Watch American Experience (1988) Online!
TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.
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Episode 1 - Command and Control
Release Date: 2017-01-10An 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.
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Episode 2 - Rachel Carson
Release Date: 2017-01-24She set out to save a species...us. An intimate portrait of the woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world.
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Episode 3 - The Race Underground
Release Date: 2017-01-31The dramatic story of the country's first subway.
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Episode 4 - Oklahoma City
Release Date: 2017-02-07On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, a former soldier deeply influenced by literature and ideas of the radical right, killed 168, and injured 675 others.
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Episode 5 - Ruby Ridge
Release Date: 2017-02-14A riveting account of the event that helped give rise to the modern American militia movement.
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Episode 6 - The Great War: Part 1
Release Date: 2017-04-10Part 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.
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Episode 7 - The Great War: Part 2
Release Date: 2017-04-11Part 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.
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Episode 8 - The Great War: Part 3
Release Date: 2017-04-12Part 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.
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Episode 9 - The Great War: Part 2
Release Date: 2017-04-11Part 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.
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Episode 10 - The Great War: Part 3
Release Date: 2017-04-12Part 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.
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Episode 13 - Tesla
Release Date: 2016-10-18Meet Nikola Tesla, the genius engineer and tireless inventor whose technology revolutionized the electrical age of the 20th century. Although eclipsed in fame by Edison and Marconi, it was Tesla's vision that paved the way for today's wireless world. His fertile but undisciplined imagination was the source of his genius but also his downfall, as the image of Tesla as a mad scientist came to overshadow his reputation as a brilliant innovator.
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Episode 14 - The Battle of Chosin
Release Date: 2016-11-01The harrowing 1950 Korean War battle at Chosin Reservoir, in which a surprise attack by 120,000 Chinese troops led to far-outnumbered UN forces being surrounded, is recalled. Veterans of the brutal 17-day engagement share their memories of the conflict, which occurred during subarctic temperatures.