This program examines the role of courts as institutions dedicated to conflict resolution, with the power both to apply and to interpret the meaning of law in trial and appeal courts. It shows the increased power of the Supreme Court through its use of judicial review and the difficulty of creating a judiciary that is independent of politics.

Lorraine Zilner Rodgers was a member of The Women Airforce Service Pilots, known as the WASP, the first group of women pilots to serve the United States Army Air Force in WWII. Out of 25,000 women who applied to the program, Rodgers was one out of 1830 who were accepted. Given the task of ferrying aircraft across the country, to allow the men to be available for combat, Rodgers often had to deal with the stigma of being a woman pilot. The WASP did...

The pension applications are for Confederate soldiers.

The outbreak of World War II saw two motion picture experts from Germany and the United States battle each other with as much ferocity as any army or navy. Their respective missions: to ignite a public desire to wage and win a global conflict. This Bill Moyers program contains an interview with Fritz Hippler, chief filmmaker for the Nazi Party. Hippler unrepentantly claims to have spoken to the "soul of the masses" through films like The Eternal Jew,...

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 covers the years 1961 to 1963 - a blink of the eye during which the Freedom Riders traveled the South, John Glenn orbited Earth, Martin Luther King delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, and America's vision of Camelot died with the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) come north to help Chicago's civil rights leaders in their nonviolent struggle against segregated housing. Their efforts pit them against Chicago's powerful mayor, Richard Daley. When a series of marches through all-white neighborhoods draws violence, King and Daley negotiate with mixed results. In Detroit, a police raid in a black neighborhood sparks an urban uprising...

During the Cold War, the power blocs of the East and West vied to control the vast mineral resources of the former Belgian colony, The Congo. The CIA working with the British, French, and Belgian Secret Services feared that this newly independent African country had fallen under Soviet influence. So the Secret Services funded a rebellion in the mineral-rich province of Katanga-and installed a puppet President, Moishe Tchombe, whose first act was to...

Myths, misconceptions, and the march of time have obscured the true origins and legal details of Brown v. The Board of Education. This fascinating program connects viewers with the people, places, events, and ideas that shaped the landmark civil rights case. Interviewees include Cheryl Brown Henderson, daughter of lead plaintiff Oliver Brown; Zelma Henderson, who, until her death in 2008, was the only surviving Brown plaintiff; and the children of...