In the 1840s, thousands of Americans journeyed west to California to pursue better lives. One group of settlers became infamous: the Donner Party. After taking an unproven shortcut, their wagon train fell dangerously behind schedule. If they couldn’t cross the Sierra Nevada Mountains before winter came, they risked getting trapped in the snow and starving. B ... Show More
Dec 2023
Encore: Donner Party | Snow and Blood | 2
<p>In November of 1846, an early snowstorm left the Donner Party’s 87 men, women and children trapped in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Freezing and running out of food, they decided to send out a team of men and women on a rescue mission. But soon, the rescuers would find themselv ... Show More
46m 58s
Jan 2024
Encore: Donner Party | In Their Footsteps | 4
<p>In December of 1846, a small group split off from the Donner Party in a desperate attempt to find help. The party, known as the Forlorn Hope, endured the bitter Sierra Nevada winter, trekking roughly 100 miles in 33 days. The route the party took remained unknown for decades. ... Show More
34m 24s
Jul 2023
The Donner Party Turns Deadly
August 4, 1846. A few months into their journey from Illinois to California, a group of pioneers encounters trouble. They’ve just found a note from their guide. It essentially says, “That shortcut I told you to take through the Wasatch Mountains – don’t.” The setback disastrously ... Show More
31m 23s
Jan 2023
California Gold Rush | Battlelines | 3
<p>For white settlers, the Gold Rush offered a chance for fortune, but for California’s Native inhabitants, the sudden hunger for gold spelled disaster. As the numbers of miners grew, they forced Native people off their ancestral lands, often starving or slaughtering them in the ... Show More
40m 16s
Dec 2019
The Orphan Train: Death of an American Experiment
Between 1854 and 1929, 250,000 orphans - at peril in the dangerous, overcrowded streets of New York - were placed on trains and sent west to live with new families. A desperate solution to a desperate problem, some of the stories turned out well and some far from well. The bond b ... Show More
43m 46s
Feb 2024
The Underground Railroad | Vigilance | 2
<p>In the 1830s, abolitionism became a political force to be reckoned with. In the face of harassment and mob violence, Black and white abolitionists staged rallies, published newspapers, and flooded Congress with antislavery petitions. Increasingly, they made up the rank and fil ... Show More
40m 15s
Mar 2019
The Great Depression - Dust | 4
<p>The Great Depression wasn’t the only crisis facing the country when Franklin Roosevelt took office in 1933. Following a decade-long drought that had shriveled crops, massive dust storms were pummeling huge swaths of the Midwest, the Great Plains, and the Northwest. Years of po ... Show More
40m 2s
Oct 2021
Roaring Twenties | The Great Crash | 4
<p>On a misty morning in May 1927, Charles Lindbergh climbed into the cramped cockpit of his single engine plane, <em>The Spirit of St. Louis</em>. After a bumpy taxi and takeoff at a New York runway, he took to the skies, on a flight that would break records and make him a natio ... Show More
39m 16s
Dec 2019
Kentucky Blood Feud - The Murder of Daniel Bates | 1
<p>The longest and bloodiest feud in American history erupted in the 1840s in Clay County, Kentucky — where it raged for nearly a century and ultimately claimed more than 150 lives. The Clay County War, also known as the Baker-Howard Feud, pitted four families against each other: ... Show More
34m 45s