HIS 104: US History -- 1865: Videos

As early humans spread out across the world, their toughest challenge was colonizing the Americas. It has long been thought that the pioneers, known as Clovis people, arrived about 13,000 years ago, but an underwater discovery in Mexico suggests people arrived earlier than previously thought — and by boat, not on foot.

Bubonic plague, starvation, maybe even cannibalism—such were the miseries of life in England’s Jamestown settlement, circa 1609. Four centuries later, this program explores the colony’s story with the help of dramatic reenactments and information on recent historical discoveries.

The Pilgrims explores the forces, circumstances, personalities and events that converged to exile the English group in Holland and eventually propel their crossing to the New World; a story universally familiar in broad outline, but almost entirely unfamiliar to a general audience in its rich and compelling historical actuality.

This classic Peabody Award–winning six-part series brings the birth of the American Republic to life through military reenactments, dramatic performances by professional actors, commentary by Revolutionary-era scholars, and eyewitness accounts of the times.

The Constitution is one of the most important and versatile documents ever written. Orderly systems of government, a president who is held accountable by Congress, and brilliantly conceived checks and balances all flow from the Constitution and have served as the backbone for creating and maintaining the greatest nation in history.

This program covers the Constitutional Era, when America’s Founding Fathers became the nation’s first administrators; includes the Whiskey Rebellion (Washington), the XYZ Affair (Adams), the Louisiana Purchase (Jefferson), the War of 1812 (Madison), and the Monroe Doctrine (Monroe).

Advances in manufacturing and transportation spurred a great economic expansion in the early 1900s. This fascinating process helped forge a national identity, but fueled growing regional tensions. The turbulent transformation spurred one of the greatest burst of reformism in American history.

Meriweather Lewis and William Clark led 31 people from the mouth of the Missouri River to the Pacific Ocean and back. More than 200 years after the launch of the expedition their journey serves as a rich departure point for the study of post-Revolution American history.

This film illustrates how black lives changed dramatically in the aftermath of the American Revolution. For free black people, these years were a time of opportunity, but for most African Americans, the era expanded slavery.

This program focuses on a period marked by rapid growth for the nation and contentious politics in Washington.

This program examines the most turbulent period in all of U.S. history: when the volatile issues of states rights and slavery propelled the nation into all-out civil war.

This archival educational film shot in 1965 examines the Civil War and Reconstruction as they affected the nation’s African-American population.