American Experience - Season 6

First aired: 10/26/1993 8 episodes

Episodes

1. Amelia Earhart: The Price of Courage

Aired: 10/27/1993

The first woman to fly solo across the Atlantic, Amelia Earhart was one of America's first celebrities. After only a few years as a pilot she became the best-known female flier in America, not only for her daring and determination but also for her striking looks and outspoken personality. Three weeks before her 40th birthday Earhart disappeared over the Pacific Ocean, and her story became legend.

2. The Hunt for Pancho Villa

Aired: 11/8/1993

Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus, New Mexico, was the culmination of years of bloody incidents along the border. For Americans, it was the last straw. In 1916, General John Pershing and his 150,000 man cavalry set out to get Villa, dead or alive. Before it was over, the U.S. and Mexico would be at the brink of war.

3. Ike (1): Soldier

Aired: 11/10/1993

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a decorated general, a skillful politician, a tough Cold War adversary and one of America's least understood presidents. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.

4. Ike (2): Statesman

Aired: 11/10/1993

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a decorated general, a skillful politician, a tough Cold War adversary and one of America's least understood presidents. Part of the award-winning Presidents collection.

5. Malcolm X: Make It Plain

Aired: 1/26/1994

If any man expressed the anger, struggle and insistence of black people for freedom in the sixties, it was Malcolm X. In Omaha, he was Malcolm Little; later he became "Detroit Red" a small time street hustler. From prison emerged another Malcolm, the fiery, eloquent spokesman for the Nation of Islam. After a trip to Mecca, there was a last transformation -- a new willingness to accept white allies. Who killed him and why has never been fully explained.

6. America and the Holocaust: Deceit and Indifference

Aired: 4/6/1994

Complex social and political factors shaped America's response to the Holocaust, from Kristallnacht in 1938 through the liberation of the death camps in 1945. For a short time, the U.S. had an opportunity to open its doors, but instead erected a "paper wall," a bureaucratic maze that prevented all but a few Jewish refugees from entering the country. It was not until 1944, that a small band of Treasury Department employees forced the government to respond.

7. D-Day Remembered

Aired: 5/25/1994

It was truly a "battle of the world," a pivotal turning point in history, and the most dramatic single event in WWII. A military operation fraught with incalculable risk; the secret campaign was a triumph of intelligence and teamwork moving 5,000 ships carrying 150,000 men and 30,000 vehicles across one of the most unpredictable and dangerous bodies of water in the world. For all the split-second planning and careful rehearsal, it came down to the young men whose remembrances and recollections are the heart of this story.

8. The Hurricane of '38

Aired: 11/17/1993

The Hurricane of '38 chronicles the lives of fishermen, residents and vacationers on the day before the storm, following their stories through one of the greatest natural disasters ever to befall the eastern seaboard.