TV's most-watched history series brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.
Season 1 · 16 episodes
October 4, 1988
From Enrico Caruso to the ordinary San Franciscan, this film presents vivid memories of those trapped in the terrifying event of 1906. Four hundred eighty square blocks were reduced to rubble; thousands were killed, tens of thousands left homeless. Then the heroic struggle to rebuild a city from the ashes began.
S01E02October 11, 1988
While the U.N. debated strategies for control of atomic energy, the U.S. Navy was preparing two highly-publicized nuclear tests. Seven hundred fifty cameras were shipped to Bikini to be used for a major propaganda film. Bikinians had no say about turning their idyllic island into an atomic test site. Forty years later, their home would still be too contaminated to support human life.
October 18, 1988
As a child in 1899, Angie Debo was taken to Oklahoma in a covered wagon. She would become her state's most controversial historian -- her career threatened when she uncovered a cache of documents which proved a widespread conspiracy to cheat Native Americans out of oil-rich lands.
October 25, 1988
A touching memoir beginning with life in a small Minnesota town and taking us through a young man's early days as pacifist. Reporting on the rise of fascism in Europe, Sevareid, as a young CBS reporter, would change his belief. Based on Sevareid's best-selling book of the same title.
November 1, 1988
An original look through newsreels, war department films, posters and interviews with five, real-life "Rosies" about the reality of working in the defense plants during WWII, and their reactions to having to give up those jobs for returning GIs.
November 8, 1988
A year in the life of Wyoming cowboys and the ranching families who have lived in Big Piney for six generations. Although very much the same as it was one hundred years ago -- tough, lonely, but still romantic -- ranching is now a threatened way of life.
November 15, 1988
An intimate portrait of the Kennedy brothers and their confrontation with Alabama Governor George Wallace when he defied the courts by refusing to integrate the University in 1963. The film offers unprecedented access to the Oval Office as well as to strategy meetings held by Attorney General Robert Kennedy.
S01E08November 22, 1988
The story of a tragic collision of two civilizations, each with startlingly different views of one another. In 1886, 5,000 U.S. troops mobilized to capture this one man and his band of followers, who by refusing to move onto a reservation, defied and eluded federal authorities.
November 29, 1988
An updated look at the Alabama tenant families that Walker Evans and James Agee documented in their 1936 Pulitzer Prize-winning book, an American classic.
December 6, 1988
The evolution of rhythm and blues through the careers of singers Ruth Brown and Charles Brown, from the 1940s into the 50s, with contemporary performances by both.
December 13, 1988
Father Charles Coughlin, a Roman Catholic priest from Michigan, uses the new power of radio to become one of the first media stars; every Sunday he would broadcast his message railing against the nation's economic and social system to millions of listeners caught in the grip of the Depression.
December 20, 1988
The design and art of quilting yields intimate clues about the lives of 19th century women, who stitched their personal and political stories into these artifacts of history.
December 27, 1988
The journey of Prince Maximilian, German naturalist, and artist Karl Bodmer, who explored the Mississippi River area from 1832-34, meticulously documenting in paintings and journals the landscape, plants and life of Native Americans.
January 3, 1989
Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Eudora Welty narrates the story of her own Southern childhood and early artistic development in Jackson, Mississippi. Based on her best-selling book of the same title.
January 10, 1989
From the late 1920s through the 1960s, Robert Moses held almost total power over the landscape of New York. He built bridges, highways, Jones Beach, Lincoln Center and the United Nations, some of the most ambitious public works ever conceived, and some of the most controversial.
January 17, 1989
A Gothic tale of sin and redemption in 19th century New England. A small town in Maine reacts to the unconventional behavior of one of its young residents, a woman named Emeline Gurney. A fascinating examination of small town mores.
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Thirty Years of American Experience
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American Experience: The Great War: Transformed
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The HISTORY® Channel continues to cement its place as the leader of premium presidential biographies with the premiere of the six-part television event “Thomas Jefferson”
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The riveting life and times of Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) and his soaring masterpiece "The Divine Comedy" – one of the greatest achievements in the history of Western literature.
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A story of spies and silent pacts, this fascinating docuseries, told in first person by witnesses and experts, exposes how the machinery of the state is keen to protect the former King of Spain, Juan Carlos I, and conceal his scandals.
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A fascinating look at the life of trailblazing Hollywood icon Sara Montiel, widely considered Spain's first international star.
