In this evocative and lavishly illustrated narrative, Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan delve into the history of the park idea, from the first sighting by white men in 1851 of the valley that would become Yosemite and the creation of the world's first national park at Yellowstone in 1872, through the most recent additions to a system that now encompasses nearly four hundred sites and 84 million acres.

Tie Sing was born in the mountains. The mountains were in his blood. But because he was of Chinese descent at a time in America when to be Chinese meant working in restaurants or laundries, Tie Sings prospects were limited. But he had bigger plans. He began cooking for mapmakers and soon built a reputation as the best trail cook in California. When millionaire Stephen Mather began his quest to create a national park service in 1915, he invited a group...

From player salaries to performance-enhancing drugs, baseball's latter days have seen more than their share of controversy and confusion. This program covers the period from the 1994 player strike through the 2009 Major League season. Ample attention is given to the steroid problem, with a focus on Barry Bonds-both his stellar career and the scandal in which he became embroiled. But the film also discusses other major issues, such as how the sport...

This episode tells how, by the end of the 19th century, industrialization had left many Americans worried about whether the country would have any pristine land left. Poachers in the parks were rampant, and visitors were littering or carving their names in wilderness sites. Congress had yet to establish judicial authority or set aside appropriations for protection of the parks. This sparked a conservation movement by organizations such as the Sierra...

There are several dozen parks located within the desert southwest area of the US in Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. They protect everything from historically significant rivers, urban memorial parks, battlefields, flint quarries, scenic lakes and mountains, wildlife, caverns, ancient cliff dwellings and cactus. This program features several dedicated National Park rangers, responsible for protecting our national parks and the history, natural resources,...

In this episode of New York: A Documentary Film, filmmaker Ric Burns explores the turbulent and often harrowing years from 1945 to 2003. Emerging from the Depression and the Second World War as the most powerful metropolis on Earth, New York soon confronted urban woes of unprecedented proportions, and fought for its very existence. In exploring the social, economic, and physical forces that swept through the city in the post-war period, this program...

Franklin Roosevelt runs for vice president in 1920 and seems assured of a still brighter future until polio devastates him the following summer. He spends seven years struggling without success to walk again, while Eleanor builds a personal and political life of her own. FDR returns to politics in 1928 and, as governor of New York, acts with such vigor and imagination during the first years of the Great Depression that the Democrats turn to him as...

The Geneva Summit brings Dwight D. Eisenhower together with representatives of Britain, France, and the Soviet Union in an effort to reduce international tensions. Adlai Stevenson makes another presidential bid, covered in this episode of Year by Year.

This program examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African-American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction's thrilling but brief "moment in the sun." From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their liberation-by fleeing the plantations and taking up arms to serve in the United States Colored Troops. After Emancipation, African Americans sought to realize the promise of freedom-rebuilding families...

In this program, Dennis Wholey continues a dialogue on the role of religion and faith in contemporary American culture with spokespeople from the InterFaith Conference of Metropolitan Washington; Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good; the Washington Buddhist Peace Fellowship; the Islamic Society of North America; the Agudas Achim Conservative Jewish Congregation of Alexandria, Virginia; and the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham, Maryland. Topics...