All Episodes 1981 - 2023

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Award-winning filmmaker Ken Burns sits down with OETA's Dick Pryor to discuss his latest documentary, "The Dust Bowl,' upcoming projects, and the thrill of filming America's history.

Documentarians Ken Burns and Lynn Novick talk about their latest collaborative effort, "Frank Lloyd Wright." https://charlierose.com/videos/7725

This 30-minute special features a roundtable conversation hosted by Katie Couric of Yahoo! News and co-founder of “Stand Up To Cancer.” Couric interviews Ken Burns; Sharon Percy Rockefeller, President and CEO of WETA and a cancer survivor; and Dr. Siddhartha Mukherjee, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the book upon which the film is based.

Interview with Jay Unger and Molly Mason, the musicians who created the signature tune from the series ASHOKEN FAREWELL

A special preview of the series. Meet the filmmakers, go behind the scenes, and enjoy exclusive clips from the films.

Join celebrated musicians for Country Music: Live at the Ryman , A Concert Celebrating the Film by Ken Burns. Hosted by Burns and featuring performances and appearances by Dierks Bentley, Rosanne Cash, Rhiannon Giddens, Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea, Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam and more.

In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled “horseless carriage.” At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country, all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today. Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson’s trip would dramatically change that perception. Horatio’s Drive tells the story of America’s first transcontinental road trip, which, like all road trips that would follow, included the usual mix of breakdowns and flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable beds, getting lost and enduring bad weather – and having a truly unforgettable experience crossing the nation’s vast landscape. Throughout it all, Jackson’s indomitable spirit and sheer enthusiasm would prove to be as indispensable as the fuel for his car.

Outtakes from Horatio's Drive

The making of Ken Burns' Baseball

Charlie Rose interviews Bob Costas on the 1998 baseball season. Topics include the Yankees sweep of the World Series and Mark McGuire's record setting season.

Charlie Rose interviews Bob Gibson on his career, autobiography and baseball today.

Charlie Rose interviews Ken Burns on the creation of his series "Baseball".

Charlie Rose interviews Rachel Robinson - wife of Jackie Robinson - on the life and career of Jackie Robinson. English

Charlie Rose interview Yogi Berra on his career and recent book.

Charlie Rose interviews Bob Costas on the baseball career of Mickey Mantle. The interview takes place on August 16th, 1995, the day after Costas delivers the eulogy at Mantle's funeral.

The “Great East River Bridge” was the largest bridge of its era, a technical achievement of unparalleled scope, marked by enormous construction problems, equally ingenious solutions and heroic human achievement. In unexpected and wonderful ways, the Brooklyn Bridge captured the imagination of all Americans, and in the process became a symbol in American culture of strength, vitality, ingenuity and promise. Brooklyn Bridge tells the dramatic story of the larger-than-life men who imagined and built it, and the immense charm this granite and steel structure has exerted on generations of city dwellers.

They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ’s Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing, the world called them “Shakers.” Though they were celibate, they constitute the most enduring religious experiment in American history. They believed in pacifism as well as natural health and hygiene; for more than 200 years, they insisted that their followers strive for simplicity and perfection in everything they did. The Shakers put their “hands to work and their hearts to God,” creating an exquisite legacy of fine furniture, glorious architecture and beautiful music that will remain and inspire long after the last Shaker is gone. The Shakers is a portrait of this particularly American movement.

For more than 100 years the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In interviews with Americans from all walks of life, including former New York governor Mario Cuomo, the late congresswoman Barbara Jordan and the late writers James Baldwin and Jerzy Kosinski, Statue of Liberty examines the nature of liberty and the significance of the statue to American life.

He was a populist hero and a corrupt demagogue, hailed as a champion of the poor and reviled as a dictator. Louisiana’s Huey Long built his remarkable career as Governor and U.S. Senator on a platform of social reform and justice, all the while employing graft and corruption to get what he wanted. Long’s spellbinding personality and political machine might have taken him to the White House had he not been assassinated in 1935. Huey Long is a complex and comprehensive portrait of the man and the era, his politics and the power he so obsessively sought.

He was a populist hero and a corrupt demagogue, hailed as a champion of the poor and reviled as a dictator. Louisiana’s Huey Long built his remarkable career as Governor and U.S. Senator on a platform of social reform and justice, all the while employing graft and corruption to get what he wanted. Long’s spellbinding personality and political machine might have taken him to the White House had he not been assassinated in 1935. Huey Long is a complex and comprehensive portrait of the man and the era, his politics and the power he so obsessively sought.

