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American Experience
Space Men
Season 28
Episode 6
In the 1950s and early '60s, a small band of high-altitude pioneers exposed themselves to the extreme forces of the space age long before NASA's acclaimed Mercury 7 would make headlines. Though largely forgotten today, balloonists were the first to venture into the frozen near-vacuum on the edge of our world, exploring the very limits of human physiology and human ingenuity in this lethal realm.
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Part Two examines the mounting dispute over strategies and reveals the pervasive racism.
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The fiery campaign that led to passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the vote.
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The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the campaign to breed a “better” American race,
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The woman whose groundbreaking books revolutionized our relationship to the natural world.
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The story of nine young men from Washington who captured gold at the 1936 Olympic Games.
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After attempting to commit the perfect crime, would two boys get the death penalty?
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The Stonewall riots marked a major turning point in the modern gay civil rights movement.
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The 1968 My Lai massacre and its subsequent cover-up.
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In the 1950's a Polio outbreak swept the U.S., devastating communities nationwide.
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The man behind the atomic bomb is put on trial for suspected communist ties in 1954.
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1:49:22
The final months of WWII from the vantage points of both the Japanese and the Americans.