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This episode begins and ends on Broadway in New York. We’ll trace the street’s 400-year evolution: from Native American trail, to Dutch trading route, to the home of America’s first public transit service, to an electrically-lighted theatre district known as the 'Great White Way'. At the end of the programme, we’ll see how Broadway has become the poster child for the 'complete streets' movement, in which automobiles take a back seat to more sustainable forms of transit. Elsewhere in this episode we’ll ride from Boston to New York on a dirt 'highway', which was created for the nation’s first mail carriers. In New Orleans we’ll take America’s oldest streetcar line out to some of the nation’s first suburbs, and in Detroit we’ll drive a Model T along America’s first mile of concrete-paved road. We’ll explore a car-friendly street created by a 1920’s entrepreneur who predicted that Los Angeles would be dominated by the automobile; and take a horse and carriage on a Brooklyn parkway that was built on the proposition that streets should be scenic. It’s an episode about how streets have connected the nation, divided communities and changed the way Americans live, work and shop.
It’s a show about arrogant builders who’ve scoffed at the laws of nature. They’ve defied the naysayers - and sometimes even gravity - by undertaking these amazing feats of engineering. Each story in this episode includes a fun physics lesson and a tale of human folly. We begin at the Erie Canal, a 363-mile long man-made waterway that was built in the 19th century by thousands of labourers using primitive hand tools. Then we’ll show how professional engineers connected a growing America by building magnificent bridges, intricate rail networks and a continent-wide system of freeways. And we’ll discover the extreme measures that engineers have taken to deliver water from distant rivers to kitchen sinks. It’s easy to take these modern marvels for granted. After all, we usually access roads, bridges and drinking water effortlessly. But behind many of our daily conveniences is a clever engineer, and a remarkable story.
It was often just a great man on a horse - Europe celebrated centuries of history by building monuments that were rarely imaginative, and never democratic. But in America, builders came up with creative, populist approaches to commemorating the past. In this episode we’ll explore the stories behind ten wholly-original American monuments, and the historical moments that inspired them. We’ll visit little-known locations like the Robert Gould Shaw and Massachusetts 54th Regiment Memorial, a sculptural masterpiece dedicated to one of the first African-American units to serve in the Civil War; and we’ll explore the surprising stories behind American favourites like the Statue of Liberty, which was devised as a propaganda piece by French republican politicians. It’s an episode full of epic battles over how to remember America's past: from Maya Lin’s fight to design the Vietnam Veteran’s Memorial, to the ongoing controversies over confederate monuments across the South. We’ll discover pivotal moments in the evolution of American monuments when daring artists found new ways to honour our history.
Learn how animals use all sorts of strategies to protect their families and food from marauders. Part 4 of 12.
Beginning with a searing indictment of slavery, the first episode of this series dramatically evokes the causes of the American Civil War. Here are the burning questions of Union and States' rights, John Brown at Harper's Ferry, the election of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, the firing on Fort Sumter and the rush to arms. Major figures such as Lincoln, Lee and Grant are introduced while the episode concludes with the disastrous Union defeat at Manassas, Virginia. Part 1 of 9.
The second episode in the series 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 more resourceful Confederate force. The programme also focuses on Ulysses S Grant, whose exploits come to a bloody climax at the Battle of Shiloh in Tennessee, and concludes with rumours of Europe's readiness to recognise the Confederacy. Part 2 of 9.
Convinced by July 1862 that emancipation was now morally and militarily crucial to the future of the Union, Lincoln waits for a victory to issue his proclamation. As the year wears on there are no Union victories forthcoming thanks to the brilliance of Stonewall Jackson and Robert E Lee. In September 1862 Lee invades Maryland and on the banks of Antietam Creek, the bloodiest day of the war takes place, followed shortly by the brightest: the emancipation of the slaves. Part 3 of 9.
The fourth programme in the series reveals how the Union disaster at Fredericksburg prefaced further successes for the Confederacy. At Chancellorsville in May, Lee wins his most brilliant victory but loses Stonewall Jackson, and at Vicksburg, Grant's attempts to take the city by siege are stopped. The programme highlights the fierce Northern opposition to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation and ends with Lee's decision to invade the North again to draw Grant's forces away from Vicksburg. Part 4 of 9.
This episode opens with a dramatic account of the Battle of Gettysburg in which 150,000 men fight to the death in Pennsylvania over a period of three days, culminating in Pickett's legendary charge. Also chronicled are the fall of Vicksburg, the New York draft riots, the first use of black troops, and the battles at Chickamauga, Georgia and Chattanooga. The episode closes with Abraham Lincoln in Gettysburg where he struggles to articulate what is happening to his people. Part 5 of 9.