His paintings were burly. Energetic. And as uncompromising as the Midwestern landscapes and laborers they celebrated. Thomas Hart Benton was a self-reliant American who emerged from the Great Depression. Today his works hang in museums; during Benton's life, the artist preferred to hang them in saloons, where ordinary people could appreciate them in congenial settings. A fierce defender of the aesthetics of realism, Benton took on the art establishment and railed against abstraction. His reputation suffered as his star rose, fell and rose once again. Thomas Hart Benton tells the bittersweet story of a great American artist who became emblematic of the price all artists must pay to remain true to their talents and to themselves.

This portrait of the United States Congress explores the history and promise of one of the country’s most important and least understood institutions. It tells the story of the Capitol building itself—including its burning by the British in the War of 1812 and its completion in the midst of the Civil War—and chronicles the extraordinary personalities, events and issues that have animated the first 200 years of Congress and, in turn, the country.

This portrait of the United States Congress explores the history and promise of one of the country’s most important and least understood institutions. It tells the story of the Capitol building itself—including its burning by the British in the War of 1812 and its completion in the midst of the Civil War—and chronicles the extraordinary personalities, events and issues that have animated the first 200 years of Congress and, in turn, the country.

Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, this first episode dramatically evokes the causes of the war, from the Cotton Kingdom of the South to the northern abolitionists who opposed it. Here are the burning questions of Union and states' rights, John Brown at Harpers Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the firing on Fort Sumter, and the jubilant rush to arms on both sides. Along the way the series' major figures are introduced: Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Robert E. Lee, Ulysses S. Grant, and a host of lesser-known but equally vivid characters. The episode comes to a climax with the disastrous Union defeat at Manassas, Virginia, where both sides learn it is to be a very long war.

The year 1862 saw the birth of modern warfare and the transformation of Lincoln's war to preserve the Union into a war to emancipate the slaves. Episode Two begins with the political infighting that threatened to swamp Lincoln's administration and then follows Union General George McClellan's ill-fated campaign on the Virginia Peninsula, where his huge army meets a smaller but infinitely more resourceful Confederate force. During this episode we witness the battle of ironclad ships, partake of camp life, and watch slavery begin to crumble. We meet Ulysses S. Grant, whose exploits come to a bloody climax at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. The episode ends with rumors of Europe's readiness to recognize the Confederacy.

This episode charts the dramatic events that led to Lincoln's decision to free the slaves. Convinced by July 1862 that emancipation was now morally and militarily crucial to the future of the Union, Lincoln must wait for a victory to issue his proclamation. But as the year wears on, there are no Union victories to be had, thanks to the brilliance of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E. Lee. The episode climaxes in September 1862 with Lee's invasion of Maryland. On the banks of Antietam Creek, the bloodiest day of the war takes place, followed shortly by the brightest: the emancipation of the slaves.

The nightmarish Union disaster at Fredericksburg comes to two climaxes that spring: at Chancellorsville in May, where Lee wins his most brilliant victory but loses Stonewall Jackson; and at Vicksburg, where Grant's attempts to take the city by siege are stopped. During the episode we learn of fierce northern opposition to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the miseries of regimental life, and the increasing desperation of the Confederate home front. As the episode ends, Lee decides to invade the North again to draw Grant's forces away from Vicksburg.

This episode opens with a dramatic account of the turning point of war: the Battle of Gettysburg, the greatest ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. For three days, 150,000 men will fight to the death in the Pennsylvania countryside, culminating in George Pickett's legendary charge. This extended episode then chronicles the fall of Vicksburg, the New York draft riots, the first use of black troops, and the western battles at Chickamauga, Georgia, and Chattanooga, Tennessee. The episode closes with the dedication in November of a new Union cemetery at Gettysburg, where Abraham Lincoln struggles to put into words what is happening to his people.

Episode Six begins with a biographical comparison of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee and then chronicles the extraordinary series of battles that pitted the two generals against each other from the wilderness to Petersburg in Virginia. In 30 days, the two armies lose more men than both sides have lost in three years of war. With Grant and Lee finally deadlocked at Petersburg, we visit the ghastly hospitals north and south and follow General Sherman's Atlanta campaign through the mountains of north Georgia. As the horrendous casualty lists increase, Lincoln's chances for reelection begin to dim, and with them the possibility of Union victory.

The episode begins with the presidential election of 1864 that sets Abraham Lincoln against his old commanding general, George McClellan. The stakes are nothing less than the survival of the Union itself: with Grant and Sherman stalled at Petersburg and Atlanta, opinion in the North has turned strongly against the war. But 11th-hour victories at Mobile Bay, Atlanta, and the Shenandoah Valley tilt the election to Lincoln and the Confederacy's last hope for independence dies. In an ironic twist, poignantly typical of the Civil War, Lee's Arlington mansion is turned into a Union military hospital and the estate becomes Arlington National Cemetery, the Union's most hallowed ground.

