The BEST episodes of American Experience season 31
Every episode of American Experience season 31, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of American Experience season 31!
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 - Sealab
Season 31 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/12/2019
On a February day in 1969, off the shore of northern California, a US Navy crane carefully lowered 300 tons of metal into the Pacific Ocean. The massive tubular structure was an audacious feat of engineering — a pressurized underwater habitat, complete with science labs and living quarters for an elite group of divers who hoped to spend days or even months at a stretch living and working on the ocean floor. The Sealab project, as it was known, was the brainchild of a country doctor turned naval pioneer who dreamed of pushing the limits of ocean exploration the same way NASA was pushing the limits of space exploration. As Americans were becoming entranced with the effort to land a man on the moon, these divers, including one of NASA’s most famous astronauts, were breaking depth barrier records underwater. Sealab tells the little-known story of the daring program that tested the limits of human endurance and revolutionized the way humans explore the ocean.
Watch Now:Amazon#2 - Chasing the Moon (2): Earthrise
Season 31 - Episode 7 - Aired 7/9/2019
Part two covers 1964–1968, four heady, dangerous years in the history of the space race, focusing on the events surrounding the Apollo 1 and Apollo 8 missions. As Americans moved through the 60s and reflect on the challenges ahead, many begin to wonder: What exactly is it going to take to beat the Soviets to the moon?
Watch Now:Amazon
#3 - The Eugenics Crusade
Season 31 - Episode 3 - Aired 10/16/2018
The Eugenics Crusade tells the story of the unlikely –– and largely unknown –– campaign to breed a “better” American race, tracing the rise of the movement that turned the fledgling science of heredity into a powerful instrument of social control. Populated by figures both celebrated and obscure, The Eugenics Crusade is an often revelatory portrait of an America at once strange and eerily familiar.
Watch Now:Amazon
#4 - The Circus (1)
Season 31 - Episode 1 - Aired 10/8/2018
The Circus explores the history of this popular and American form of entertainment, from the first one-ring show at the end of the 18th century to 1956, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey big top was pulled down for the last time. The Circus brings to life an era when Circus Day would shut down a town, its stars were among the most famous people in the country, and multitudes gathered to see the improbable and the impossible, the exotic and the spectacular.
Watch Now:Amazon
#5 - The Circus (2)
Season 31 - Episode 2 - Aired 10/9/2018
The Circus explores the history of this popular and American form of entertainment, from the first one-ring show at the end of the 18th century to 1956, when the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey big top was pulled down for the last time. For more than a century, the circus had brought daily life to a standstill. And then, when day broke, the miracle had vanished.
Watch Now:Amazon#6 - The Swamp
Season 31 - Episode 4 - Aired 1/15/2019
The history of the Everglades is a dramatic yet little known story of humanity’s attempt to conquer nature.
#7 - Chasing the Moon (1): A Place Beyond the Sky
Season 31 - Episode 6 - Aired 7/8/2019
Part one begins in 1957 and tracks the early years of the space race as the United States struggles to catch up with the Soviet Union. The episode reveals breathtaking failures and successes of the nascent American space program and demonstrates the stakes and costs of reaching the moon.
#8 - Chasing the Moon (3): Magnificent Desolation
Season 31 - Episode 8 - Aired 7/10/2019
Part three, which covers 1969–1970, takes Americans to the moon and back. Dreams of space dramatically intersect with dreams of democracy on American soil, raising questions of national priorities and national identity. The final episode also considers what happens to scientific and engineering programs—and to a country—after ambitious national goals have been achieved.
#9 - Woodstock: Three Days That Defined a Generation
Season 31 - Episode 9 - Aired 8/6/2019
In August, 1969, half a million people from all walks of life and every corner of the country converged on a small dairy farm in upstate New York. They came to hear the concert of their lives, but most experienced something far more profound: a moment that would change them and the country forever, and define a cultural revolution.
#10 - The Feud
Season 31 - Episode 10 - Aired 9/10/2019
The feud between the Hatfields and McCoys is perhaps the most famous family conflict in American history. As legend has it, two neighboring families in the backwoods of Appalachia waged a crude and bloody war against each other over a stolen hog, an illicit romance, and longstanding grudges. Yet the events that took place near the end of the 19th century between the Hatfields and McCoys are part of a much richer and more complex narrative of the American experience. Anderson Hatfield and Randolph McCoy, the patriarchs of the legendary feud, were entrepreneurs seeking to climb up from hardship after fierce economic competition and rapid technological change had turned their lives upside down. When members of both families took their grievances to court, their dispute escalated into a war between two families and a struggle between two states. The Feud reveals more than an isolated story of mountain lust and violence between “hillbillies” — the Hatfield - McCoy feud was a microcosm of the tensions inherent in the nation’s rapid industrialization after the Civil War.