San Antonio College Library

This episode examines how Britain's Industrial Revolution created the modern world with inventors such as James Watt and George Stevenson improving the steam engines and railways. Trade with China was opened up, albeit illegally with the Chinese Opium Wars at the ports of Guangzhou. Following in Britain footsteps, in Russia social change was underway when Count Leo Tolstoy attempted to free his serfs at his Yasnaya Polyana Estate. However, they were...

Throughout the 19th century, the defense of America was the main task of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. It eventually took on the closely related duty of civil works. Because of the incredible diversity of projects the Army Corps of Engineers has taken on, it continues to remain on the cutting edge of science and technology.

While Carnegie and Rockefeller continue to battle, J.P. Morgan arrives on the scene and establishes a bank in New York City that has one goal: to further the technological advancements of America.

Andrew Carnegie immigrates to the United States with his parents and starts working at age 12. He finds a patron in railroad executive Tom Scott who teaches him about the business.

Eleven miles out to sea off the coast of Scotland, the deadly Bell Rock Reef had terrorized seamen for centuries. This is the story of young engineer Robert Stevenson who dreamed of building a lighthouse on the treacherous rock though it meant going up against the Westminster establishment, distinguished engineers, greedy financiers--and above all, the elements.

Carnegie hires a hatchet man, Henry Frick, to help him achieve his goal of besting Rockefellar. The partnership seems promising, but Carnegie does not know that Frick is running his factories far beyond capacity.

Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Carnegie, and Morgan have gone unmonitored for decades, but American politicians are about to change that.

The feud between the Hatfields and McCoys is perhaps the most famous family conflict in American history. As legend has it, two neighboring families in the backwoods of Appalachia waged a crude and bloody war against each other over a stolen hog, an illicit romance, and longstanding grudges. Yet the events that took place near the end of the 19th century between the Hatfields and McCoys are part of a much richer and more complex narrative of the American...

Kerosene is lighting America after dark in unprecedented ways. The demand for oil is sky high and Vanderbilt knows that oil can fill his trains.

Walk in the footsteps of the millions of people who entered America through this legendary gateway in the shadow of the Statue of Liberty.