The Mayflower Pilgrims: Behind The Myth

The voyage of the Mayflower in 1620 has come to define the founding moment of America, celebrated each year at Thanksgiving. A lavish new drama documentary by Ric Burns, based on governor William Bradford's extraordinary eye-witness account, the Mayflower Pilgrims reveals the grim truth behind their voyage across the Atlantic. The Pilgrims story has come to define the founding moment of America and all it stands for. Celebrated each year at Thanksgiving, it is remembered as a pious crusade aimed at founding a Puritan paradise. However their...

The Donner Party

Doomed attempt to get to California in 1846. More than just a riveting tale of death, endurance and survival. The Donner Party's nightmarish journey penetrated to the very heart of the American Dream at a crucial phase of the nation's "manifest destiny." Touching some of the most powerful social, economic and political currents of the time, this extraordinary narrative remains one of the most compelling and enduring episodes to come out of the West.

Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America

Discover how the advent of the automobile brought new mobility and freedom for African Americans but also exposed them to discrimination and deadly violence, and how that history resonates today.

Enquiring Minds: The Untold Story of the Man Behind the National Enquirer

Chronicle of publisher Gene Pope Jr.'s celebrity gossip and scandal fused vision, which became The National Enquirer, America's most notorious tabloid.

The Way West

A six-hour documentary series chronicling the way the West was lost and won between 1845 and 1893, broadcast nationally on PBS in May 1995 as part of WGBH’s American Experience. The film looks at the final decades of the American frontier from the time of the Gold Rush until after the last gasp of the Indian wars at Wounded Knee.

The Pilgrims

Arguably one of the most fateful and resonant events of the last half millennium, the Pilgrims journey west across the Atlantic in the early 17th century is a seminal, if often misunderstood episode of American and world history. The Pilgrims explores the forces, circumstances, personalities and events that converged to exile the English group in Holland and eventually propel their crossing to the New World; a story universally familiar in broad outline, but almost entirely unfamiliar to a general audience in its rich and compelling historic...

Oliver Sacks: His Own Life

An exploration of the life and work of the legendary neurologist and storyteller, as he shares intimate details of his battles with drug addiction, homophobia, and a medical establishment that accepted his work only decades after the fact. Sacks was a fearless explorer of unknown mental worlds who helped redefine our understanding of the brain and mind, the diversity of human experience, and our shared humanity.

Into the Deep: America, Whaling & The World

Examine the American whaling industry from its 17th-century origins in drift and shore whaling off the coast of New England and Cape Cod, through the golden age of deep ocean whaling, the tragedy of the Essex, and the career of Moby Dick's Herman Melville, and on to its demise in the decades following the American Civil War.

Coney Island

Before there was Disneyland, there was Coney Island. By the turn of the century, this tiny piece of New York real estate was internationally famous. On summer Sundays, three great pleasure domes--Steeplechase, Luna Park and Dreamland--competed for the patronage of a half-million people. By day it was the world's most amazing amusement park, by night, an electric "Eden".

New York Underground

In the mid 1800s, New York City was one of the most crowded places on earth. The congested streets and pokey transportation system were a source of constant complaint. On March 24, 1900, ground was broken for the Big Apple's subway; the Interborough Rapid Transit Line opened four years later, running more than 26 miles of underground track at the speed of 35 miles per hour. Soon thousands in the city were "doing the subway."

Death and the Civil War

Based on the best-selling book by Drew Gilpin Faust, this film will explore how the American Civil War created a "republic of suffering" and will chart the far-reaching social, political, and social changes brought about by the pervasive presence and fear of death during the Civil War.

New York: Order and Disorder (1825–1865)

Ric Burns (brother of the famed documentarian Ken Burns) presents an exhaustive history of New York City from the settling of the area by the Dutch to the attack by terrorists nearly 400 years later. Told in a sentimental tone, Burns weaves a lyrical tale of the great metropolis that encompasses not only the city's streets, but also that of the history of America. Though around fourteen hours in length, this epic documentary presents a thoughtful, entertaining look at our relatively young country. This second installment finds the city as t...

Eugene O’Neill: A Documentary Film

Eugene O'Neill tells the haunting story of the life and work of America's greatest and only Nobel Prize-winning playwright -- set within the context of the harrowing family dramas and personal upheavals that shaped him, and that he in turn struggled all his life to give form to in his art.