122 results found

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  Film

  Rachel Carson

  An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking writings revolutionized our relationship to the natural world and launched the modern environmental movement.

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  Film

  Alone on the Ice

  Admiral Richard E. Byrd became an American hero for his daring expeditions to the North and South Pole.

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  Chasing the Moon | Digital Short

  Space Law: The Next Generation

  Private companies planning lunar missions. Millions of pieces of space garbage. Asteroid mining rights. Who’s in charge in outer space?

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  Film

  The Man Who Tried To Feed The World

  The Man Who Tried to Feed the World recounts the story of the man who would not only solve India’s famine problem but would go on to lead a “Green Revolution” of worldwide agriculture programs, saving countless lives.

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  The Donner Party | Article

  Call of the West

  For legions of Americans in the mid-19th century, the call of the West could not be ignored.

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  Into the Deep: America, Whaling & the World | Article

  The Life of Herman Melville

  When Melville died in 1891, his death was noted in only one local newspaper, with a brief description of the "long forgotten" author.

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  Mary Pickford | Article

  Charlie Chaplin (1889-1977)

  With a film career spanning over fifty years, Chaplin was an innovative artist and one of the most powerful stars in Hollywood history.

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  Film

  Ansel Adams

  From the day that a 14-year-old Ansel Adams first saw the transcendent beauty of the Yosemite Valley, his life was, in his words, "colored and modulated by the great earth-gesture of the Sierra." Few American photographers have reached a wider audience than Adams, and none has had more impact on how Americans grasp the majesty of their continent.

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  The Transcontinental Railroad | Article

  Oakes Ames

  "King of Spades" Oakes Ames, a Massachusetts businessman and politician, made his money as part of of Ames & Sons, a shovelworks founded by his father and administered by brother Oliver. The transcontinental railroad would bring him even more wealth -- until 1873, when the Crédit Mobilier scandal destroyed his career.

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  The Telephone | Article

  Forgotten Inventors

  Inventions include the can opener, blue jeans, frisbee, feather duster, gas mask, oil burner and blood bank.

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  Film

  Grand Coulee Dam

  At once the story of an astonishing engineering achievement, and a cautionary tale about arrogance, our relationship to the natural world, and the price of progress.

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  Film

  Tupperware!

  In the 1950s, American women discovered they could earn thousands — even millions — of dollars from bowls that burped.

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  Chasing the Moon | Article

  Drawing the Political Lines of Apollo

  Debates about the US space program also appeared in political cartoons splashed across the nation’s newspapers.

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  America 1900 | Timeline

  Timeline

  View a selection of events from 1900.

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  Film

  Mr. Polaroid

  Before the iPhone, the Polaroid camera let people instantly chronicle their lives. Along with instant photo mania, its company culture became the model for Silicon Valley. Mr. Polaroid is the story of Edwin Land, the man behind the camera.

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  Film

  Walt Whitman

  He is today one of the most-recognized figures in American literary history: poet, patriot and faithful advocate of democracy.

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  Film

  Daughter from Danang

  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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  Film

  The Man Behind Hitler

  A symbol of Nazi cruelty and a master of cynical propaganda, Joseph Goebbels was the mastermind behind Adolf Hitler's disturbing success. Goebbels, called the "genius of spin" and the "Reich-Liar-General," was a complicated man whose attitudes fluctuated between extremes of self-pity and grandiose excess. 

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  Film

  The Fight

  On June 22, 1938, 70,000 fans crammed into Yankee Stadium to watch what some have called "the most important sporting event in history" — the rematch between African American heavyweight Joe Louis and his German opponent Max Schmeling.

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  Film

  Mary Pickford

  It was the golden age of silent film, and she was the world's most celebrated actress. But she would learn that fame is fickle and life at the top is precarious.