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| Segment | Start* | End** | Length* |
| Introduction | "Just north of Edinburgh stands Scotland's Firth of Forth bridge..." | "...Tonight we begin with bridges." | 2:42 |
| Roman Bridges: stone vs. wood; arches | (2:42) Golden Gate Bridge | "...for centuries bridge builders looked for practical alternatives." | 5:44 |
| Iron Bridges: cast iron; Dee Bridge failure. | (8:26) Stone bridges | "...wrought iron and steel could withstand tension forces very well." | 5:59 |
| Trusses: wrought iron; wind loads; open trusses; cantilevers | (14:25) Red train truss | "...engineers had developed a more practical solution for long spans ... and just in time." | 5:21 |
| Brooklyn Bridge: suspension bridges; Roebling family; caissons | (19:46) Old New York | "...the confidence to undertake the most difficult bridge project ever attempted." | 14:28 |
| Golden Gate: problem solving; cables; worker safety | (34:14) Sailboat | "...an old nemesis that caught the world's best engineers completely by surprise." | 11:50 |
| Environmental Loads: wind load; Tacoma Narrows failure; earthquake loads | (46:04) Ribbon cutting | "...to connect the people of the world for the contibnued advancement of all civilization." | 6:52 |
Some of the most familiar and awe-inspiring large structures are bridges, vital to modern civilization in their ability to connect epople and places. The program traces the history of bridge building, from the stone arch bridges of the Roman Empire to Japan's giant, all-steel Akashi-Kaikyo suyspension bridge.