For most Americans, the history of the United States is built on a set of long-accepted beliefs about events, each of which resonates in the nation's collective memory. But what if those beliefs, however familiar, don't really tell the whole story? Our knowledge of history - or what we believe to be history - is the lens through which we view and interpret the world. And when that lens is distorted with misleading information, it has powerful effects...

Tells of the story of Jack Roosevelt Robinson, a sharecropper's son who elevated an entire race and country when he broke Major League Baseball's color barrier in 1947. The film illuminates Robinson's place as a leader and icon of the civil rights movement whose exemplary life and aspirational message of equality continues to inspire generations of Americans. Includes interviews with family members and rarely-seen photographs and film footage.

Fifth-grader Scotty Smalls has just moved into town with his parents. The local kids call him a Dork because he can't even throw a baseball. That changes when the leader of the neighborhood gang recruits him to play on the nearby sandlot field. It's the beginning of a magical summer of baseball, wild adventures, first kisses, and fearsome confrontations with the dreaded Beast and its owner who live behind the left field fence. Soon nine boys have...

Based on the thrilling and inspirational life of an iconic American freedom fighter, the movie tells the extraordinary tale of Harriet Tubman's escape from slavery and transformation into one of America's greatest heroes. Her courage, ingenuity, and tenacity freed hundreds of slaves and changed the course of history.

"The goal of this course is to illuminate the original foundations of our American civic culture by reenacting the Great Debate, from 1787 to 1788, over ratification of the proposed constitution. We will focus on the most profound intellectual and philosophic levels of the contoversy, centered on the competing republican visions held by the proponents of the constitution (Federalists) and their opponents (Anti-Federalists)"--Course guidebook p. 1....

Based on the unbelievable but true events, I, Tonya is a dark comedic tale of American figure skater, Tonya Harding, and one of the most sensational scandals in sports history. Though Harding was the first American woman to complete a triple axel in competition, her legacy was forever defined by her association with an infamous and poorly executed attack on fellow Olympic competitor Nancy Kerrigan. I, Tonya is an absurd, irreverent, and piercing portrayal...

"The Smithsonian is a repository of America's history, achievements, aspirations, and identity. It holds the artifacts of great leaders, and those of ordinary Americans. It houses scientific specimens and technological wonders. It is home to art, music, films, writings -- a vast treasure trove of objects of extraordinary beauty and outstanding design. With a collection of some 137 million items in more than two dozen museums and research centers,...

Explores the principles that guided the founding of the United States, the conditions that led to the break with Great Britain, and the creation of such founding documents as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

This course of 24 lectures explores the United States' shift from 13 weak and sparsely settled colonies to its current position of unprecedented global power and influence.