The episode begins with William Tecumseh Sherman's brilliant march to the sea, which brings the war to the heart of Georgia and the Carolinas and spells the end of the Confederacy. In March, following Lincoln's second inauguration, first Petersburg and then Richmond finally fall to Grant's army. Lee's tattered Army of Northern Virginia flees westward toward a tiny crossroads town called Appomattox Court House. There the dramatic and deeply moving surrender of Lee to Grant takes place. The episode ends in Washington, where John Wilkes Booth begins to dream of vengeance for the South.

This extraordinary final episode of The Civil War begins in the bittersweet aftermath of Lee's surrender and then goes on to narrate the horrendous events of five days later when, on April 14, Lincoln is assassinated. After chronicling Lincoln's poignant funeral, the series recounts the final days of the war, the capture of John Wilkes Booth, and the fates of the Civil War's major protagonists. The episode then considers the consequences and meaning of a war that transformed the country from a collection of states to the nation we are today.

Against the backdrop of radio’s “Golden Age,” Empire of the Air relates the history of radio through archival photographs, newsreels of the period and interviews with such well-known radio personalities as Garrison Keillor, the late sports commentator Red Barber, radio dramatist Norman Corwin and the late broadcast historian Erik Barnouw.

For 50 years, radio dominated the airwaves as the first mass medium. Ken Burns examines the lives of three men who shared the responsibility for its invention and early success.

Inning One, Our Game, looks at the origins of baseball in the 1840s and takes the story up to 1900. Burns refutes the myth that Abner Doubleday invented baseball in Cooperstown and traces its roots instead to the earliest days of the nation — there are records of a game called "Base" played at Valley Forge..

Inning Two, Something Like a War, takes viewers through 1910 and introduces some of the game's most celebrated and colorful characters, including Ty Cobb, Honus Wagner, Christy Mathewson and Walter Johnson.

Inning Three, The Faith of Fifty Million People, examines the century's second decade, which was dominated by the Black Sox scandal. George Herman "Babe" Ruth makes his first major league appearance (as a member of the Boston Red Sox) and a wave of immigration helps fill the stands with new fans, eager to "become American" by learning America's game.

Inning Four, A National Heirloom, concentrates on Babe Ruth, whose phenomenal performance thrilled the nation throughout the 1920s and rescued the game from the scandal of the previous decade.

Inning Five, Shadow Ball, tells the story of the Negro Leagues in the 1930s. The title refers to a common pre-game feature in which the players staged a mock game with an imaginary ball. Though unintended, the pantomime was an apt metaphor for the exclusion of blacks from major league play at that time.

Inning Six, The National Pastime, covers the 1940s and includes Joe DiMaggio's celebrated hitting streak, the awe-inspiring performance of Ted Williams and what Burns calls "baseball's finest moment" — the debut of Jackie Robinson, who broke the color barrier as a member of the Brooklyn Dodgers in 1947.

Inning Seven, The Capital of Baseball, takes viewers through the 1950s when New York City had three successful baseball teams and dominated the World Series. By the end of the decade, the Giants and Dodgers had left New York, a signal that the old game was changed forever.

Inning Eight, A Whole New Ball Game, moves the field to the 1960s. This episode traces the emergence of television, the expansion to new cities and the building of anonymous multipurpose stadiums that robbed the game of its intimacy and some of its urban following.

Inning Nine, Home, looks at baseball from the 1970s to the present, including the establishment of the free agent system, the rise in player salaries, the continued expansion, the dilution of talent, the ongoing battles between labor and management and the scandals.

Covers the period from the early 1990's onward. Labor relations deteriorated badly in the early part of that decade leading to the players strike in August 1994. The Montreal Expos were the best team in baseball at the time but when a Federal judge blocked the owners from unilaterally imposing a contract (which would have let them use replacement players) it quickly came to an end and the players returned to work under the old contract. Attendance dropped after that but the game recovered quickly with the heroics of Cal Ripkin Jr. By the end of 1990's, fans were caught up in the home run derby presented by Sammy Sosa and Mark McGwire. There was also the first whiff of scandal when McGwire was accused of using steroids. It was also an era when new baseball stadiums were built in many cities, evoking an earlier age when the parks were built specifically for the sport. The curse of the Bambino finally came to an end with the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series in 2004. Barry Bonds broke McGwire's three year-old season home-run record and later Hank Aaron's HR record. The issue of drug use eventually led to Congressional hearings after the BALCO scandal and the Mitchell Report, which named many stars as having used performance enhancing drugs. This inning is dedicated to the late, great Buck O'Neil.

As the new millenium dawns, Baseball is more popular and profitable than ever, but suspicions and revelations about performance enhancing drugs keep surfacing, calling the integrity of the game itself into question.

The West begins as the whole world to the people who live there. It becomes a New World when Europeans arrive, a world shaken by incompatible visions. And almost three centuries later, when Lewis and Clark venture west to find a Northwest Passage, this world becomes the testing-ground for a young nation's continent-spanning dream.

