The outbreak of World War II saw two motion picture experts from Germany and the United States battle each other with as much ferocity as any army or navy. Their respective missions: to ignite a public desire to wage and win a global conflict. This Bill Moyers program contains an interview with Fritz Hippler, chief filmmaker for the Nazi Party. Hippler unrepentantly claims to have spoken to the "soul of the masses" through films like The Eternal Jew,...

1932 was marked by Franklin Delano Roosevelt's election and Amelia Earhart's historic flight across the Atlantic. Year by Year also looks at Al Capone's sentence to jail.

Perspectives presents a biography of Woodrow Wilson, 28th President of the United States. He led the nation through the terrible days of World War I, and when it ended, he gave the world his plan for a League of Nations.

This program shows the events of the Great Depression and explains how they prepared the way for the rise of Nazism, Japanese expansionism, and the altered role of government in the U.S. It covers the Bonus March in July 1932; the Boom of the 1920s and the Bust, speculation, overconfidence, and an economy out of control; and the end of the Dawes Plan. Would the New Deal solve the nation's problems or usher in the revolution?

Roy E. Stryker headed the Historical Division of the Farm Security Administration from 1935 to 1943. This program tells the story of how Stryker, a low-level federal bureaucrat with integrity and vision, managed a massive New Deal project to document the Great Depression. These photos-nearly 200,000 by both established and aspiring photographers, including Dorothea Lange, Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, and many others-became the defining statement...

Beginning in 1935, a group of New Deal-sponsored photographers roamed the American landscape, capturing the human face of the Great Depression. This film tells the story of the mammoth project, supervised by Roy Stryker of the Farm Security Administration and later made part of the Office of War Information. Viewers will encounter the poignant, iconic images and personal challenges of photographers Gordon Parks, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, Marion...

In the early 20th century, community centers called settlement houses were established across America. This documentary relates the history of one such facility-the Phyllis Wheatley Settlement House, known in its time as "the greatest settlement house in the U.S. for Negroes." The program profiles its first director, W. Gertrude Brown, who touched the lives of generations of African-Americans, and describes life at the Minneapolis center. The history...

The populist governor of Louisiana and United States senator, Huey Long captured the American imagination with his dramatic speeches and promise of "Every man a king." "The Kingfish" governed during the Great Depression, advocating public works and spending money on state highways, hospitals, schools, and old age pensions. Acclaimed filmmaker Ken Burns examines Long's extraordinary career from his political beginnings in the 1920s until his 1935 assassination....

In this episode of New York: A Documentary Film, filmmaker Ric Burns explores the turbulent and often harrowing years from 1945 to 2003. Emerging from the Depression and the Second World War as the most powerful metropolis on Earth, New York soon confronted urban woes of unprecedented proportions, and fought for its very existence. In exploring the social, economic, and physical forces that swept through the city in the post-war period, this program...

"A riveting adventure of how America was invented. 'America the story of us' focuses on the people, ideas and events that built our nation, covering 400 years of America history in the most extensive and in-depth television series ever produced by History. Sharing their thoughts on the building of America, and what it means to be an American, are a world-class group of individuals including Tom Brokaw, Michael Douglas, Meryl Streep, Buzz Aldrin, Colin...