Is Anybody Out There?
What are the odds that life exists elsewhere in the universe, and what are we doing to find out? Topics in this video range from the meaning of the Drake Equation and assumptions being used to narrow the vast field of stars in which scientists are s...
Scottsboro: An American Tragedy
In March of 1931, two white women stepped off a train in Paint Rock, Alabama, and accused nine black teenage passengers of gang rape. So began the Scottsboro case, one of the 20th century’s most fiery legal battles. This episode of American Experi...
New York, 1919-1931: Cosmopolis
During this episode of New York: A Documentary Film, filmmaker Ric Burns explores how the post-World War I economic boom, the rise of consumer culture, and the birth of new mass media industries fueled the convergence of an incredible array of human...
New York, 1898-1918: The Power and the People
In this episode of New York: A Documentary Film, filmmaker Ric Burns follows the city into the 20th century in the wake of an extraordinary wave of immigration and the birth of the skyscraper. As New York spilled into the new century, the extraordin...
The Terrible Transformation (1450–1750)
The brutal roots of the American slave trade are exposed in this program, focusing on the years 1450–1750 when Native Americans first encountered Europeans and when their world was transformed—and largely destroyed—by white settlers. Not only ...
The Released
Examines what happens to the hundreds of thousands of mentally ill prisoners when they leave prison and why they return at such alarming rates. Includes the intimate stories of the released, interviews with parole officers, social workers, and psych...