Americans head west along many pathways -- following the fur trade into the mountains, fighting for self-determination in Texas, seeking religious freedom in Utah or a better life along the Oregon Trail. But whatever direction they travel, they move closer with every step to a “Manifest Destiny” that will make the West their own.

The Gold Rush brings the whole world to the West, as 49ers from Asia, South America and the eastern states scramble for “a share of the rocks,” littering the hills with mining towns and creating the West’s first metropolis. But in the push to strike it rich, many are violently pushed aside.

Civil war comes early to the West. In “Bleeding Kansas,” abolitionists battle for free soil. In Utah, federal troops march against Mormon polygamy. And along the Rio Grande, oppressed Mexican Americans rebel. The war between North and South unleashes brute savagery in the West, and leaves behind an army prepared for total war against the native peoples of the plains.

A triumph of the human spirit, the transcontinental railroad opens a new era in the West, carrying homesteaders onto the prairies, bringing cowboys up the cattle trail from Texas, helping give women the vote in Utah and sending buffalo hunters onto the plains, where they drive a symbol of the West -- and a way of life -- to the brink of extinction.

The federal government tightens its grip on the West, but three bold spirits remain defiant -- Sitting Bull, who prophesies his people's greatest victory but cannot prevent their ultimate defeat; Brigham Young, who must sacrifice a spiritual son to save his church; and Chief Joseph, who triumphs in defeat as an indomitable voice of conscience for the West.

Newcomers arrive by the millions, bringing a new spirit of conformity to the West. Indian children are taught to forsake their heritage, Mormons are told to abandon a tenet of their faith, and new laws deny Chinese and Mexican Americans a place in society. Yet the legend of the “Wild West” lives on, thanks to the greatest showman of the age.

As settlers race to claim tribal lands, Native Americans take up the Ghost Dance, trusting in its power to restore a lost way of life until their hopes are crushed at Wounded Knee. The new century marks a new era in the West, an age of aqueducts and smelters. But the West remains what it has always been, a world waiting for a dream.

Los Angeles steals its water supply, millions of Mexicans migrate north, and Hollywood begins to shape the West and the nation's image of it.

Thomas Jefferson is a two-part portrait of one of the most fascinating and complicated figures ever to walk across America’s public stage – our enigmatic and brilliant third president. Thomas Jefferson embodies within his own life the most profound contradictions of American history: as the author of our most sacred document, the Declaration of Independence, he gave voice to our fervent desire for freedom, but he also owned more than 150 human beings and never saw fit to free them. Jefferson also made himself into a true renaissance man – a scholar, a philosopher, a diplomat, an aesthete, and an architect. As a young man, he was transformed by the fire of the Enlightenment into America’s most articulate voice for human liberty. Torn between his desire for a serene family life at Monticello and his passion for politics, Jefferson endured ceaseless, heartrending personal loss. As President, he helped create the first American political party, and with the Louisiana Purchase, more than doubled the size of the new nation. Jefferson’s last years were spent founding the University of Virginia and reestablishing his friendship, after decades of estrangement, from his onetime rival John Adams. His influence on and vision for our country reverberates to this day.

Thomas Jefferson is a two-part portrait of one of the most fascinating and complicated figures ever to walk across America’s public stage – our enigmatic and brilliant third president. Thomas Jefferson embodies within his own life the most profound contradictions of American history: as the author of our most sacred document, the Declaration of Independence, he gave voice to our fervent desire for freedom, but he also owned more than 150 human beings and never saw fit to free them.

Sent by President Thomas Jefferson in 1804 to find the fabled Northwest Passage, Meriwether Lewis and William Clark led the most important expedition in American history – a voyage of danger and discovery from St. Louis to the headwaters of the Missouri River, over the Continental Divide to the Pacific Ocean. It was the United States’ first exploration of the West and one of the nation’s most enduring adventures. Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery tells the remarkable story of the entire Corps of Discovery – not just of the two Captains, but the young army men, French-Canadian boatmen, Clark’s African-American slave, and the Shoshone woman named Sacagawea, who brought along her infant son. As important to the story as these many characters, however, was the spectacular land itself, and the promises it held.

Live cinematography, interviews, and archival footage tell the life story of Frank Lloyd Wright, an authentic American genius who believed he was destined to "redesign the world." This biographical film follows the turbulent career of one of the most important architects to grace the twentieth century.

The story of Elizabeth Stanton and Susan B. Anthony and their life long fight to bring equal rights to women.

Jazz begins in New Orleans, 19th century America's most cosmopolitan city, where the sound of marching bands, Italian opera, Caribbean rhythms, and minstrel shows fills the streets with a richly diverse musical culture. In the 1890s, African-American musicians such as Jelly Roll Morton, Buddy Bolden and Sydney Bichet create a new music out of these ingredients. Soon after the start of the new century, people are calling it jazz.

