In August, 1969, half a million people from all walks of life and every corner of the country converged on a small dairy farm in upstate New York. They came…

The feud between the Hatfields and McCoys is perhaps the most famous family conflict in American history. As legend has it, two neighboring families in the backwoods of Appalachia waged…

Anderson Hatfield and Randolph McCoy, the patriarchs of the legendary feud, were entrepreneurs seeking to climb up from hardship after fierce economic competition and rapid technological change had turned their…

After the immediate celebration of 1968’s successful Apollo 8 mission, underlying questions about the space programme emerged with new intensity as politicized young Americans challenged the nation’s priorities. Nasa pushed…

In August, 1969, half a million people from all walks of life and every corner of the country converged on a small dairy farm in upstate New York. They came…

What exactly was it going to take for America to beat the Soviets to the moon? Cold War tensions persisted, as rumours circulated that the Soviets were preparing to send…

In 1969 off the California coast, a US Navy crane carefully lowered a massive tubular structure into the waters. It was an audacious feat of engineering — a pressurized underwater…

On 4 October 1957, Soviet scientists launched Sputnik 1 – a beach ball-sized, radio-transmitting aluminium alloy sphere – into orbit. The satellite caused a sensation. Amid Cold War tensions, the…

The history of the Everglades is a dramatic yet little known story of humanity’s attempt to conquer nature. The Swamp, told through the lives of a handful of colorful and…

The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– campaign to breed a “better” American race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the…

The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– campaign to breed a “better” American race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the…

Revisit the heyday of this distinctly American form of entertainment when former rivals Barnum, Bailey and the Ringling Brothers joined forces to present the “greatest show on earth” in big…

The origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already there to become U.S. citizens.

Explore the early days of this popular, influential and distinctly American form of entertainment during an era when master showmen P.T. Barnum, James Bailey and the Ringling Brothers transformed the…

Explore the story behind the first terrorist attack in the U.S., a mostly-forgotten 1920 bombing in the nation’s financial center that left 38 dead – a crime that remains unsolved…

In the fall of 1940, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill delivered his country’s most valuable military secret — a revolutionary radar component — to a Wall Street tycoon, Alfred Lee…

Meet the titans and barons of the glittering late 19th century, whose materialistic extravagance contrasted harshly with the poverty of the struggling workers who challenged them. The vast disparities between…

The remarkable story of President Theodore Roosevelt’s journey with legendary Brazilian explorer Candido Rondon into the heart of the South American rainforest to chart an unexplored tributary of the Amazon.

Chart the ways in which the bloodiest battle in American history, and the ensuing peace, forever changed a president and a nation. In the fall of 1918, the deadly flu…

Chart America’s entry into the conflict, examining the breathtaking speed of mobilization and the profound transformations required if America was to play a central role in the Great War. In…

Part 3 of 3. In the fall of 1918: a major American offensive that could bring a swift end to the war, a lost U.S. battalion surrounded by German forces,…

Part 2 of 3. America’s entry into World War I is recalled, including the breathtaking speed of mobilization and the profound transformations required for America to play a central role…

A riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement.

Part 1 of 3. President Woodrow Wilson vowed to keep the U.S. out of World War I after hostilities erupted in Europe in August 1914. It was a promise he…

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a former soldier deeply influenced by literature and ideas of the radical right, killed 168, and injured 675 others.

She set out to save a species…us. An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world.

The dramatic story of the country’s first subway.

An account of an incident at a Titan II missile complex in Damascus, Ark., in 1980 that almost caused the explosion of a ballistic missile carrying a nuclear warhead 600…

A group of working-class boys from the University of Washington, in the United States, surprise a nation when they capture the gold medal in rowing at the 1936 Summer Olympic…

View the intense battle in intimate detail in this vivid narrative of combat and survival in the first major military clash of the Cold War.

In the 1950s and early ’60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA’s acclaimed Mercury 7 would make…

The story of nine working-class young men from the University of Washington who took the rowing world and America by storm when they captured the gold medal at the 1936…

The story of small people going up against very big forces for a better nation. In the first two decades of the 20th century, coal miners and coal companies in…

Though their exploits were romanticized, the Barrow gang was believed responsible for at least 23 murders, including two policemen, as well as numerous robberies and kidnappings. Discover the true story…

First responders, journalists, shop owners, those inside the pressure-packed control center of Con Edison on West End Avenue, and other New Yorkers tell about what happened when the lights went…

By the dawn of the 19th century, the most deadly killer in human history, tuberculosis, had killed one in seven of all the people who had ever lived. Throughout the…

In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City’s Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New…

In 1959, at the very height of the Cold War, with American schoolchildren practicing duck-and-cover drills, Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, the man who Americans feared could incinerate them in a…

Recalling 1964, a pivotal year in U.S. history. While the Beatles captured the imaginations of the nation’s youth, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, unveiled his vision…

The Amish practice of shunning those who leave their faith is explored through the experiences of individuals who have left their communities. Also: faithful Amish men and women share the…