story is told by survivors, Temple defectors, relatives, and journalists.
With data compiled from tens of thousands of sex questionnaires, Alfred Kinsey changed America's views about sex when he published the bestselling Kinsey Reports.
The legendary trapper, scout and soldier helped map the Oregon Trail. The ultimate frontiersman, Carson inspired popular novels before being associated with the "Long Walk" of the Navajo people.
Originally settled as a mail stop, Las Vegas has undergone several makeovers, from an Old West vacation town, to a mafia haven, to the "Atomic City" and "Sin City."
The international race to develop biological weapons during the 20th century, the challenges scientists faced, and the moral dilemmas posed by their eventual success. Watch Bonus Footage at the bottom of the chapter menu.
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