Speakeasies, flappers, and easy money - it's the Jazz Age, when the story of jazz becomes a tale of two great cities, Chicago and New York, and of two extraordinary artists whose lives and music will span almost three-quarters of a century - Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington. Armstrong grew up on the mean streets of New Orleans and moved to Chicago in 1922, inspiring a new generation of musicians. Meanwhile, Ellington outgrows the society music he learned to play in Washington D.C., and heads to Harlem.

In the 1920s, jazz is everywhere, and for the first time soloists and singers take center stage. We meet Bessie Smith, Empress of the Blues; Bix Beiderbecke, the first great white jazz star; and Benny Goodman and Artie Shaw, for whom jazz offers a chance to escape the ghetto and achieve their dreams. Duke Ellington appears at the Cotton Club and Louis Armstrong performs his masterpiece, "West End Blues."

In 1929 as the Great Depression begins, New York is now America's jazz capital. On Broadway, Louis Armstrong revolutionizes the art of American popular song. In Harlem, Chick Webb pioneers his own big-band sound and in the city's clubs, pianists Fats Waller and Art Tatum dazzle audiences. But it is Duke Ellington who takes jazz "beyond category," composing hit tunes that has critics comparing him to Stravinsky.

As the Great Depression drags on, jazz comes as close as it has ever come to being America's popular music. It has a new name, Swing, and for millions of young fans, it will be the defining music of their generation. Benny Goodman is hailed as the "King of Swing" and Billie Holiday begins her career as the greatest of all female jazz singers.

As the 1930's come to a close, Swing-mania is still going strong, but some fans are saying success has made the music too predictable. Count Basie and the Kansas City sound reignite the spirit of swing. By the decade's end, Duke Ellington has been hailed as a hero in Europe, amid anxious preparations for war. And weeks after that war begins, Coleman Hawkins startles the world with a glimpse of what jazz will become, improvising a new music on the old standard, "Body and Soul."

When America enters World War II, jazz is part of the arsenal. Bandleaders like Glenn Miller and Artie Shaw enlist, taking their swing to the troops overseas. Many black Americans, segregated at home and in uniform, find themselves fighting for liberties their own country denies them. In a Harlem club called Minton's Playhouse, a small band of young musicians, led by Dizzy Gillespie and the saxophonist Charlie Parker, has discovered a new way of playing - fast, intricate, exhilarating, and sometimes chaotic. The sound will soon be called "bebop" and once Americans hear it, jazz will never be the same.

The postwar years bring prosperity, but the Cold War threat makes these anxious years as well. In jazz, this underlying tension will be reflected in bebop, and in the troubled life of it's biggest star, Charlie Parker. Dizzy Gillespie, tries to popularize the new sound by adding showmanship and Latin rhythms, while pianist Thelonius Monk infuses it with his eccentric personality to create a music all his own. Dave Brubeck mixes jazz with classical music to produce a million-seller LP. But one man remains determined to give jazz popular appeal on his own terms, the trumpet player Miles Davis.

For jazz, the late 1950s is a period of transition when old stars like Billie Holiday and Lester Young will burn out while young talents arise to take the music in new directions. New virtuosos push the limits of bebop: saxophone colossus Sonny Rollins; jazz diva Sarah Vaughan; and the drummer Art Blakey. But the leading light of the era is Miles Davis whose lush recordings expand the jazz audience; and a cultural icon whose tough-guy charisma comes to define what's hip. As the turbulent Sixties arrive, two saxophonists take jazz into uncharted terrain. John Coltrane explodes the pop tune My Favorite Things, while Ornette Coleman challenges all conventions with a sound he calls "free jazz."

During the Sixties, jazz is in trouble. Though Louis Armstrong briefly outsells the Beatles with "Hello Dolly," most jazz musicians are desperate for work and many head for Europe. In the 1970s, jazz loses the exuberant genius of Louis Armstrong and the transcendent artistry of Duke Ellington, Their passing seems to mark the end of the music itself. But in 1976, when Dexter Gordon returns from Europe for a triumphant comeback, jazz has a homecoming, too. A new generation emerges, led by trumpeter Wynton Marsalis - schooled in the music's traditions, skilled in the art of improvisation, and aflame with ideas. The musical journey that began in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century continues. As it enters its second century, jazz is still brand new every night, still vibrant, still evolving, and still swinging.

Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become, as Mark Twain, America’s best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. He created some of the world’s most memorable characters as well as its most quoted sayings. And, in his often-misunderstood novel Huckleberry Finn, he shared with the world the masterpiece that Ernest Hemingway would call the true beginning of American literature. Mark Twain tells the story of the writer’s extraordinary life – full of rollicking adventure, stupendous success and crushing defeat, hilarious comedy and almost unbearable tragedy. By the end, the film helps us to see how Twain could claim with some justification, “I am not an American, I am the American.”

