The BEST episodes of Modern Marvels

#1 - Hoover Dam

Season 5 - Episode 14 - Aired 7/12/1999

Venture into the Southwestern Desert for the complete story of one of the seven engineering wonders of the world -- Hoover Dam. From the blueprints to reality, this is the story of the ingenuity and manpower that literally moved a river and sculpted a mountain of concrete.

#2 - Rescue Technology

Season 5 - Episode 5 - Aired 5/1/1999

Check out the latest advances in rescue technology, including a Searchcam system that locates buried victims, and the Jaws of Life that can extricate a person from a crushed car in seconds.

#3 - Gold Mines

Season 6 - Episode 17 - Aired 7/31/2000

Around the world and across the eons, gold stands as a symbol of power, wealth, and love. The quest for the yellow metal took men across oceans, into the depths of the Alaskan winter, and miles beneath South African earth. This is the story of the hunters of the precious metal and their methods for extracting it.

#4 - The F-14 Tomcat

Season 8 - Episode 12 - Aired 3/12/2002

The complete story of the F-14 Tomcat--from the initial design sessions to its most recent missions. Track the innovations that have kept the F-14 effective for nearly three decades.

#5 - Trucks

Season 6 - Episode 20 - Aired 8/22/2000

They are the backbone of the transportation and construction industries. Versatile, vital and ubiquitous, trucks perform jobs from carting off mountains to keeping nations fed.

#6 - Tuna

Season 15 - Episode 5 - Aired 2/4/2010

It's the most popular fish in the American diet. From the school lunch box--to the high end sushi bar--to the outdoor barbecue, tuna crosses all demographic lines. We'll go fishing with the men who risk their lives to bring in a haul, stop in at Bumble Bee, the only major tuna cannery still operating in America, and visit the world's largest fish market in Tokyo, where a single tuna can sell for as much as $100,000. We'll also explore worldwide efforts to save the giant bluefin tuna, which has been over-fished to a point of peril. Then we'll head to sea with scientists who track the tunas' inter-oceanic migrations, and travel to South Australia, where entrepreneurs seek to breed the mighty bluefin in captivity.

#7 - The Chrysler Building

Season 8 - Episode 39 - Aired 9/10/2002

The 1,046-foot Chrysler Building in New York City, erected between 1928 and 1930, was the world's tallest edifice--until the Empire State Building eclipsed it in 1931! Since then, this Art Deco masterpiece has become one of the most beloved skyscrapers on the city skyline.

#8 - Dynamite

Season 5 - Episode 12 - Aired 6/21/1999

Dynamite blasts out the natural resources that have built our modern world.

#9 - Breakfast Tech

Season 12 - Episode 48 - Aired 11/28/2006

It slices and squeezes, sorts and sizes, mixes and cooks. Every morning we count on it to keep our orange juice fresh, our eggs whole, our cereals flaked, and our McGriddle syrupy--this is Breakfast Tech.

#10 - Dirt

Season 15 - Episode 2 - Aired 1/14/2010

You know the old saying "dull as dirt"...wrong! In Las Vegas we'll see how thousands of tons of dirt transform a stadium into a Supercross course, and in New Jersey we'll slog into a secret bog to collect the special mud that every major league team relies on to give extra grip to baseballs. Then, we'll join in the down and dirty fun of mud wrestling at a state fair in Hawaii. In Tucson we'll see how modern adobe and stunning rammed-earth homes are made. To farmers, "dirt" is "soil" and in a teaspoon of healthy soil there are more living organisms than people on our planet. We'll find out where they came from at a sprawling potting soil facility in central California where huge earth moving equipment adds tons of dried kelp, bat guano and other ingredients to dirt. At exclusive spas we'll watch patrons submerge in mud. Finally, we'll visit the Tide detergent factory--why? To get the dirt out, of course.

