American Experience

History Series / 15 Seasons

American Experience, TV's most-watched history series, brings to life the compelling stories from our past that inform our understanding of the world today.

52m 54s

The Acrobat

8m 32s / TV-PG

“The Acrobat,” explores the contemporary social circus movement through the eyes of Sidney “Iking” Bateman. Growing up in St. Louis, Sidney “Iking” Bateman was exposed to gang life at an early age. This is the story of how he found a community of amateur acrobats, chose circus life over gang life and became a performing artist now touring the world with Cirque du Soleil.

Eugene O'Neill: Playwright and Nobel laureate

2m 21s

Eugene O’Neill revolutionized the American stage during the 1920’s and 30’s, with ground breaking plays as The Emperor Jones, Anna Christie and Mourning Becomes Electra. He was honored with three Pulitzer prizes and the Nobel prize in literature.

The Luckiest Man

2m 31s

They called him “the iron horse.” Seemingly impervious to injury or illness, Yankee slugger Lou Gehrig never missed a game. But in the spring of 1939, his play began to deteriorate. Not wanting to burden the team, Gehrig benched himself; the next month, he was diagnosed with Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). On July 4th, he gave a farewell speech to a sold-out crowd at Yankee Stadiu

Letter From A Father

2m 6s

When Ronald Reagan learned he had Alzheimer's disease, he wrote a letter for history. He addressed it to the American people. At summer's end in 2001, George H.W. Bush also wrote a letter for history. He addressed it to his children.

RFK: Trailer

20s

After an assassin's bullet took his brother's life, Robert F. Kennedy was bereft, not only of someone he loved, but of a role that had given meaning to his life. He had devoted himself to his brother John, suppressing his own ambitions for the sake of the Kennedy name. JFK's death plunged him into unremitting pain and grief, and left him struggling to find his own voice.

RFK Announces King's Death

2m 32s

On June 5, 1968, Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was fatally shot in Los Angeles. Just two months earlier, he delivered the news of Dr. King’s assassination to a crowd in Indianapolis.

The Chinese Exclusion Act: Promo

30s / TV-G

Examine the origin, history and impact of the 1882 law that made it illegal for Chinese workers to come to America and for Chinese nationals already here ever to become U.S. citizens.

United States v. Wong Kim Ark

2m 39s

On March 28, 1898, the Supreme Court ruled that Wong Kim Ark had acquired U.S. citizenship at birth and that "the American citizenship which Wong Kim Ark acquired by birth within the United States has not been lost or taken away by anything happening since his birth."

Victims of Bonnie and Clyde

2m 1s

On April 13, 1933, the local authorities in Joplin, Missouri decided to investigate the Barrow gang’s hideout. John Harryman, a farmer moonlighting as a part-time peace officer, approached the house with Joplin police. They were armed only with pistols.

Parchman Prison

2m 51s

In May of 1961, the Freedom Riders crossed into Mississippi. They entered a white only waiting room in Jackson and were arrested. They were sent to Mississippi’s notorious Parchman Prison and continued their protest from inside.

The U.S. In Hitler's Olympics

1m 13s / TV-G

The U.S. Olympic committee was threatening to spoil the party by boycotting the 1936 Olympic games. Hitler looked to Germany's best known international athlete, Max Schmeling, for help.

When Barbara Met George

1m 46s

Barbara Pierce met George Bush when she was just 16 at a Christmas dance in Greenwich, Connecticut. Three years later, after George’s deployment in WWII, Barbara married, she would come to say, "the first man I ever kissed."

First White Settlers in Hawai’i

1m 8s

The first white Americans to settle in the Islands arrived in the 1820s intent on Christianizing aboriginal Hawaiians; they soon decided it was the Lord's will that they husband the Hawaiian lands to profitability.

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