Samuel Clemens rose from a hardscrabble boyhood in the backwoods of Missouri to become, as Mark Twain, America’s best-known and best-loved author. Considered in his time the funniest man on earth, Twain was also an unflinching critic of human nature who used his humor to attack hypocrisy, greed and racism. He created some of the world’s most memorable characters as well as its most quoted sayings. And, in his often-misunderstood novel Huckleberry Finn, he shared with the world the masterpiece that Ernest Hemingway would call the true beginning of American literature. Mark Twain tells the story of the writer’s extraordinary life – full of rollicking adventure, stupendous success and crushing defeat, hilarious comedy and almost unbearable tragedy. By the end, the film helps us to see how Twain could claim with some justification, “I am not anAmerican, I am the American.”

In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled “horseless carriage.” At the time there were only 150 miles of paved roads in the entire country, all of them within city limits. There were no gas stations and virtually no road maps as we know them today. Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson’s trip would dramatically change that perception. Horatio’s Drive tells the story of America’s first transcontinental road trip, which, like all road trips that would follow, included the usual mix of breakdowns and flat tires, inedible meals and uncomfortable beds, getting lost and enduring bad weather – and having a truly unforgettable experience crossing the nation’s vast landscape. Throughout it all, Jackson’s indomitable spirit and sheer enthusiasm would prove to be as indispensable as the fuel for his car.

Unforgivable Blackness tells the story of the first African-American boxer to win the most coveted title in all of sports and his struggle, in and out of the ring, to live his life as a free man. The film follows Jack Johnson’s remarkable journey from his humble beginnings in Galveston, Texas, as the son of former slaves, to his entry into the brutal world of professional boxing, where, in turn-of-the-century Jim Crow America, the heavyweight champion was an exclusively “white title.” Despite the odds, Johnson was able to batter his way up through the professional ranks, and in 1908 he became the first African-American to earn the title Heavyweight Champion of the World.

December 1941-December 1942 After a haunting overview of the Second World War, an epoch of killing that engulfed the world from 1939 to 1945 and cost at least 50 million lives, the inhabitants of four towns — Mobile, Alabama; Sacramento, California; Waterbury, Connecticut; and Luverne, Minnesota — recall their communities on the eve of the conflict. For them, and for most Americans finally beginning to recover from the Great Depression, the events overseas seem impossibly far away. Their tranquil lives are shattered by the shock of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and America is thrust into the greatest cataclysm in history. Along with millions of other young men, Sid Phillips and Willie Rushton of Mobile, Ray Leopold of Waterbury and Walter Thompson and Burnett Miller of Sacramento enter the armed forces and begin to train for war. In the Philippines, two Americans thousands of miles from home, Corporal Glenn Frazier and Sascha Weinzheimer (who was 8 years old in 1941), are caught up in the Japanese onslaught there, as American and Filipino forces retreat onto Bataan while thousands of civilians are rounded up and imprisoned in Manila. Meanwhile, back home, 110,000 Japanese Americans all along the West Coast, including some 7,000 from Sacramento and the surrounding valley, are forced by the government to abandon their homes and businesses and are relocated to inland internment camps. On the East Coast, German U-boats menace Allied shipping just offshore, sending hundreds of ships and millions of tons of materiel to the bottom of the sea. The United States seems utterly unprepared for this kind of total war. Witnessing all of this is Katharine Phillips of Mobile, who remembers sightings of U-boats just outside Mobile Bay, and Al McIntosh, the editor of the Rock County Star Herald in Luverne, who chronicles the travails of every family in town. In June 1942, the Navy manages an improbable victory over the Japanese at the Battle of Midway. In August,

By January 1943, Americans have been at war for more than a year. The Germans, with their vast war machine, still occupy most of Western Europe, and the Allies have not yet been able to agree on a plan or a timetable to dislodge them. For the time being, they will have to be content to nip at the edges of Hitler’s enormous domain. American troops, including Charles Mann of Luverne, are now ashore in North Africa, ready to test themselves for the first time against the German and Italian armies.

In fall 1943, after almost two years of war, the American public is able to see for the first time the terrible toll the war is taking on its troops when Life publishes a photograph of the bodies of three GIs killed in action at Buna.

By June 1944, there are signs on both sides of the world that the tide of the war is turning. On June 6, 1944 — D-Day — in the European Theater, a million and a half Allied troops embark on one of the greatest invasions in history: the invasion of France. Among them are Dwain Luce of Mobile, who drops behind enemy lines in a glider; Quentin Aanenson of Luverne, who flies his first combat mission over the Normandy coast; and Joseph Vaghi of Waterbury, who manages to survive the disastrous landing on Omaha Beach, where German resistance nearly decimates the American forces

By September 1944, in Europe at least, the Allies seem to be moving steadily toward victory. “Militarily,” General Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff tells the press, “this war is over.” But in the coming months, on both sides of the world, a generation of young men will learn a lesson as old as war itself — that generals make plans, plans go wrong and soldiers die.

