In the closing decades of the nineteenth century, during what has become known as the Gilded Age, the population of the United States doubled in the span of a single generation. As national wealth expanded, two classes rose simultaneously, separated by a gulf of experience and circumstance that was unprecedented in American life. These disparities sparked passionate and violent debate over questions still being asked in our own times: How is wealth best distributed, and by what process? Does government exist to protect private property or provide balm to the inevitable casualties of a churning industrial system? The outcome of these disputes was both uncertain and momentous, and marked by a passionate vitriol and level of violence that would shock the conscience of many Americans today.
In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of buildi...
Doomed attempt to get to California in 1846. More than just a riveting tale of death, endurance and ...
In February 1939, more than 20,000 Americans filled Madison Square Garden for an event billed as a “...
It starts with a live radio broadcast from the Bikini Atoll a few days before it is annihilated by a...
The life of President James Garfield, including his rise to power and the aftermath of his assassina...
The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 is the worst act...
Shortly before dawn on August 21, 1992, six heavily armed U.S. marshals made their way up to the iso...
Discover the fascinating story of Elizebeth Smith Friedman, the groundbreaking cryptanalyst who help...
The film interweaves the personal accounts of polio survivors with the story of an ardent crusader w...
The Triangle Fire chronicles the 1911 fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City kill...
An account of the devastating 1906 San Francisco earthquake and the subsequent effort to rebuild.
Based on eight years of continued prosperity, presidents and economists alike confidently predicted ...
Actor Dustin Hoffman narrates this decade-spanning documentary that highlights the contributions of ...
Tuberculosis is the deadliest killer in human history, responsible for one in four deaths for almost...
On August 8, 1908, at a racetrack outside Paris, Wilbur Wright executed what was, for him, a routine...
In the spring of 1927, after weeks of incessant rains, the Mississippi River went on a rampage from ...
Unaccompanied by narration or interviews, contemporary imagery drawn from science fiction films, gov...
As a general, he had fought to preserve the Union. As president, he helped to oversee the transforma...
As a general, he had fought to preserve the Union. As president, he helped to oversee the transforma...
Arguably one of the most fateful and resonant events of the last half millennium, the Pilgrims journ...