MANY RIVERS TO CROSS
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 5 @ 9:00PM
Into the Fire examines the most tumultuous and consequential period in African American history: the Civil War and the end of slavery, and Reconstruction’s thrilling but tragically brief “moment in the sun.” From the beginning, African Americans were agents of their own liberation, forcing the Union to confront the issue of slavery by fleeing the plantations and taking up arms to serve as soldiers in the United States Colored Troops.
JIMI HENDRIX
FRIDAY, JUNE 9 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM
A pioneering electric guitarist, Hendrix (Nov. 27, 1942 — Sept. 18, 1970) had only four years of mainstream exposure and recognition, but his influential music and riveting stage presence left an enduring legacy. Hear My Train A Comin’ traces the guitarist’s remarkable journey from his hardscrabble beginnings in Seattle, through his stint as a US Army paratrooper, unknown sideman to R&B stars such as Little Richard, Joey Dee and the Isley Brothers and his discovery and ultimate international stardom.
THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 3 @ 10:00PM
On London’s world famous Oxford Street, Selfridges department store stands out as a neo-classical landmark. A fact most of its customers don’t realize is this iconic British institution was built by American – and until he built it, the street was an undesirable back-water. This is just one of many amazing secrets hidden in the story of Selfridge and his department store.
WITH GWEN IFILL
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 @ 9:00PM
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius apologized to Americans for the ongoing problems with Healthcare.gov during a hearing on Capitol Hill this week and tried to assure everyone that the website’s technical “glitches” are fixable. President Obama reiterated the message during a speech in Boston where he defended the wide-spread benefits of the Affordable Care Act for all Americans. He also tried to clarify that insurance companies are canceling some “substandard” plans that do not meet the new healthcare law’s minimum coverage requirements, but that policy holders affected will be given a choice of other more comprehensive plans.
MOBY- DICK FROM SAN FRANCISCO OPERA
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM
Composer Jake Heggie and librettist Gene Scheer’s award-winning opera Moby-Dick will be broadcast on THIRTEEN’s Great Performances Friday, November 1, 2013 at 9 p.m. on PBS (check local listings), as part of the PBS Arts Fall Festival. Composed in two acts and sung in English, Heggie and Scheer’s opera adaptation brings a thrilling new musical dimension to one of the towering classics of American literature, Herman Melville’s celebrated novel Moby-Dick; or, The Whale Jay Hunter Morris sings Captain Ahab in Leonard Foglia’s multimedia production.
ROCK AND ROLL HEART
AN “AMERICAN MASTERS” SPECIAL
THURSDAY, OCTOBER 31 @ 8:00PM
For thirty-five years Lou Reed has been at the forefront of the avant-garde in popular music. His gritty and realistic vision made him a cultural icon of the disenfranchised urban youth of the 1960s and 1970s. A counterpoint to the booming impersonal economy of the 1980s and 1990s, Reed has asserted a brutal honesty into both his music and lyrics that demands the full attention of contemporary listeners. From punk rock to grunge, Reed has had an unparalleled influence on the American music scene.
MAKING STUFF COLDER
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 3 @ 6:00PM
Cold is the new hot in this brave new world. For centuries we’ve fought it, shunned it, and huddled against it. Cold has always been the enemy of life, but now it may hold the key to a new generation of science and technology that will improve our lives. In “Making Stuff Colder,” David Pogue explores the frontiers of cold science from saving the lives of severe trauma patients to ultracold physics, where bizarre new properties of matter are the norm and the basis of new technologies like levitating trains and quantum computers.
THE MANY RIVERS TO CROSS
THE AGE OF SLAVERY (1800-1860)
TUESDAY, OCTOBER 29 @ 9:00PM
The Age of Slavery illustrates how black lives changed dramatically in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people in places like Philadelphia, these years were a time of tremendous opportunity. But for most African Americans, this era represented a new nadir. The cotton industry fueled the rapid expansion of slavery into new territories, and a Second Middle Passage forcibly relocated African Americans from the Upper South into the Deep South. Yet as slavery intensified, so did resistance.
WAR OF THE WORLDS
TUESDAY. OCTOBER 29 @ 7:00PM & 12:00AM
Shortly after 8 p.m. on the Halloween Eve, 1938, the voice of a panicked radio announcer broke in with a news bulletin reporting strange explosions taking place on the planet Mars, followed minutes later by a report that Martians had landed in the tiny town of Grovers Mill, New Jersey. Although most listeners understood that the program was a radio drama, the next day’s headlines reported that thousands of others plunged into panic, convinced that America was under a deadly Martian attack. It turned out to be H.G. Wells’ classic The War of the Worlds, performed by 23-year-old Orson Welles.
THE GRADUATES
MONDAY, OCTOBER 26 @ 8:00PM
The Graduates/Los Graduados explores pressing issues in education today through the eyes of six Latino and Latina students from across the United States. More than a survey of contemporary policy debates, the bilingual, two-part film offers first-hand perspectives on key challenges facing Latino high school students and their families, educators, and community leaders. It is the story of the graduates who will make up America’s future.