By December 1944, Americans have become weary of the war their young men have been fighting for three long years; the stream of newspaper headlines telling of new losses and telegrams bearing bad news from the War Department seem endless and unendurable.

In spring 1945, although the numbers of dead and wounded have more than doubled since D-Day, the people of Mobile, Sacramento, Waterbury and Luverne understand all too well that there will be more bad news from the battlefield before the war can end. That March, when Americans go to the movies, President Franklin Roosevelt warns them in a newsreel that, although the Nazis are on the verge of collapse, the final battle with Japan could stretch on for

In 1851, a band of Indian fighters in California encounters a place of astonishing beauty, setting in motion events that bring other newcomers to Yosemite Valley: artists, writers, entrepreneurs, tourists, and eventually John Muir, who becomes a national voice for preservation. Meanwhile, reports emerge from Wyoming Territory of a fantastical place at the headwaters of the Yellowstone River. An exploration confirms the rumors, and in 1872 Congress creates the world's first national park at Yellowstone, but does nothing to provide for its protection. In 1886, General Phil Sheridan and the U.S. Cavalry ride to the park's rescue.

At the end of the 19th century, some Americans begin to question the nation's headlong rush across the continent that has devastated forests and ravaged entire species of animals. Conservation's greatest champion is the new president, Theodore Roosevelt, who creates parks and wildlife refuges, and then audaciously uses the Antiquities Act to set aside 800,000 acres of the Grand Canyon as a national monument. John Muir fights the battle of his life to prevent the city of San Francisco from burying the Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite National Park under a reservoir, and dies broken-hearted after he loses.

America boasts a dozen national parks as the park idea turns 50 years old. A millionaire businessman named Stephen Mather impulsively accepts the offer to oversee them for one year. Mather and his right-hand-man Horace Albright launch a campaign to publicize the parks as a unified system and to persuade Congress to create a single agency to oversee it: the National Park Service, established in 1916. Mount McKinley, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Acadia and Hawaii's volcanoes are set aside as national parks, but Mather's top priority is in Arizona. After a bitter fight, the Grand Canyon is designated a national park in 1919.

As the nation enters the 1920s, Stephen Mather and Horace Albright ally themselves with the automobile to "democratize" the national parks and attract more Americans to them. Nebraskans Margaret and Edward Gehrke begin collecting parks each summer, while Glenn and Bessie Hyde spend their honeymoon in a homemade boat on the raging Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. Horace Kephart, a reclusive writer, and George Masa, a Japanese immigrant and photographer, launch a campaign to save the virgin forests of the Smoky Mountains from destruction by making it a national park.

A new president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, expands the national park idea to embrace battlefields and other historic and iconic sites. He enters pitched battles to create national parks on the Olympic Peninsula, Florida's Everglades, Wyoming's Teton Mountains, and California's High Sierra; he also creates the Civilian Conservation Corps to provide young men with jobs improving conditions at national parks. George Melendez Wright, a young Park Service employee, begins arguing that the parks are not doing enough to protect wildlife in their natural state. In Seattle, Iwao and Hanaye Matsushita fall in love with Mount Rainier National Park; and in California, another Japanese immigrant, Chiura Obata, finds inspiration for his art in Yosemite. When they are interned during World War II, they all find solace in their memories of the national parks of their adopted country.

After World War II, an increasingly mobile and affluent nation begins placing demands on the parks as never before, and the parks are in danger of being "loved to death." A Park Service biologist named Adolph Murie argues that ingrained practices such as killing predators runs counter to the purpose of national parks, while David Brower of the Sierra Club mobilizes public opinion to defeat Congressional proposals for dams in pristine places. In the 1970s, when President Jimmy Carter uses the Antiquities Act to set aside 56 million acres in Alaska, a huge uproar results - and the largest grassroots movement in conservation history fights for the creation of seven new Alaska parks, adding 47 million acres, more than doubling the size of the park system.

The Tenth Inning updates the landmark 1994 series, Baseball. Beginning where the original series left off, The Tenth Inning is based on the premise that this seemingly simple stick and ball game continues to be a window through which it is possible to see the best, as well as the worst, of America. Beginning in the early 1990s, the film tells the tumultuous story of our national pastime up to the present day, introducing an unforgettable array of players, teams and fans, celebrating the game’s resilience and enduring appeal, and showcasing a succession of extraordinary accomplishments and heroics – and devastating losses and disappointments.

