#101 - From Days Before Time
Early human habitation of North America; pre-Columbian cultures; the voyages of Columbus; exploration and exploitation by the Spanish and their impacts on native populations; the early slave trade; biological and cultural exchanges between the Old and New worlds.

#102 - Turbulent Virginia
Incentives for English colonization; early French and Dutch presence in North America; the British colonies at Roanoke and Jamestown.

#103 - Saints and Strangers
The Pilgrims' journey to Plymouth, the Mayflower Compact, and the establishment of the Massachusetts Bay Colony; conflict between settlers and Native Americans.

#104 - The Lure of the Land
English interest in colonization takes a back seat to civil war at home, but then resumes under King Charles II. Agricultural interests take hold in the Carolinas and Georgia, and New World settlements begin attracting a more diverse set of immigrants. James II attempts to exert more control over the colonies, but the colonies resist.

#105 - Coming to America
Explores the contrasting experiences of different ethnic, religious, and social groups in Colonial America, including the contributions of indentured servants. As Scotch and Irish immigration to the New World surges, a slave society begins to emerge.

#106 - Divergent Paths
The contrast between the large-scale agricultural operations of the South and the small family farms and commercial enterprises of the North; the emergence of cities; the Salem witch trials; the series of religious revivals known as the Great Awakening.

#107 - Strained Relations
The French and Indian War raises questions in England about whether the colonies are worth the cost of defending them. Meanwhile, the Revenue Acts, the Intolerable Acts, the Boston Massacre, and other government actions spawn a growing movement among the colonists to resist British rule. Things come to a head when the first shots of a revolution are fired at Lexington and Concord.

#108 - Not Much of a War
The Declaration of Independence is signed, but the colonists find themselves ill prepared for the armed conflict necessary to break away from British rule. George Washington's leadership and the eventual help of the French enable the Americans to gradually turn the tide and win the war.

#109 - A Precarious Experiment
The 1783 peace treaty with Great Britain; the lingering effects of the revolution on America's people, politics, and economy; and the difficulties of functioning as a new nation given the limited federal authority conferred by the Articles of Confederation.

#110 - Vision for a Nation
Delegates to the convention to draft a constitution for the brand-new United States debate the balance of power between federal and state governments and the legalities of slavery. Convention chair and war hero George Washington is elected the nation's first president.

#111 - Rivals and Friends
After becoming president in the first contested presidential election, John Adams faces a rocky relationship with Congress, his cabinet, and even his vice president—his election opponent, Thomas Jefferson. The struggles between Federalists and states' rights advocates continue, and France causes trouble on the high seas. Chief Justice John Marshall and the Marbury v. Madison decision strengthen the power of the Supreme Court.

#112 - Best-Laid Plans
The growth of cities and the beginnings of industrialization in the early 1800s; the Louisiana Purchase; the War of 1812.

#113 - Pressures from Within
The War of 1812 magnifies the need for a strong central government. The fur trade and plantations expand, and violent conflict with Native Americans continues on America's frontier. The Missouri Compromise temporarily resolves a growing sectional difference over slavery, and President Monroe issues the Monroe Doctrine asserting American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere.

#114 - He Brought the People with Him
The controversial presidency of John Quincy Adams; the changing party politics that led to the election of Andrew Jackson; South Carolina's "nullification" challenge and Jackson's response.

#115 - Legacy of an Autocratic Ruler
Jackson's Indian removal policies and attempts to weaken the Bank of the United States; the economic crisis of the late 1830s; political battles between the Whigs and the Democrats; the presidencies of Martin Van Buren, William Henry Harrison, and John Tyler.

#116 - Revolution of a Different Sort
Rising immigration in the first half of the 19th century and the nativist reaction against it; canals and the growth of railroads; the emerging factory system and its effects on workers and artisans.

#117 - Worlds Apart
Changes in the social order of the 19th century: the new wealthy and poor classes created by industry, the emergence of the middle class, and the new ideal of a wife of leisure and domesticity. Also, a comparison of life on Northern farms and Southern plantations.

