The Icons That Built America
β 8 Β· 2024 Β· Documentary
Highlights the talented, often provocative entertainers whose brilliance and rise to stardom transformed American popular culture.
Episodes
1. Daredevil Duo42m Β· In 1965, a struggling motorcycle salesman desperate to juice sales at his small-town dealership comes up with a dangerous publicity stunt that not only launches him into a new career, but changes entertainment forever. As his star rises, he'll bet it all on a stunt that could propel him to new heights or cost him his life. And a generation later, a young boy who grew up idolizing the motorcycle daredevil will take his own dangerous path to television and film success... by daring to fail.
2. Action Heroes42m Β· A struggling New York actor, brushed aside because of his looks and speech impediment, bets on himself to write, and star in a movie. By challenging the ideas of what it means to be a leading man at the time, he gives himself a fighting chance in Hollywood. At the same time, a young Austrian bodybuilder must overcome his own hurdles and outside discrimination to utilize his strength and power in creating a name for himself in America.
3. Shock JocksIn the 1970s, two maverick broadcasters take a different approach, challenging their bosses, the rules and polite society to help create a new genre: talk radio.
4. Hollywood WarriorsA young martial artist and actor from Hong Kong has dreams of breaking into Hollywood, but in the 1970s, the racial barriers block any chance he has of becoming a star.
5. Titans of TalkDaytime talk shows in the 1980s is aimed at a stay-at-home female audience and has conversational topics and polite discussion; a young politician-turned-TV host rewrites the rules when an unexpected fight breaks out between his guests.
6. Comedy KingsFitting into the clean-cut roles that comedians occupied in the 1950s, two up-and-coming stand-ups make names for themselves; as society shifts and counter-culture movements take hold, both men realize they need to adapt their comedy
7. Fight The System: Hip Hop & Grungen 1987, a small-time drug dealer forms a hip-hop based group in his hometown of Compton, California. The group's provocative brand of "reality rap" draws backlash from the government and law enforcement as they try to push the boundaries of what hip-hop can be.More Like This
Drinks, Crime and Prohibition
2018
A deep dive into the underbelly of the Prohibition era, which was characterized as much by jazz, illegal booze and female liberation as it was by gangsters and brutality.
More info β
Ancient Megastructures
2011 Β· β 8.5
Examine how ancient civilisations built some of the most magnificent structures on the face of the Earth, many centuries before the industrial revolution.
More info β
The Booze, Bets and Sex That Built America
2022 Β· β 7.5
Divulges surprising origin stories of the American alcohol, gambling, sex, and tobacco industries and the ambitiously notorious entrepreneurs who built some of history's biggest fortunes on the nation's cravings.
More info β
Titanic Sinks Tonight
2025 Β· β 7.3
Minute by minute - the night the unsinkable ship sank. Vivid first-hand accounts from passengers and crew tell the story of the most infamous disaster in maritime history.
More info β
Lost Treasures of the Maya
2019 Β· β 8.3
A new "treasure map" of the Maya world is transforming what we thought we knew of one of the world most mysterious ancient civilizations.
More info β
Titanic
1994
The story of the ill-fated ocean liner and the sinking that made it infamous.
More info β
Duels of History
2023
From Lucrezia Borgia to Malinche to Marie Curie: Womenβs contributions have often been downplayed or misrepresented in the history books. Duels of History (re)tells their stories.
More info β
Viking Empires
2022
Through new discoveries in science and archaeology, explorers take a look at the origins of the Vikings and how they influenced history.
More info β