Since the early years of the American Republic, alcohol has been embedded in the fabric of American culture. But by 1830, the average American over 15 years old consumes nearly seven gallons of pure alcohol a year, three times as much as we drink today. Alcohol abuse wreaks havoc on the lives of many families. As a wave of spiritual fervor for reform sweeps the country, many women and men begin to see alcohol as a scourge. After the Civil War, the country’s population swells with immigrants, who bring their drinking customs with them from Ireland, Germany, Italy and other European countries. The temperance campaign ignites, spearheaded by the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Carrie Nation and her Home Defenders Army bring publicity by attacking Kansas bars with stones and hatchets, and the Anti-Saloon League (ASL) forms to push for an amendment to the Constitution outlawing alcohol nationally. Most politicians dare not defy the ASL, and in 1917 the 18th Amendment sails through both Houses of Congress; it is ratified by the states in just 13 months. When the Amendment is signed into law, Prohibitionists rejoice that America has become officially dry. But Americans are about to discover that making Prohibition the law of the land has been one thing; enforcing it will be another.

In 1920, Prohibition goes into effect, making it illegal to manufacture, transport or sell intoxicating liquor. This episode examines the problems of enforcement, as millions of law-abiding Americans become lawbreakers overnight. While a significant portion of the country is willing to adapt to the new law, others are shocked at how inconsistent the Volstead Act actually is. As weaknesses in the law and its enforcement become clear, millions find ways to exploit it. Drys had hoped Prohibition would make the country a safer place, but the law has many victims. Honest policemen are killed on the job, unlucky drinkers are poisoned by adulterated liquor and overzealous federal agents violate civil rights just to make a bust. Alcoholism still exists, and may even be increasing, as women begin to drink in the speakeasies that replace the male-only saloon. Despite the growing discontent with Prohibition and its consequences, few politicians dare to speak out against the law, fearful of its powerful protector, the Anti-Saloon League.

Support for Prohibition diminishes in the mid-1920s as the playfulness of sneaking around for a drink gives way to disenchantment with its glaring unintended consequences. By criminalizing one of the nation’s largest industries, the law has given savvy gangsters a way to make huge profits, and as they grow in power, rival outfits wreak havoc in cities across the country. The burgeoning tabloid newspaper industry fans the frenzy with sensational headlines and front-page photographs of murder scenes, while Al Capone holds press conferences and signs autographs. The wealthy Pauline Sabin begins publicly decrying that Prohibition has divided the nation into “wets, drys, and hypocrites.” Nearly a century before, women had hoped Prohibition would make the country a safer place for their children. But by the late 1920s many American women believe that the “Noble Experiment” has failed. Sabin unifies women of all classes, refuting the notion that all women support Prohibition and denouncing the law itself as the greatest threat to their families. Sabin and others argue that repeal will bring in tax revenue and provide desperately needed jobs. After the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932, Congress easily passes the 21st Amendment, which repeals the 18th, and the states quickly ratify it. In December of 1933, Americans can legally buy a drink for the first time in 13 years.

THE CENTRAL PARK FIVE relates the story of the five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem who were wrongly convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park in 1989. The film chronicles the Central Park Jogger case, for the first time from the perspective of the five teenagers whose lives were upended by this miscarriage of justice.

The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, when a frenzied wheat boom on the southern Plains, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Menacing black blizzards killed farmers’ crops and livestock, threatened the lives of their children, and forced thousands of desperate families to pick up and move somewhere else. Vivid interviews with more than two dozen survivors of those hard times, combined with dramatic photographs and seldom seen movie footage, bring to life stories of incredible human suffering and equally incredible human perseverance. The Dust Bowl, a four-hour, two-episode documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, is also a morality tale about our relationship to the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.

The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, when a frenzied wheat boom on the southern Plains, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s, nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation. Menacing black blizzards killed farmers’ crops and livestock, threatened the lives of their children, and forced thousands of desperate families to pick up and move somewhere else. Vivid interviews with more than two dozen survivors of those hard times, combined with dramatic photographs and seldom seen movie footage, bring to life stories of incredible human suffering and equally incredible human perseverance. The Dust Bowl, a four-hour, two-episode documentary from acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns, is also a morality tale about our relationship to the land that sustains us—a lesson we ignore at our peril.

Additional material and backgrounder featurette from "Ken Burns: The Dust Bowl"

The film tells the story of a tiny school in Putney Vermont, the Greenwood School, where each year the students are encouraged to memorize, practice and recite the Gettysburg Address. In its exploration of the Greenwood School, the film also unlocks the history, context and importance of President Lincoln’s most powerful address.

A frail, asthmatic young Theodore Roosevelt transforms himself into a champion of the strenuous life, loses one great love and finds another, leads men into battle and then rises like a rocket to become the youngest president in American history at 42. Meanwhile, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, brought up as the pampered only child of adoring parents, follows his older cousin’s career with fascination.