Gesamtlänge aller Episoden: 9 days 9 hours 28 minutes
Amid the glamor and growth of the Gilded Age, racism and anti-immigrant hostility swept the nation. With the end of Reconstruction, white communities across the South stripped African Americans of their hard-won political rights and economic gains. But a new generation of activists fought the growing wave of discrimination and violence. Booker T. Washington championed black education, and journalist Ida B. Wells waged a fierce campaign against lynching...
In the spring of 1883, Mrs. Alva Vanderbilt threw the grandest party New York had ever seen, claiming her spot at the top of the city’s social hierarchy. The Gilded Age drove feverish growth in America’s cities. Populations swelled. Skyscrapers and steel bridges soared above city skylines. And the new economic elite poured their outrageous fortunes into magnificent mansions and lavish balls. But there were two sides to Gilded Age cities...
In the 1870s and 1880s, businessmen clawed their way to the top of the new industrial economy, accumulating staggering fortunes. Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller ruthlessly eliminated his rivals one by one, seizing control over the nation’s refineries. Steel magnate Andrew Carnegie revolutionized the industry with his relentless drive to cut costs. And banker J. P. Morgan conquered Wall Street, commanding vast amounts of capital to consolidate corporations...
In 1869, America connected its vast, sprawling territory with its most ambitious project to date: the transcontinental railroad. The country had just emerged from the ashes of the Civil War, and the railroad galvanized people from coast to coast, offering opportunity and promise. But corruption soon cast a pall over the nation. Scandal after scandal tainted the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant...
When the events of Stonewall happened in 1969, Eric Marcus was just a boy away at a New Jersey summer camp. Nearly 20 years later, he would document the voices of revolutionary LGBTQ activists like Marsha P. Johnson, Sylvia Rivera and Frank Kameny for his book, “Making Gay History: The Half-Century Fight for Lesbian and Gay Equal Rights.” While his work started out as a printed oral history, Marcus knew that taping those interviews would “one day have value beyond my book.” And he was right...
After a late-night police raid on the Stonewall Inn in June 1969, the LGBTQ community fought back in the streets of Greenwich Village. Suddenly, the LGBTQ rights movement found itself catapulted onto the national stage. But questions of how radical an approach to take would pit young activists against the pioneers of the 1950s and 1960s. Even with the formation of new organizations like the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance, questions emerged...
Resistance at restaurants in San Francisco and Philadelphia showcased the building tension as trans activists challenged long-standing policies of discrimination. But leading gay rights groups continued to stress a calm, non-confrontational approach to reform. That all changed in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, when police raided the Stonewall Inn. For police, it was just another raid, but this time would be different: the Stonewall’s patrons would fight back...
As the 1960s dawned, LGBTQ activists began to voice frustration with the gradual approach to civil rights advocated by groups like the Mattachine Society. If LGBTQ people wanted to make real progress, they concluded, they would need to take direct action — starting with tactics shared with the Black civil rights movement. Through protests and sit-ins in places like New York, Washington DC, and San Francisco, LGBTQ activists started agitating for greater rights...
In the summer of 1969, a police raid on the Stonewall Inn sparked a riot on the streets of Greenwich Village. The protest marked a turning point in the gay rights movement. But the famed resistance in New York capped a movement that had been building for nearly two decades in America, as LGBTQ people mobilized to fight widespread and pervasive discrimination...
JFK said that nothing in the 1960s was "...more impressive to mankind, or more important for the long-range exploration of space..." than getting a man to the moon and back safely. As the Apollo 11 flight neared, the entire nation waited, enraptured. But back in the USSR, the Soviets were also making strides. Though the contest with the Soviets for technological superiority had always been a race, it was now a literal one - a U.S...