#11 - Bombs

Season 5 - Episode 8 - Aired 5/13/1999

One of the most feared and powerful weapons in any nation's arsenal. From the use of diseased carcasses flung over castle walls to Greek Fire to today's smart bombs, we review the evolution of bombs.

#12 - Car Wash Tech

Season 21 - Episode 6 - Aired 7/11/2022

Two million people wash their car every single day; taking a look at all the technology used to keep those beloved vehicles sparkling clean.

#13 - Machine Tools

Season 6 - Episode 27 - Aired 10/17/2000

Beginning with the story of the steam engine and traveling forward to modern-day "machining centers" that are used to make incredibly complex space shuttle parts, we'll examine the basic types of machine tools and their development. We'll also look at machine tools of the future that will change the way products are made.

#14 - Egyptian Pyramids

Season 9 - Episode 57 - Aired 12/18/2003

Egyptian Pyramids

#15 - Engineering Disasters 13

Season 10 - Episode 53 - Aired 11/16/2004

Engineering Disasters 13

#16 - Toys

Season 9 - Episode 59 - Aired 12/23/2003

Toys

#17 - Terror Tech: Defending The Highrise

Season 9 - Episode 28 - Aired 8/12/2003

Terror Tech: Defending The Highrise

#18 - Then And Now: Airships

Season 7 - Episode 14 - Aired 3/17/2001

#19 - Built to Last

Season 15 - Episode 29 - Aired 12/3/2010

Enter the amazing and ingenious ultra-sturdy shelters, machines, containers, materials and packaging designed to deny the ruination of society. The drive to create the indestructible has inspired some of the most prolific and awe inspiring results: The Cold War spawned personal bomb shelters in the 1950s. They weren't truly safe and secure, but today's 21st century version will last a millennium. And so will the special food you can get, along with all the comforts of home--like running water, plumbing and electricity. Caskets serve as our final resting place, but how long do they really last? Investigate how valuable data from a plane crash survives in a "black box" (that's not really black), to explain what might have caused the accident. And get an intimate look at the new "home" that protects and preserves one of the world's most valuable documents--the case that houses the original Declaration of Independence.

#20 - Engineering Disasters 3

Season 7 - Episode 20 - Aired 4/16/2001

When design flaws fell projects, the cost is often exacted in lives. Why did the Tower of Pisa begin to lean by as much as 17 feet; what caused the first nuclear accident in 1961; what killed three Soyuz 11 cosmonauts aboard the world's first orbiting space station; how did a winter storm destroy the Air Force's Texas Tower Radar Station; and what errors led to NASA's loss of the Mars Climate Orbiter and the Mars Polar Lander?

#21 - Great Inventions

Season 6 - Episode 6 - Aired 3/16/2000

Wheel; steam engine; railroad; automobile; airplane; printing press; electric light; wireless telegraph; telephone; television; computer.

#22 - Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel

Season 7 - Episode 10 - Aired 2/7/2001

Named one of the seven engineering wonders of the modern age, the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and Tunnel connects Virginia proper with its easternmost landmass. Stretching 17 miles across the historic Chesapeake Bay, the structure represents a man-made boundary between the Bay and the Atlantic.

#23 - Camping Technology

Season 6 - Episode 12 - Aired 6/6/2000

As camping technology develops, it provides greater access to diverse outdoor environments. The earliest camping technology was developed out of necessity. When men headed off to war, they returned with new camping gear and lightweight materials, which enabled further exploration.

#24 - Crash Testing

Season 5 - Episode 17 - Aired 8/9/1999

Delve into the secretive, but hugely important, multi-billion-dollar industry of product testing where wrinkles get ironed out and goods are stripped of the marketing and hype to see if they actually work.

#25 - Battlefield Medicine

Season 5 - Episode 3 - Aired 3/30/1999

In this history of medicine under fire, we see how a small army of medics, nurses, surgeons, stretcher-bearers, and ambulance drivers, race to keep pace with the deadly advances of war.