American Experience

Season 29

2017 · 8 episodes · 7h 20m in all · 4.8/10

Episodes

1. 

   1. Command and Control

   10 Jan 2017 · 55 min · 6.8/10

   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 times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. The near-calamity was kicked off when a socket fell from the wrench of an airman performing maintenance in a Titan II silo and punctured the missile, releasing a stream of highly explosive rocket fuel.

2. 

   2. Rachel Carson

   24 Jan 2017 · 55 min · 5.4/10

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

3. 

   3. The Race Underground

   31 Jan 2017 · 55 min · 7.0/10

   The dramatic story of the country's first subway.

4. 

   4. Oklahoma City

   7 Feb 2017 · 55 min · 5.5/10

   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.

5. 

   5. Ruby Ridge

   14 Feb 2017 · 55 min · 7.0/10

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

6. 

   6. The Great War: Part 1

   10 Apr 2017 · 55 min · 5.0/10

   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 kept until 1917, when the Germans resumed "unrestricted submarine warfare"— a policy it had started and then stopped in 1915 — and began sinking U.S. ships. An intercepted telegram also showed Germany trying to convince Japan and Mexico to declare war on America.

7. 

   7. The Great War: Part 2

   11 Apr 2017 · 55 min · 1.0/10

   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 in the conflict.

8. 

   8. The Great War: Part 3

   12 Apr 2017 · 55 min · 1.0/10

   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, a deadly flu epidemic on the homefront.