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American Experience

The Triumph of Alternating Current from Tesla

Direct current required thousands of little power plants at every mile, while alternating current allowed one source to power a much larger area. Alternating current transformed daily life in the 20th century, and made Tesla famous.

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Part 2 | The Vote | American Experience
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1:52:47
Part Two examines the mounting dispute over strategies and reveals the pervasive racism.
Part 1 | The Vote | American Experience
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1:52:42
The fiery campaign that led to passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the vote.
The Eugenics Crusade
1:53:12
The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the campaign to breed a “better” American race,
The Gilded Age
1:52:46
The Gilded Age: Full Film
Rachel Carson
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1:53:15
The woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world.
The Boys of '36
53:25
The story of nine young men from Washington who captured gold at the 1936 Olympic Games.
The Big Burn
52:12
In the summer of 1910, the largest fire in American history raged in the Northern Rockies.
Jesse Owens
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52:02
His stunning triumph at the 1936 Olympics captivated the world and infuriated the Nazis.
stonewall-uprising-preview
1:20:50
The Stonewall riots marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement.
The Great Famine
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52:20
The story of the American effort to relieve starvation in 1921 Soviet Russia.
The Trials of J. Robert Oppenheimer
1:49:38
The man behind the atomic bomb is put on trial for suspected communist ties in 1954.
Roberto Clemente
52:21
The exceptional life and career of Puerto Rican baseball star Roberto Clemente.
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