America: The Story of Us

The colonies declare independence, taking on the might of the British Empire. Washingtons army is near defeat, but new weapons and battle tactics turn the tide. Forged through revolution, a new nation is born.

Commerce and industry thrive across the new nation, now one of the wealthiest on Earth. The Erie Canal brings big risk and bigger reward. In the South, cotton is king but slavery fuels a growing divide. Violence flares across the territories and abolitionists make a stand for freedom. The election of Lincoln is a harbinger of war.

The Transcontinental Railroad unites the nation and transforms the Heartland. Native American civilizations decline as farmers settle the continent. Cattle replace wild buffalo as king of the Plains; the Cowboy becomes a new American icon.

America strikes oil and the boom time begins. Henry Ford brings the motorcar to the masses; the nation hits the road. Massive engineering projects modernize the West. Intended to cure vice, Prohibition fuels the growth of organized crime in burgeoning cities.

The attack on Pearl Harbor brings America into World War. The war effort revitalizes the nations economy. American innovation and manufacturing might invigorate the Allies in Europe and in the Pacific, the ultimate piece of technology ends the war; a new global superpower takes the stage.

America booms, in population and prosperity. The "baby boomers" are the next generation to reinvent America. Powerful new technologies transform the nation. Television brings the world into the nations living rooms, and changes lives and values in unexpected ways - but this is not just about entertainment. Just as newspapers shape Americas identity in the Revolution and its sense of self in the Civil War, now television shapes a distant war in Vietnam and the response of all Americans to their changing society. The conflicts of the late 1960s and 1970s remind America of the divisions that opened up before the Civil War, but the boom of the 1980s heralds better times, with a confidence that mirrors the 1920s. A piece of plastic, the credit card, shapes the decade, creating new affluent classes, like the ‘yuppie while the nation spends. The government spends too: on the technology that drives the last phase of the Cold War and puts the Shuttle into space. But as America reaches once more for the stars, technology meets tragedy in the Challenger disaster. As Americans have often discovered over 400 years, Pioneers sometimes have to pay the ultimate price. Innovation and a new California Gold Rush; the biggest technological breakthroughs yet are the personal computer and the internet. Technology transforms America, just as the telegraph and railroad once did. America‘s confidence is rocked by 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina - but it is still the worlds superpower. As the nation launches into the 21st century, what does the future hold? Where is the next new frontier?