The BEST episodes of American Experience season 24
Every episode of American Experience season 24, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of American Experience season 24!
Presents an absorbing look at the personalities, events and resources that have had a profound impact on the shaping of America's past and present.
#1 - Billy the Kid
Season 24 - Episode 1 - Aired 1/10/2012
A fascinating look at the myth and the man behind it, who, in just a few short years transformed himself from a skinny orphan boy to the most feared man in the West and an enduring western icon.
#2 - Clinton: Part One
Season 24 - Episode 3 - Aired 2/20/2012
Clinton tells the story of a president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. From draft dodging to the Dayton Accords, from Monica Lewinsky to a balanced budget, the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton veered between sordid scandal and grand achievement. Clinton had a career full of accomplishment and rife with scandal, a marriage that would make history and create controversy, and a presidency that would define the crucial and transformative period between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11.
#3 - Clinton: Part Two
Season 24 - Episode 4 - Aired 2/21/2012
#4 - Custer's Last Stand
Season 24 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/17/2012
A profile of Gen. George Armstrong Custer (1839-76), nicknamed "the boy general" for his Civil War exploits, who died with many other members of the 7th Cavalry while battling the Cheyenne and Lakota along the Little Bighorn River in Montana Territory. The documentary details his time at West Point, where he became infamous for his rebellious nature; his relationship with his wife Libbie; his year-long suspension from the service; and the campaign against the Cheyenne that led to his death.
#5 - Grand Coulee Dam
Season 24 - Episode 6 - Aired 4/3/2012
Featuring the men and women who lived and worked at Grand Coulee in the wake of the Great Depression and the Native people whose lives were changed alongside historians and engineers, this film explores how the tension between technological achievement and environmental impact hangs over the project's legacy.
#6 - The Amish
Season 24 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/28/2012
The first documentary to deeply penetrate and explore this profoundly attention-averse group, The Amish answers many questions Americans have about this insistently insular religious community, whose intense faith and adherence to 500-year-old traditions have by turns captivated and repelled, awed and irritated, inspired and confused for more than a century.
#7 - Death and the Civil War
Season 24 - Episode 8 - Aired 9/18/2012
With the coming of the Civil War, and the staggering casualties it ushered in, death entered the experience of the American people as it never had before -- permanently altering the character of the republic and the psyche of the American people. Contending with death on an unprecedented scale posed challenges for which there were no ready answers when the war began. Americans worked to improvise new solutions, new institutions, and new ways of coping with death on an unimaginable scale.
#8 - Jesse Owens
Season 24 - Episode 7 - Aired 5/1/2012
Despite Jesse Owens' remarkable victories in the face of Nazi racism at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, the athlete struggled to find a place for himself in a United States that was still wrestling to overcome its own deeply entrenched bias.