#118 - Master and Slave
Plantation life for wealthy Southerners vs. the lives of poor white families; the slave family in agricultural and urban settings; harsh new slave laws; the emergence of a rich culture among enslaved African Americans.

#119 - Voices of Reform
The emergence of romanticism in literature and art; the Transcendentalists and utopian societies; reform movements spurred by the Second Great Awakening; the leaders of the temperance, abolition, and women's suffrage movements and their effects on one another.

#120 - Manifest Destiny?
The U.S.-Mexican War; the California Gold Rush and its effects on Californios, Native Americans, and Chinese immigrants.

#121 - Decade of Discord
Sectional tensions over slavery ease with the Compromise of 1850, but resurface even stronger as western territories seek statehood. The Whig Party disappears as the Republican Party emerges. Abolitionist John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry convinces many Southerners that they'll never be safe in the Union. And in the bitterly contested 1860 election, one of their worst fears is realized: Abraham Lincoln is elected president.

#122 - House Divided
Lincoln's election provokes several Southern states to secede from the Union, and the Civil War breaks out when shots are fired at Fort Sumter. As the conflict wears on, Lincoln works to hold on to the border states, and the Confiscation Acts address the problem of runaway and captured slaves.

#123 - Battle Cry
The Confederacy seeks support abroad, and General Robert E. Lee takes the war into Northern territory. Meanwhile, Lincoln can't seem to find an effective military commander. When the Union gets a victory at Antietam, he takes advantage of the occasion to issue the Emancipation Proclamation freeing all slaves held in states in rebellion against the U.S.

#124 - Final Stages
Battles at Vicksburg, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga and the appointment of Ulysses S. Grant as Union commander begin to turn the tide of the Civil War, though nearly two years of bloody conflict remain. Lee surrenders at Appomattox in April 1865, and the war is over.

#125 - What Price Freedom
Before he can put his plan for Reconstruction into action, Lincoln is assassinated. New President Andrew Johnson angers congressional Republicans by granting amnesty to thousands of former Confederates and is nearly impeached. The 14th and 15th amendments to the Constitution abolish slavery and grant citizenship to African Americans.

#126 - Tattered Remains
Former slaves gain some economic and political power in the Reconstruction-era South, though many find themselves ensnared in a sharecropping system that guarantees they will remain in poverty. Once federal troops are withdrawn from the region, new laws supported by the Supreme Court as well as violence on the part of Southern whites begin eroding the rights blacks have gained.

#127 - The Meeting Ground
Explores the convergence of cultures in the American West and the contrasting experiences of Native Americans, Spanish-speaking communities of Mexican Americans, Chinese immigrants, and African Americans. The Homestead Act encourages a flood of new settlers and leads to near annihilation for many Indian cultures.

#128 - The Legendary Frontier
The economic development of the West, including mining, cattle ranching, and farming; myths about and enduring images of the frontier era; the U.S. government's war on Western Native American tribes.

#129 - A New Corporate Order
American industry explodes after the Civil War, and women and children enter the workforce in increasing numbers. As corporate magnates gain wealth and power, workers organize to fight for better wages and working conditions.

#130 - The Age of the City
As industrialization draws more and more people to urban areas—both from the American countryside and from overseas—cities must cope with housing, transportation, and sanitation crises in addition to nativist resentment against the new immigrants. Political machines gain power in several major cities. Meanwhile, the wealth created by new industry creates more leisure for some, driving a growth in consumerism.

#131 - Political Stalemate
Explores the political corruption, tangled presidential politics, and economic crisis of the last decades of the 19th century and the growth of the Populist reform movement.

#132 - Imperial Ambition
A look at the growing American interest in acquiring overseas territories at the end of the 19th century contrasts the Spanish-American War with America's experience in the Philippines.

