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A series of documentaries covering a wealth of historical epochs touched upon in The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (1992).
Ernest Hemingway was the best-selling, most celebrated author of his time. He wove war, love, pain and death into unforgettable patchworks of prose, and sought adventure and craved risk. Behind a cheerful façade were wounds much deeper than any physical ones sustained in an eventful lifetime. Hemingway battled devastating personal wounds he found impossible to shake.
For almost two hundred years one group of fighting men has held an unrivaled grip on the world's imagination. Shadowy pasts have made them outcasts. Glorious victories have made them heroes. And bitter defeats -- often in hopeless battles to the death -- have transformed them into legends. They are the men of the French Foreign Legion. Today, the mystique that surrounds these unusual soldiers still fascinates, still draws young men to enlist in their ranks.
In 1905, all of New York was riveted by the story of Lily Bart, a stunning young woman hoping to claim her place in society through marriage to a wealthy man. As her prospects for marriage unraveled, Lily's life spiraled downward. No longer the toast of New York society, she ended up in a rooming house, alone and penniless. After drinking an overdose of sleeping medication, she died. This tragic figure whose story so captivated New York was not real. She was a character in the novel The House of Mirth. The writer who exposed the dark side of High Society was herself a member of it; Edith Wharton was in a unique position to chronicle -- and critique the upper class. She did -- mercilessly -- and her literary success came at a price.
Over the course of his illustrious career, Lowell Thomas was an adventurer, a showman, the most familiar voice in radio, a television personality and a media pioneer. He was one of the first to be called a newscaster, but through it all, one thing always was true about Lowell Thomas: he was a supreme storyteller.
At the end of World War I, the Ottoman Empire paid the ultimate price for choosing the wrong side. The winners, Britain and France, marched in and began to carve it up. Then an army arose out of nowhere, expelled the invaders from its homeland, and proclaimed the Republic of Turkey. All because of one man, Mustafa Kemal, or, as he came to be known, Atatürk -- father of the Turks. Enormously ambitious for himself and his people, Atatürk saw independence as just the beginning. He would not only transform the government, but also how people dressed, worshipped, wrote, and named themselves -- individually and as a nation.
In novels, memoirs, and essays, the Turkish writer Halide Edib chronicled the most cataclysmic change in the history of her country: its creation after World War I from the ashes of the Ottoman Empire. She not only wrote about it, she was one of the creators. And in that process, she helped secure a prominent place in public life for Turkish women. But in 1919, her country was about to become a colony. British and Greek invaders patrolled key cities, and wanted more. In occupied Istanbul, Halide Edib put down her pen, sent her two young sons away to safety abroad, and headed to the hills to join a small rebel band fighting for freedom. For Halide Edib, the choice was clear: she had to go. But she also kept a record of events -- memoirs -- for the youth on both sides fighting and dying around her, and for her own sons, far away.
The Ottoman Empire lasted some 600 years, and spanned three continents. It was not only their military campaigns that made the Ottomans a force to be reckoned with for centuries. In an era when neighboring states persecuted, exiled, or massacred their minorities, the Islamic Ottoman state was willing to tolerate difference. Its subjects included not only Muslims, but large numbers of Christians and Jews. As Ottoman power eventually ebbed, the diversity that been a strength in one era became a weakness in another. Changing political forces within and without the Empire created a toxic stew of ethnic and religious hatred. That hatred would finally boil over amid the carnage of World War I, and contribute to the Ottoman Empire's own death rattle.
Few figures are so well known and strike as much terror as that of the vampire known as "Dracula." This creature -- not yet dead, but no longer alive -- has at one time or another tempted, fascinated and repelled us all. When writer Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897, he couldn't have predicted that he was creating a figure who was larger than death. Today, he might be timeless, but in the 15th century, he was all too real. His name was Prince Vlad Dracula whom history has come to know as Vlad the Impaler. In many ways, the reality of Dracula's life was more terrifying than the fiction he helped inspire, his story more shocking than anything Hollywood could manufacture.
In 1915, a Polish scholar named Bronislaw Malinowski landed on a tiny island off the coast of New Guinea. He had come as an anthropologist -- a scientist who studies the origins and behavior of human kind. He had come to investigate the lifestyle, customs and beliefs of the people who lived there. The methods he would develop to conduct his investigation would change anthropology forever.
