After the disappearance of Tartessos, other Iberian locales rose to prominence and flourished-until their successes drew the unwanted attention of rival civilizations. This program tracks the history of Iberia during the era of Carthaginian and Roman expansion. Paintings, dramatizations, and maps reconstruct the course of the Punic Wars. In addition, the characteristics and cultures of these embattled regions are examined through re-creations of everyday...

With the Pragmatic Sanction, the Spanish rule passed to Ferdinand VII's young daughter, Isabella, upon his death-and touched off the Carlist Wars, with Ferdinand's brother Don Carlos pitting himself against Queen Regent Maria Cristina. This program employs dramatizations, artwork, maps, film clips, and footage of palaces and other landmarks to make sense of the complex political and social forces at work during the years of the First and Second Carlist...

As the 1400s dawned and progressed, the last remnants of military resistance to the Christian reconquista faded from Spain-but the legacy of Islamic culture was ensured. This program explores that climactic stage in medieval Spanish history. Navigating what can still be seen of the urban landscape of the time, the program illuminates the lives of Muslim leader Ibn Zamrak, Castilian constable Alvaro de Luna, and the latter's role in the wider drama...

-- Don Quixote   --

Explores Spain's history, physical features as well as its most popular customs, activities, and food.

A bridge that brings to mind a harp. A transportation hub reminiscent of a dove. Winner of the IAI Gold Medal as well as the Eugene McDermott Award in the Arts, Santiago Calatrava is celebrated for harmoniously combining sculptural architectural elements with rigid principles of engineering. This program showcases some of Calatrava's most popular projects as it tracks the career of an architect/engineer who is also a skilled artist.

This program presents the biography of Spanish philosopher Jose Ortega y Gasset. A wealth of photos and archival footage help illustrate the extraordinary times in which Ortega lived, while Professor Jose Luis Molinuevo, director of the Centro de Estudios Orteguianos, discusses his important contributions to the realms of social and political philosophy. Particular attention is given to Ortega's Espana Invertebrada and La Rebelion de las Masas.

This program sets the stage for an in-depth study of the Spanish Civil War by making sense of the political situation during the run-up to the war; by profiling disparate groups-centrists, anarchists, socialists, communists, separatists-and their leaders and backers; and by tracking the volatile events that snaked, like a powder train, toward the conflagration that in 1936 erupted in Madrid and touched off the military uprising in Spanish Morocco....

After the death of Franco and during the transition to a parliamentary monarchy, Spain's cultural life blossomed once again. In this environment, the poetry movement known as "the other sentimentality"-named after the first book of Javier Egea and Luis Garcia Montero-was born, a movement known for its transformation of the personal experience into a collective one so that any reader might identify with the feelings evoked. This program discusses that...

This program documents the Spanish Civil War from the point of view of the Spaniards who went into exile as a result of it. Firsthand accounts of that brutal conflict and the cruel realities of life as a refugee are movingly described by a broad cross-section of survivors. Graphic newsreel footage accompanies their stories of destruction at home and escape to other countries: tales of separation, imprisonment, forced labor, and frontline action at...