Celebrate American History With Iowa PBS Passport
As the Fourth of July approaches, there's no better time to delve into historical documentaries and programming that illuminate America's past. Dive in and discover the captivating stories behind America's journey to independence with Iowa PBS Passport.
People Who Have Shaped Our History
Benjamin Franklin: A Film by Ken Burns
Explore the revolutionary life of one of the 18th century's most consequential and compelling personalities, whose work and words unlocked the mystery of electricity and helped create the United States.
Becoming Fredrick Douglass
Discover how a man born into slavery became one of the most influential voices for democracy in American history.
Jackie Robinson
Jack Roosevelt Robinson rose from humble origins to cross baseball's color line and become one of the most beloved men in America. A fierce integrationist, Robinson used his immense fame to speak out against the discrimination he saw on and off the field, angering fans, the press, and even teammates who had once celebrated him for turning the other cheek.
Events in American History
The Civil War: A Film by Ken Burns
Between 1861 and 1865, Americans made war on each other and killed each other in great numbers if only to become the kind of country that could no longer conceive of how that was possible. What began as a bitter dispute over Union and States' Rights, ended as a struggle over the meaning of freedom in America.
Ken Burns Presents: The West A Film by Stephen Ives
A nine-part series chronicling the turbulent history of one of the most extraordinary landscapes on earth. Beginning when the land belonged only to Native Americans and ending in the 20th century, the film introduces unforgettable characters whose competing dreams transformed the land. It was a tragic, inspiring intersection where the best of us met the worst of us—and nothing was left unchanged.
American Experience: The Vote
One hundred years after the passage of the 19th Amendment, The Vote tells the dramatic culmination story of the hard-fought campaign waged by American women for the right to vote, a transformative cultural and political movement that resulted in the largest expansion of voting rights in U.S. history.
The Dust Bowl: A Film by Ken Burns
The Dust Bowl chronicles the worst man-made ecological disaster in American history, in which the frenzied wheat boom of the Great Plow-Up, followed by a decade-long drought during the 1930s nearly swept away the breadbasket of the nation.
The American Buffalo: A Film by Ken Burns
The dramatic story of America’s national mammal, which sustained the lives of Native people for untold generations, being driven to the brink of extinction, before an unlikely collection of people rescues it from disappearing forever.
Iconic Places in American History
Iconic America
Explore the symbols and places that have become staples to American history. Each episode tells the story of an American symbol to reveal its origins, significance and the arc of its resonance.
The Statue of Liberty
For more than 100 years, the Statue of Liberty has been a symbol of hope and refuge for generations of immigrants. In this compelling and provocative portrait of the statue, Ken Burns explores both the history of America’s premier symbol and the meaning of liberty itself.