For over 100 years anthropologists have been learning from people in every corner of our world, and using the data they gather to create a group portrait of the human race. And wherever they find their subjects -- whether they live on the other side of the globe or just down the block, hang out in a tropical rainforest, a corporate boardroom or a parking lot, anthropologists help us to understand our fellow human beings, and our selves
A land of mystery and danger, it's been said that New Guinea contains more strange and new and beautiful things than any other part of the globe. Located off the coast of southeast Asia just North of Australia, this rugged and vast tropical island was one of the last places on Earth to be explored by white men. Tantalizing glimpses of the fierce people who lived in New Guinea as well as the island's stunning plant and animal life have long lured Western adventurers looking to make new discoveries. They were not disappointed.
In May 1919, six months after the end of the Great War in Europe, a French train departed from Berlin, carrying the German delegation to the Paris Peace Conference. The victors decided to meet in Paris to begin the daunting task of rebuilding the world and making a lasting peace settlement with Germany. In a clash of personalities and agendas, facing unimaginable circumstances, the world's leaders met for six months to try to deliver that promise. But just a few years later, their plan for peace would unravel, catapulting the world toward the very tragedy they had wanted to prevent... Was it their fault? Or was it inevitable?
In 1913, 56 year old Woodrow Wilson was inaugurated President of the United States. He came to the job with little practical experience. Still, he arrived in Washington confident, determined to change America. Just over a year after he assumed office, World War I swept across Europe, and Wilson became committed to not just changing the United States, but to changing the world. Although Wilson didn't live long enough to see his dream of lasting international cooperation become reality, decades after his death, in the somber aftermath of World War II, his ideals once again took center stage.
On March 20, 2003, the United States invaded Iraq. Saddam Hussein, the dictator who'd controlled this nation for nearly 25 years was deposed. Many Iraqis celebrated this turning point. However, before long the troops the Iraqis had greeted as liberators were viewed as occupiers. This wasn't the first time these scenes had played out on the streets of Baghdad. In the aftermath of World War I, the British faced nearly the same situation when they took control. One of those challenged was a fiercely independent archaeologist, map-maker and intelligence officer who'd come to know the region as few westerners had. Her name was Gertrude Bell.
In the summer of 1966, the United States found itself in a war it couldn't win, against an enemy it didn't understand. For the Americans, it was a war against Communism. But for the Vietnamese, it was a war to break free from centuries of foreign oppression. At this pivotal moment in their history, they were led by one man who would stop at nothing to free his people. They called him Uncle Ho. To the rest of the world, he was Ho Chi Minh. Millions of Vietnamese would pay the price for Ho Chi Minh's vision of a free Vietnam. A vision that was as bold as it was unbreakable.
Paul Robeson was great at everything he did. And he did a lot: an acclaimed singer, actor, all-American football player, Ivy-league educated lawyer, prize-winning orator. Robeson spoke over a dozen languages in a bass-baritone voice that moved people. But when Robeson used that voice to disagree with the political establishment, people turned on him.
Since our ancestors first stood on two legs, we've looked up at the universe with wonder. And we've been lighting up the night sky since the Chinese first invented rockets some 2000 years ago. In the early 1900s, American inventor Robert Goddard brought space and rockets together -- and launched a new era in human history.
Jazz was born in America, in cotton fields and cities... in brothels and churches. In the opera house, and the night club... jazz was music of the people. It began as part of a quest for freedom among those who were disenfranchised. From their struggle, it became a platform for self-expression. For more than one hundred years, jazz has been played throughout America, and everywhere it has been played, it has been more than just a style. It has been more than just a technique. It has been a way of liberation through music.
In the 1920s the sprawling, brawling, skyscraper-studded city of Chicago ruled the American heartland. And one man seemed to rule Chicago. A racketeer, pimp, bootlegger and cold-blooded killer named Al Capone. Capone's empire lasted just six blood-soaked years. But his image as the ultimate American mobster still survives, decades after his days of gangland glory.
On October 10th, 1919, for the first time in American history, lawmakers voted to change the Constitution and strip away one of people's personal freedoms. Prohibition, the 18th amendment, outlawed alcohol. Many Americans believed Prohibition --later called the Noble Experiment -- would last forever, bringing the country closer to God and family. Instead, the 14 years under Prohibition are remembered for binge drinking, illegal parties, promiscuity, organized crime, and reckless disrespect for morality and government.