8.42025
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American Masters is a PBS television series which produces biographies on enduring writers, musicians, visual and performing artists, dramatists, filmmakers, and others who have left an indelible impression on the cultural landscape of the United States.
7.01986
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Don Wildman unearths relics from the world's greatest institutions to reveal secrets from the past. He examines each artifact to illuminate history's most incredible triumphs, sensational crimes and bizarre encounters.
8.82010
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Explore American cinema through the decades and the cultural, societal and political shifts that framed its evolution.
6.62019
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This docuseries takes an unprecedented look at the enduring and influential legacy of DC, allowing fans to rediscover the universe of characters, as well as the iconic comic book company’s origins, its evolution and its nearly nine-decade cultural impact across every artistic medium.
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Come one, come all to The Circus. This real-time documentary series pulls back the curtain on the current political stories, revealing the intense, inspiring and infuriating stories behind the headlines. Key characters and events are presented in real time, as they are happening.
6.52016
Documentary · Family
A British genealogy documentary series in which celebrities trace their ancestry, discovering secrets and surprises from their past.
7.02004
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Noted Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has been helping people discover long-lost relatives hidden for generations within the branches of their family trees. Professor Gates utilizes a team of genealogists to reconstruct the paper trail left behind by our ancestors and the world’s leading geneticists to decode our DNA and help us travel thousands of years into the past to discover the origins of our earliest forebears.
6.52012
Documentary · War & Politics
The American Revolution was at once a war for independence, a war of conquest, a civil war, and a world war, fought by neighbors on American farms and between global powers an ocean or more away. It impacted millions from Vermont’s Green Mountains to the swamps of South Carolina, from Indian Country to the Iberian Peninsula. In defeating the British Empire and giving birth to a new nation, the American Revolution turned the world upside-down. Thirteen colonies on the Atlantic Coast united in rebellion, won their independence, and established a republic that still endures. The American Revolution will present the story of the men and women of the Revolutionary generation, their humanity in victory and defeat, and the crisis that they lived through.
5.92025
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Journalist and writer Graham Hancock travels the globe hunting for evidence of mysterious, lost civilizations dating back to the last Ice Age. He attempts to prove that a climatic event 12,000 years ago wiped out an entire civilization far more sophisticated than the simple hunter-gatherers some archaeologists believe lived at that time.
6.72022
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Actor Zac Efron journeys around the world with wellness expert Darin Olien in a travel show that explores healthy, sustainable ways to live.
7.72020
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Motoring programme featuring reviews of and reports about cars of all types.
8.01978
Documentary · Action & Adventure
Revisit the epic heroes, villains and moments from across the MCU in preparation for the stories still to come. Each dynamic segment feeds directly into the upcoming series — setting the stage for future events. This series weaves together the many threads that constitute the unparalleled Marvel Cinematic Universe.
7.42021
Documentary
Gadget Man shows the world's collection of handy gadgets throughout the ages, from today's smart devices to decades old electronics to even older mechanical devices.
7.02012
Documentary
E! True Hollywood Story is an American documentary series on E! that deals with famous Hollywood celebrities, movies, TV shows and also well-known public figures. Among the topics covered on the program include salacious re-tellings of Hollywood secrets, show-biz scandals, celebrity murders and mysteries, porn-star biographies, and "where-are-they-now?" investigations of former child stars. It frequently features in-depth interviews, actual courtroom footage, and dramatic reenactments. When aired on the E! network, episodes will be updated to reflect the current life or status of the subject.
8.11996
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The fascinating stories of the families behind the food that built America, those who used brains, muscle, blood, sweat and tears to get to America's heart through its stomach, those who invented new technologies and helped win wars.
7.92019
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Explores the experiences of James Safechuck and Wade Robson, who were both befriended and sexually abused by singer Michael Jackson, and the complicated feelings that led them both to confront their experiences.
6.42019
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MegaStructures is a documentary television series appearing on the National Geographic Channel in the United States and the United Kingdom, Channel 5 in the United Kingdom, France 5 in France, and 7mate in Australia. Each episode is an educational look of varying depth into the construction, operation, and staffing of various structures or construction projects, but not ordinary construction products. Generally containing interviews with designers and project managers, it presents the problems of construction and the methodology or techniques used to overcome obstacles. In some cases this involved the development of new materials or products that are now in general use within the construction industry. MegaStructures focuses on constructions that are extreme; in the sense that they are the biggest, tallest, longest, or deepest in the world. Alternatively, a project may appear if it had an element of novelty or are a world first. This type of project is known as a Megaproject.
7.52004
