
Join an American couple’s courageous mission in 1939 to help refugees escape Nazi-occupied Europe. Over the course of two years, the pair will risk their lives so that hundreds can live in freedom.

They called themselves the United Society of Believers in Christ's Second Appearing, but because of their ecstatic dancing, the world called them Shakers. Ken Burns creates a moving portrait of this particularly American movement, and in the process, offers us a new and unusually moving way to understand the Shakers.

In 1989, five black and Latino teenagers from Harlem were arrested and later convicted of raping a white woman in New York City's Central Park. They spent between 6 and 13 years in prison before a serial rapist confessed that he alone had committed the crime, leading to their convictions being overturned. Set against a backdrop of a decaying city beset by violence and racial tension, this is the story of that horrific crime, the rush to judgment by the police, a media clamoring for sensational stories and an outraged public, and the five lives upended by this miscarriage of justice.

The history of the East Lake Meadows public housing project in Atlanta and the people who lived there from 1970 to its demolition in 2000, with special emphasis on the activism of Eva Davis asserting the rights of the tenants.

In the spring of 1903, on a whim and a fifty-dollar bet, Dr. Horatio Nelson Jackson set off from San Francisco in a 20-horsepower Winton touring car hoping to become the first person to cross the United States in the new-fangled "horseless carriage." Most people doubted that the automobile had much of a future. Jackson's trip would prove them wrong.

For 200 years, the United States Congress has been one of the country's most important and least understood institutions. In this elegant, thoughtful and often touching portrait, Ken Burns explores the history and promise of this unique American institution. Using historical photographs and newsreels, evocative live footage and interviews with David Broder, Alistair Cooke, Cokie Roberts, Charles McDowell and others, the award-winning film chronicles the personalities, events and issues that have animated the first 200 years of Congress and, in turn, our country.
A look at deaf culture from the 19th century to the present.

The War 1812 is a two-hour film history of a deeply significant event in North American and world history. The war shaped American, Canadian and British destiny in the most literal way possible: had one or two battles or decisions gone a different way, a map of the United States today would look entirely (and shockingly) different. The fires of this war forged the nation of Canada; at the same time, the result tolled the end of Native American dreams of a separate nation. By war's end, the process of Native nation removal had already begun in the southeast, paving the way for a Cotton Kingdom powered by slavery, and a United States that had been on the verge of collapse was ready to announce its arrival as a global power. The U.S. did not win the War of 1812, but the noble experiment of democracy had managed to survive intense pressure from without, and within.

For 50 years radio dominated the airwaves and the American consciousness as the first “mass medium.” In Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio, Ken Burns examines the lives of three extraordinary men who shared the primary responsibility for this invention and its early success, and whose genius, friendship, rivalry and enmity interacted in tragic ways. This is the story of Lee de Forest, a clergyman’s flamboyant son, who invented the audion tube; Edwin Howard Armstrong, a brilliant, withdrawn inventor who pioneered FM technology; and David Sarnoff, a hard-driving Russian immigrant who created the most powerful communications company on earth.

The astonishing, heartbreaking, inspiring, and largely-untold story of Native Americans in the United States military. Why do they do it? Why would Indian men and women put their lives on the line for the very government that took their homelands?

Today it's a symbol of strength and vitality. 135 years ago, it was a source of controversy. This documentary examines the great problems and ingenious solutions that marked the construction of the Brooklyn Bridge. From conception to construction, it traces the bridge's transformation from a spectacular feat of heroic engineering to an honored symbol in American culture.

Largely considered to be the greatest American author, Mark Twain is celebrated in this exhaustive documentary by filmmaker Ken Burns.

The Mayo Clinic tells the story of a unique medical institution that has been called a "Medical Mecca," the "Supreme Court of Medicine," and the "place for hope where there is no hope." The Mayo Clinic began in 1883 as an unlikely partnership between the Sisters of Saint Francis and a country doctor named William Worrall Mayo after a devastating tornado in rural Minnesota. Since then, it has grown into an organization that treats more than a million patients a year from all 50 states and 150 countries. Dr. Mayo had a simple philosophy he imparted to his sons Will and Charlie: "the needs of the patient come first." They wouldn't treat diseases...they would treat people. In a world where healthcare delivery is typically fragmented among individual specialties, the Mayo Clinic practices a multi-specialty, team-based approach that has, from its beginnings, created a culture that thrives on collaboration.

Thomas Hart Benton's paintings were energetic and uncompromising. Today his works are in museums, but Benton hung them in saloons for ordinary people to appreciate.

The story of the Medal of Honor - the highest U.S. award for valor in combat - is told through personal accounts of bravery and daring

Celebrated musicians perform at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium in anticipation of the soon-to-be-released "Country Music" documentary series by Ken Burns. Burns, plus some of his colleagues and some musicians, act as hosts and provide a brief history of country music as they introduce each act and show sneak peek excerpts from the series in between the live performances. Many of the musicians that appear in the documentary perform to demonstrate various country music styles including Dierks Bentley, Rosanne Cash, Ketch Secor, Rhiannon Giddens, Vince Gill, Kathy Mattea, Marty Stuart, Dwight Yoakam, and more.

Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery tells the remarkable story of the entire Corps of Discovery – not just of the two Captains, but the young army men, French-Canadian boatmen, Clark’s African-American slave, and the Shoshone woman named Sacajawea, who brought along her infant son. As important to the story as these many characters, however, was the spectacular land itself, and the promises it held.

An immersive 360-degree narrative telling the epic story of the Vietnam War as it has never before been told on film. Featuring testimony from nearly 80 witnesses, including many Americans who fought in the war and others who opposed it, as well as Vietnamese combatants and civilians from both the winning and losing sides.

The American Revolution was at once a war for independence, a war of conquest, a civil war, and a world war, fought by neighbors on American farms and between global powers an ocean or more away. It impacted millions from Vermont’s Green Mountains to the swamps of South Carolina, from Indian Country to the Iberian Peninsula. In defeating the British Empire and giving birth to a new nation, the American Revolution turned the world upside-down. Thirteen colonies on the Atlantic Coast united in rebellion, won their independence, and established a republic that still endures. The American Revolution will present the story of the men and women of the Revolutionary generation, their humanity in victory and defeat, and the crisis that they lived through.

The history of the sport of baseball in America, told through archival photos, film footage, and the words of those who contributed to the game in each era. Writers, historians, players, baseball personnel, and fans review key events and the significance of the game in America's history.

A documentary on the American Civil War narrated by Ken Burns, covering the secession of the Confederacy to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

The story of Jack Johnson, the first African-American boxer to win a title and his struggle to live as a free man.

First-person accounts from young people ranging in age from 11-27 about living with mental health conditions.

Muhammad Ali brings to life the iconic heavyweight boxing champion who became an inspiration to people everywhere.

The story of the Second World War through the personal accounts of a handful of men and women from four American towns. The war touched the lives of every family on every street in every town in America and demonstrated that in extraordinary times, there are no ordinary lives.

Jazz is a ten part series that explores the evolution – and the genius – of America’s greatest original art form, focusing on the extraordinary men and women who could do something remarkable – create art on the spot. Jazz celebrates their profoundly enduring, endlessly varied, and infinitely alluring music in the context of the complicated country that gave birth to and influenced it, and was in turn transformed by it.

The history of the rise, rule and fall of the Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution and the entire era it encompassed (1920-33). After nearly a century of activism, Prohibition was intended to improve the lives of all citizens by protecting individuals, families and society at large from the devastating effects of alcohol abuse; but paradoxically it made millions of people rethink their definition of morality.

Explore the history of a uniquely American art form: country music. From its deep and tangled roots in ballads, blues and hymns performed in small settings, to its worldwide popularity, learn how country music evolved over the course of the 20th century, as it eventually emerged to become America’s music.

Chronicles the lives of Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt, three members of the most prominent and influential family in American politics. It is the first time in a major documentary television series that their individual stories have been interwoven into a single narrative. This seven-part, fourteen hour film follows the Roosevelts for more than a century, from Theodore’s birth in 1858 to Eleanor’s death in 1962.

Filmed over the course of more than six years at some of nature's most spectacular locales – from Acadia to Yosemite, Yellowstone to the Grand Canyon, the Everglades of Florida to the Gates of the Arctic in Alaska - “The National Parks: America's Best Idea” is nonetheless a story of people: people from every conceivable background – rich and poor; famous and unknown; soldiers and scientists; natives and newcomers; idealists, artists and entrepreneurs; people who were willing to devote themselves to saving some precious portion of the land they loved, and in doing so reminded their fellow citizens of the full meaning of democracy.

This two-part, four-hour documentary delves into the world of a 15th-century art titan and unravels his journey while shedding light on his lasting impact on future generations.

Inspired in part by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum’s “Americans and the Holocaust” exhibition and supported by its historical resources, this documentary series examines the rise of Hitler and Nazism in Germany in the context of global antisemitism and racism, the eugenics movement in the United States, and race laws in the American south.

This two-part sequel to the 1994 series Baseball continues the story of America's national pastime from the early 1990s to 2010. This transformational period leads off with the 1994 players' strike. Other key developments and milestones include the increasing dominance of Latino and Asian players who truly turn the game international; skyrocketing profits; the Red Sox' historic World Series victory; the astonishing feats of Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, and Barry Bonds; and the revelations about performance-enhancing drugs that cast a shadow over many athletic accomplishments.

“The Gene: An Intimate History” brings vividly to life the story of today’s revolution in medical science through present-day tales of patients and doctors at the forefront of the search for genetic treatments, interwoven with a compelling history of the discoveries that made this possible and the ethical challenges raised by the ability to edit DNA with precision.

The dramatic story of America's national mammal, which sustained the lives of Native people for untold generations, being driven to the brink of extinction, before an unlikely collection of people rescues it from disappearing forever. Ken Burns recounts the tragic collision of two opposing views of the natural world—and the unforgettable characters who pointed the nation in a different direction.

The visionary work and the turbulent life of Ernest Hemingway, one of the greatest and most influential writers America has ever produced. Interweaving his eventful biography with carefully selected excerpts from his iconic short stories, novels, and non-fiction, the series reveals the brilliant, ambitious, charismatic, and complicated man behind the myth, and the art he created.