#133 - The Progressive Era
An overview of reform efforts in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: the settlement house movement, the women's suffrage movement, efforts to combat government corruption, the beginnings of a civil rights movement among African Americans, the temperance crusade and Prohibition, immigration reform efforts, the formation of an American Socialist Party, the labor movement, and attempts to regulate big business.

#134 - Warrior to Priest—Presidents of the Early 1900s
Reviews the presidencies of Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and William Howard Taft and compares their approaches to foreign policy as well as such domestic issues as big-business reform and conservation.

#135 - The Road to War
A complex system of alliances and rivalries pushes Europe into war in 1914. The U.S. resists getting involved, but is finally drawn into the conflict by ties to Great Britain and incidents on the high seas.

#136 - To End All Wars?
The last days of World War I; the short- and long-term effects of the Paris peace agreement, which severely punishes Germany; and racial and labor unrest and a Red scare in America.

#137 - The 1920s ... Beyond the Glitter
Prosperity and consumerism vs. abject poverty during the Jazz Age; political and cultural conflict over immigration and Prohibition; the Harlem Renaissance; the Scopes evolution trial; and the presidencies of conservative Republicans Warren G. Harding, Calvin Coolidge, and Herbert Hoover.

#138 - Hard Times
The 1929 stock market crash and the onset of the Great Depression, Hoover's initial relief efforts, and the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt.

#139 - A Chaos of Experimentation
Examines the presidency of Franklin Delano Roosevelt and the effects of New Deal programs on women, minorities, and other groups.

#140 - Between the Wars
The conflict between isolationism and internationalism in America following World War I, a look at the effects of the Great Depression worldwide, the rise of totalitarian regimes in Europe and Asia during the 1930s, the initial American response to the outbreak of World War II in Europe, and the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

#141 - A Nation at War
Battlefield strategy and the mobilization of the homefront during World War II; the internment of Japanese Americans; the effects of the war on African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans.

#142 - Taking the Offensive
Roosevelt is elected to an unprecedented fourth term as president but dies only a few months into it. Europe is liberated and Germany is defeated, but the war continues in the Pacific. Roosevelt's successor, Harry Truman, decides to use the newly developed atomic bomb on Japan.

#143 - The Collapse of Peace
The aftermath of World War II and the origins of the Cold War between the USA and the USSR; the rebuilding of Europe through the Marshall Plan; the containment doctrine in Asia; the formation of NATO.

#144 - Fallout
The presidential election of 1948, the Korean War, and the crusade against Communists at home during the 1950s.

#145 - The Way We Were?
The postwar American economic boom, the rise of the suburbs, the expansion of science and technology, changing family roles, and the growth of a new consumerism.

#146 - The Other America
Looks at the people left out of the boom times of the 1950s and '60s, including the rural and inner-city poor and the African Americans who came together in the civil rights movement. Also, Eisenhower Republicanism and the welfare state, the decline of McCarthyism, and the continuing Cold War.

#147 - Restless Society
The presidency and assassination of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson's Great Society assault on poverty, the gains of the civil rights movement, the rise of "black power" activists, and increases in urban violence.

#148 - A Nation Torn
Covers America's deepening involvement in the Vietnam War and the traumas of 1968, including the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy.

#149 - Determined To Be Heard
The youth counterculture and social protest movements of the 1960s, including the Native American fight for civil rights, Latino activism, the gay liberation movement, feminism, and the environmental movement.

#150 - Crisis of Authority
The escalation of the Vietnam War; the Nixon Doctrine and Third World countries; the troubled economy of the early 1970s, including the oil crisis; the Watergate scandal and President Richard Nixon's resignation.

#151 - Right Turn
The presidencies of Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, including the Iranian hostage crisis; the rise of the religious right and the "Reagan Revolution"; supply-side economics; the waning of the Cold War; the presidency of George H.W. Bush and the first Gulf War.

#152 - World of Uncertainty
Bill Clinton's presidency and the effort to impeach him; the Republican resurgence of the 1990s; the contested presidential election of 2000; globalization; America's increasingly diverse society.