The BEST episodes written by Mark Zwonitzer
#1 - JFK: Part 1
American Experience - Season 26 - Episode 2
JFK’s rise to power. With illuminating interviews from family members, including sister Jean Kennedy Smith, historian Robert Dallek, and author Robert Caro, this episode offers new insight into Kennedy’s early years. John Fitzgerald Kennedy is one of nine children born to one of the wealthiest men in America. Unlike his robust siblings, he is haunted by a mysterious illness. Finally diagnosed with Addison’s disease, he will spend his life in and out of hospitals and in constant pain. Jack Kennedy first bursts onto the national stage as a war hero through his courageous rescue of his PT-109 crewmen. When his older brother, Joe Jr., is killed in the line of duty in 1944, the family’s political hopes shift to Jack. Despite the odds, he wins his Grandfather Fitzgerald’s old Massachusetts congressional seat. With his congressional win, Kennedy rises in power and influence, unseating Senator Henry Cabot Lodge in a surprising victory.
Watch Now:Amazon#2 - Triangle Fire
American Experience - Season 23 - Episode 11
It was the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history. A dropped match on the 8th floor of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory sparked a fire that killed over a hundred innocent people trapped inside. The private industry of the American factory would never be the same.
Watch Now:Amazon
#3 - The Battle of Chosin
American Experience - Season 29 - Episode 2
Revisit this pivotal 1950 Korean War battle through the eyewitness accounts of participants. A harrowing story of bloody combat and heroic survival in the first major military clash of the Cold War.
Watch Now:Amazon#4 - Battle of the Bulge
American Experience - Season 7 - Episode 7
American forces moving toward Germany to end the war are opposed by a deadly counter-offensive that leads to a great loss of life.
Watch Now:Amazon
#5 - The Mine Wars
American Experience - Season 28 - Episode 6
Go inside the coal miners' bitter battle for dignity at the dawn of the 20th century with The Mine Wars. The struggle over the material that fueled America led to the largest armed insurrection since the Civil War and turned parts of West Virginia into a bloody war zone.
#6 - The Gilded Age
American Experience - Season 30 - Episode 3
Meet the titans and barons of the glittering late 19th century, whose materialistic extravagance contrasted harshly with the poverty of the struggling workers who challenged them. The vast disparities between them sparked debates still raging today.
#7 - Robert E. Lee
American Experience - Season 23 - Episode 7
Robert E. Lee, the leading Confederate general of the American Civil War, remains a source of fascination and, for some, veneration.
#8 - Mount Rushmore
American Experience - Season 14 - Episode 6
The grand vision of sculptor Gutzon Borgum and the logistics behind the massive monument located in the Black Hills of South Dakota.
#9 - The Massie Affair
American Experience - Season 17 - Episode 8
Racial anger erupts in Hawaii after five non-White men are wrongly accused of raping a Navy wife in the early 1930s.
#10 - We Shall Remain (3): Trail of Tears
American Experience - Season 21 - Episode 7
Perspectives on the forced move of the Cherokee from the southeast to the newly established "Indian Territory" of what is now Oklahoma
#11 - Joe DiMaggio: The Hero's Life
American Experience - Season 12 - Episode 14
The life of the "Yankee Clipper," from his humble beginnings as the son of an Italian-American fisherman in California to his world-wide acclaim.
#12 - Transcontinental Railroad
American Experience - Season 15 - Episode 7
The combination of ambition, money, and power that led to the completion of the famous railway that spanned America's west.
#13 - Jesse James
American Experience - Season 18 - Episode 7
An examination of the real details of the notorious outlaw and his brother.
#14 - Walt Whitman
American Experience - Season 20 - Episode 15
A chronicle of the poetry of Whitman through the lens of his personality and background - with a discussion of both the literary praise and criticism of his work.