American Experience | Official Site

Nixon's China Game | Article

Richard M. Nixon

For Richard Milhous Nixon, the trip to 1972 Beijing would be the journey of a lifetime. He would be the first U.S. president to go to China.

Nixon | Primary Source

Accepting the Republican Nomination, 1968

Nixon appeals to the "silent majority" to elect a Republican president who can unite the American people.

Troublesome Creek: A Midwestern | Timeline

Farming in the U.S.

In 1862, President Lincoln signed legislation establishing the U.S. Department of Agriculture. He called it "the people's department" since 90 percent of Americans at the time were farmers.

Ulysses S. Grant | Article

Zachary Taylor

Seasoned war veteran Zachary Taylor emerged from the Mexican War a hero, and won election to the presidency.

The Rockefellers | Timeline

The Rockefellers

Under pressure from his father, John D. Rockefeller drops out of high school two months shy of commencement.

The Kennedys | Article

The Kennedys and Civil Rights

John Kennedy was elected president in 1960 partly because of his promise to secure equal rights for Black Americans.

Film

Freedom Riders

The powerful, harrowing and ultimately inspirational story of six months in 1961 that changed America forever.

Film

Marcus Garvey: Look for Me in the Whirlwind

He was both a visionary and a manipulator, a brilliant orator and a pompous autocrat. In just ten years following his emigration to the United States as a laborer in 1917, Marcus Garvey rose to lead the largest black organization in history, was taken to prison in handcuffs, and was eventually deported. Marcus Garvey is the dramatic story of the rise and fall of an African American leader who influenced politics and culture around the world.

Article

Democracy Way, Part 1

A two-part series about Pennsylvania Avenue and its place in our nation’s capital and in American history.

Film

Lost in the Grand Canyon

In the summer of 1869 a one-armed Civil War veteran, John Wesley Powell, led an epic journey down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. It was the last important exploration within the continental United States. Powell wrote a literary classic about his trip, explored the region for another ten years, studied Native American cultures, and used his position as director of the U.S. Geological Survey to argue against the over development of the West.

Clinton | Article

Hillary Rodham Clinton Biography

"My mother and my grandmothers could never have lived my life." Hillary Clinton's 2003 memoir Living History.

The Kennedys | Article

Interview: Doris Kearns Goodwin

Historian Doris Kearns Goodwin discusses Kennedy as the first Catholic president, the relationship between Jackie and the press, and the Peace Corps.

Return With Honor | Timeline

Timeline of POWs

30 years of revolutionary civil wars and repeated conflicts against colonial powers, peace comes to Vietnam in 1975.

Film

The Berlin Airlift

It could have been the start of World War III. Instead, it became the largest humanitarian campaign the world had ever seen. On June 24, 1948, one of the first major crises of the Cold War occurred when the Soviet Union blocked railroad and street access to West Berlin. For nearly a year two million civilians and twenty thousand allied soldiers in the city's western sector were fed and fueled entirely from the air.