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Hijacked!

Aired February 27, 2006

For more than 30 years it would be known as "the blackest day in aviation history." On September 6, 1970, members of the militant Palestinian group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (P.F.L.P.), hijacked four commercial airplanes. They commandeered a fifth aircraft three days later. Wanting to attract attention to the Palestinian cause and secure the release of several of their comrades, the P.F.L.P. spectacularly blew up four of the planes.

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The Nuremberg Trials

Aired January 30, 2006

The story of the dramatic post-World War II tribunal that brought Nazi leaders to justice and defines trial procedure for state criminals to this day.

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Two Days in October

Aired October 17, 2005 | 118 min

In fall of 1967 in a jungle in Vietnam, a Viet Cong ambush nearly wiped out an American battalion. On a campus in Wisconsin, a student protest against the war spiraled out of control.

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Victory in the Pacific

Aired May 2, 2005

The decisions made by leaders and the escalation of bloodletting that finally ended World War II. In this provocative, thorough examination of the final months of the war, American Experience looks at the escalation of bloodletting from the vantage points of both the Japanese and the Americans.

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Building the Alaska Highway

Aired February 7, 2005

The Alaskan Highway stands today as one of the boldest homeland security initiatives ever undertaken.

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Fidel Castro

Aired January 31, 2005

On January 3, 1959, a column of victorious young rebels advanced along Cuba's main highway towards Havana. At the head of the column rode 33-year-old Fidel Castro Ruz.

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Patriots Day

Aired April 19, 2004

The film follows the re-enactors as they shuffle between their 18th- and 21st-century lives. It captures them building sets, planning military engagements, drilling, rehearsing battles as well as celebrating Thanksgiving, moving house and working. In the end it shows that patriotism, a love of costumes, civic duty, an urge to perform and a passion for history all play a role in these Americans' lives.

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Remember the Alamo

Aired February 2, 2004

In the early 1830s Texas was about to explode. Although ruled by Mexico, the region was home to more than 20,000 U.S. settlers agitated by what they saw as restrictive Mexican policies. Mexican officials, concerned with illegal trading and immigration, were prepared to fight hard to keep the province under their control. Caught in the middle were the area's 4,000 Mexican Texans or Tejanos.

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Reconstruction: The Second Civil War

Aired January 12, 2004 | 120 min

Spanning the momentous years from 1863 to 1877, Reconstruction tracks the extraordinary stories of ordinary Americans — Southern and Northern, white and black — as they struggle to shape new lives for themselves in a world turned upside down.

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Bataan Rescue

Aired July 7, 2003

In late 1941, tens of thousands of American and Filipino soldiers fought a desperate battle to defend the Bataan peninsula in the Philippines from the Japanese. When they lost, they were marched to prison camps in sweltering heat through a mosquito-infested jungle with little or no food or water. Many thousands died along the way.

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Daughter from Danang

Aired April 7, 2003

Daughter From Danang cuts between mother and daughter as the two recall the pain of their separation, and retraces Hiep's journey from Vietnam to Pulaski, Tennessee, where she is adopted by a single woman and renamed Heidi.

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Ulysses S. Grant

Aired May 5, 2002

As a general, he had fought to preserve the Union. As president, he helped to oversee the transformation from union to nation.

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