The BEST episodes of American Experience season 34
Every episode of American Experience season 34, ranked from best to worst by thousands of votes from fans of the show. The best episodes of American Experience season 34!
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 - Taken Hostage - Part 1
Season 34 - Episode 5 - Aired 11/14/2022
Revisit the 1979 Iran hostage crisis, when 52 Americans were held hostage in Tehran, through stories of those whose ordeal riveted the world.
#2 - Taken Hostage - Part 2
Season 34 - Episode 6 - Aired 11/15/2022
#3 - Riveted: The History of Jeans
Season 34 - Episode 1 - Aired 2/7/2022
Discover the fascinating story of this iconic American garment. From their roots in slavery to the Wild West, hippies, high fashion and hip-hop, jeans are the fabric on which the history of American ideology and politics is writ large.
#4 - Flood in the Desert
Season 34 - Episode 3 - Aired 5/3/2022
Explore the 1928 St. Francis Dam collapse, the second deadliest disaster in California history. A colossal engineering failure, the dam was built by William Mulholland, who had ensured the growth of Los Angeles by bringing water to the city via aqueduct.
#5 - Plague at the Golden Gate
Season 34 - Episode 4 - Aired 5/24/2022
More than 100 years before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down the world and set off a wave of fear and anti-Asian sentiment, an outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco’s Chinatown in 1900 unleashed a similar furor.
#6 - The American Diplomat
Season 34 - Episode 2 - Aired 2/15/2022
The American Diplomat explores the lives and legacies of three African-American ambassadors — Edward R. Dudley, Terence Todman and Carl Rowan — who pushed past historical and institutional racial barriers to reach high-ranking appointments in the Truman, Eisenhower and Kennedy administrations. At the height of the civil rights movement in the United States, they were asked to represent the best of American ideals abroad while facing discrimination at home. Colloquially referred to as “pale, male, and Yale,” the U.S. State Department fiercely maintained and cultivated the Foreign Service’s elitist character and was one of the last federal agencies to desegregate. Through rare archival footage, in-depth oral histories, and interviews with family members, colleagues and diplomats, the film paints a portrait of three men who created a lasting impact on the content and character of the Foreign Service and changed American diplomacy forever.