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As this Bill Moyers program makes clear, television became another member of the family in the 1960s, both reflecting and influencing the era. The times were chaotic and TV whirled us into that chaos while also holding up a mirror to it: the assassination and funeral of John F. Kennedy, the Vietnam War, the Apollo moon landing, the saga of the Civil Rights movement and Martin Luther King, Jr. So swiftly was change upon us in the decade of the 60s,...
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In 1911, the first newsreels flickered in America's nickelodeons. In the mid-1960s, they vanished from movie theaters as nightly television newscasts came to dominate visual journalism. In between, newsreels grew into a unique 20th-century institution that informed and entertained whole generations. In this program, Bill Moyers conducts a tour of the cultural and political landscape so dramatically rendered by the American newsreel. Accompanied by...
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He introduced the lowly peanut to big business and changed the course of Southern agriculture. He turned soybeans into plastic and carved his place in history as one of the 20th century's greatest scientists. George Washington Carver was a slave set free with a microscope and a vision: this is his story.
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Compiled by author, teacher, and curriculum advisor Ben Walsh, this program features 11 extracts on the Cuban missile crisis from various film archive sources. Clip selections and Walsh's commentary are organized around the following three topics: the build-up to the crisis, the actions and decisions of President John F. Kennedy in confronting the threat, and the outcome of the conflict in geopolitical terms. Specific film sources include One Week...
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The 1950s in America were a time of nostalgia and neurosis. Factories poured out goods, the dollar was powerful, and the United States - filled with the heady optimism of victory in World War II - believed that it could politically, culturally, and militarily lead the world. But the decade also saw the solidification of the Iron Curtain in Europe, the entrenchment of Communism in China, years of so-called police action in Korea, and a Red Scare that...
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On June 21, 1964, civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner were murdered by members of the Ku Klux Klan in Mississippi. A watershed moment in the movement for equality between blacks and whites, the young men's disappearance riveted the nation. This program confronts the ugly reality of racist violence in the South during those troubled times and the sequence of events that ultimately spurred Congress and President...
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This episode of the U.S. Army's The Big Picture television series goes to Fort McClellan, Alabama, for this first look at the new training center for Women's Army Corps officers and enlisted women. Since the Women's Army Auxiliary Corps was created in 1942, women training for service with the U.S. Army have had a number of temporary homes, ranging from Florida to Massachusetts, from Iowa to Virginia. The permanent WAC Center is a cluster of 22 cream-colored...
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This program is a look through the eyes of migrant families at Chicago's turbulent events in the late 1960s and early 1970s. President Johnson's Great Society plan was supposed to alleviate black poverty. But the plan had only boosted the growth of black ghettos. Black citizens cried out against paternalistic city politics and racially exclusionary laws.
10) Robert Pinsky
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Robert Pinsky, Poet Laureate of the United States for an unprecedented third term, finds his inspiration in common things, transforming the culturally unpoetic into masterpieces of verbal expression. In this program, Bill Moyers and Mr. Pinsky discuss topics including his love of the English language, the pervasive influence of history, and the flourishing of poetry on the Internet. Readings by Mr. Pinsky feature "ABC," "Ginza Samba," "Poem with Refrains,"...
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Presenting a history of New York City's famous and enduring theater, The Circle in the Square (100 plays in its first 25 years) through interview and performance, this program features theater critic Margaret Croyden interviewing founder Ted Mann and actors Dustin Hoffman, George C. Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, and James Earl Jones. It includes performance excerpts from Miller's Death of a Salesman, O'Neill's Mourning Becomes Elektra, and Ibsen's Lady...
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This episode of the U.S. Army's The Big Picture television series focuses on the story of the army truck. The army truck is, in a very real sense, a weapon, and this program shows just how large a role it has played in preserving the freedom of the United States in the 20th century. Few people would argue that the army truck is as powerful as an atom bomb or as swift as a guided missile, but the truck remains the workhorse of the U.S. Army. This program...
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This film covers conflicts between the British and Spanish colonial systems as Manifest Destiny pushed the U.S into the Mexican territories of the South West, and the Mexican American War. By exploring the Spanish Mission System, California rancheros, the Gold Rush, and Las Gorras Blanca? (The White Caps), learn how conquest, shifting borders and dispossession shaped Hispano culture and identity in former Mexican territories of the Southwestern United...
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For 80 years, one legal organization has supported the rights of the individual against the majority and the government, igniting rage in conservatives and liberals alike. That organization is the ACLU, and it has virtually molded our national ideal of liberty. Its history reads like a case study of freedom of expression and minority rights in the 20th century. This program, with commentary from Oliver North, Dave Barry, and Molly Ivins, traces the...
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A Pulitzer Prize-winner before she was 35, Rita Dove is the youngest poet to have held the post of Poet Laureate of the United States (1993-1995) In this program with Bill Moyers, Dove talks about her life and work, the relationship between poetry and power, and her plans for taking poetry to the people. The program also features Dove reading extensive selections from her works (including her Pulitzer Prize-winning collection Thomas and Beulah) and...
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In the 1980s, the nature of the Latino Diaspora changes again. From Cuba a second wave of refugees to United States - the Mariel exodus - floods Miami. The same decade sees the sudden arrival of hundreds of thousands of Central American? (Salvadorans, Guatemalans, and Nicaraguans) fleeing bloodshed and death squads. A backlash ensues: tightened borders, anti-bilingualism, state laws to declare all illegal immigrants felons. But a sea change is underway...
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In 1908, the first Model T rolled off the assembly line, quickly asserting itself as a dream machine that would take America down the highway and into the future. Bill Moyers shows how that future represented not only a new landscape bustling with high-speed transport and travel, but a new vision of ourselves. He uses film clips, photographs, music, and poetry to trace America's transformation into a mobile culture, complete with shopping malls, fast...
19) The Korean War
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This program provides a brief overview of the partitioning of Korea; the battles for Seoul, Inchon, and Pusan; the entry of Chinese troops into the war as United States marines approached the Manchurian border; General MacArthur's famous speech to Congress; and the armistice at Panmunjom and the establishment of the demilitarized buffer zone. The program also shows the war's aftermath in the North: the rebuilding of Pyongyang; the institution of Kim...
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By June 1944, there are signs on both sides of the world that the tide is turning. Through historic footage and interviews, Ken Burns' Pride of Our Nation brings us to June 6: D-Day. A million and a half Allied troops embark on one of the greatest military operations in history - the invasion of France. It is the bloodiest day for America since the Civil War. In the Pacific, Marines encounter Japanese civilians who, like their soldiers, seem resolved...