Trapped in the Sierra Nevadas during the bitter winter of 1846, nearly 90 members of the Donner and Reed families longed for California's "Promised Land." But an untried shortcut became a death warrant for half of them victims of madness, death, and cannibalism. The program re-creates the Donner Party's journey from family journals, newspaper accounts, and interviews with historians and descendants.

A unique and revealing analysis of the diverse body that made up the American revolutionary army One of the images Americans hold most dear is that of the drum-beating, fire-eating Yankee Doodle Dandy rebel, overpowering his British adversaries through sheer grit and determination. The myth of the classless, independence-minded farmer or hard-working artisan-turned-soldier is deeply ingrained in the national psyche. Charles Neimeyer here separates...

A landmark contribution to women's history that sheds new light on the Salem witch trials and one of its most crucial participants, Tituba of The Crucible In this important book, Elaine Breslaw claims to have rediscovered Tituba, the elusive, mysterious, and often mythologized Indian woman accused of witchcraft in Salem in 1692 and immortalized in Arthur Miller's The Crucible. Reconstructing the life of the slave woman at the center of the notorious...

One of the most hotly debated issues in the historical study of race relations is the question of how the Civil War and Reconstruction affected social relations in the South. Did the War leave class and race hierarchies intact? Or did it mark the profound disruption of a long-standing social order? Yankee Town, Southern City examines how the members of the southern community of Lynchburg, Virginia experienced four distinct but overlapping events--Secession,...

High on a granite cliff in South Dakota's Black Hills tower four huge carved faces of American presidents. But is Mount Rushmore a monstrosity, or a masterpiece? A temperamental artist, Gutzon Borglum, propelled the project by sheer talent and guts, even as his ego and obsession threatened to tear it apart. Relive the hucksterism and hyperbole of his massive public works project during the Great Depression. Narrated by Michael Murphy.

In episode five, the African-American experience, the birth of the new media industries and the incredible array of human and cultural energies converge, ending with construction of the world's tallest building.

"City of Tomorrow" (1929-1945)--Immense new forces were unleashed in New York, from the Depression to the New Deal, which permanently altered the city. Along the way, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia and master builder Robert Moses attempted to create a bold new city of the future

Episode two looks at New York's rise as a burgeoning cultural center and multi-ethnic port, concluding with the Civil War Draft Riots, America's bloodiest civil disturbance.

Episode three turns the spotlight on the period when greed and wealth fueled an expanding metropolis, even as politics and poverty defined it.

Since World War II Americans' attitudes towards shyness have changed. The women's movement and the sexual revolution raised questions about communication, self-expression, intimacy, and personality, leading to new concerns about shyness. At the same time, the growth of psychotherapy and the mental health industry brought shyness to the attention of professionals who began to regard it as an illness in need of a cure. But what is shyness? How is it...