Offair Listings

741 posts

Forces of Nature (4/60 minute programs)

The forces of nature have kept Earth on the move since it was formed billions of years ago. Though we can’t feel the motion, we experience the consequences – from tidal bores surging through the Amazon rainforest to the ruinous power of hurricanes.

airs Tuesdays at 2 a.m. beginning 5/14.

  • #1 – We can’t directly see the forces that govern Earth, but we can see their shadows in the shapes of nature that surround us. If we understand why these shapes exist, we can understand the rules that bind the entire universe.
  • #2 – The forces of nature make Earth a restless planet, but they also turned our ball of rock into a home for life. How did our planet’s ingredients, the chemical elements, come together and take that first crucial step from barren rock to a living world?
  • #3 – Earth is painted in stunning colors. By understanding how these colors are created and the energy they carry, we can learn the secret language of the planet.
  • #4 – The forces of nature have kept Earth on the move since it was formed billions of years ago. Though we can’t feel the motion, we experience the consequences – from tidal bores surging through the Amazon rainforest to the ruinous power of hurricanes.

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Inventor of the Submarine:  John Philip Holland

The Irish-born inventor of the submarine. In 1873 he came to the United States, settling in Paterson, New Jersey. John Philip Holland was a self-taught genius. The great grandchildren of his invention still stalk the depths to this very day. Unfortunately for Holland, his remarkable invention was exploited by U.S. corporate interests, and his personal legacy was undermined and forgotten… until now. With financial support from the Irish revolutionaries (who planned to use submarines against England), Holland built the Fenian Ram, a small sub that proved a limited success. He carried on with his invention making every necessary adjustment until he had a working concept. In 1895 John P. Holland’s Torpedo Boat Company received a contract from the U.S. Navy to build a submarine. In 1898 a successful submarine, the Holland, the very first submarine, was launched. Soon John P. Holland was receiving orders for submarines from all over including England, Japan and Russia. Inspired by the story of the Monitor and the Merrimack from the American Civil War, Holland did much of his breakthrough design of his submarine while recuperating from a broken leg. His first submarine was launched in 1897 after construction in Quincy, Massachusetts. Holland died in Newark, NJ in 1914, not living long enough to see the momentous change he alone brought to naval warfare later in the 20th century. The film goes deep into the archives of history to piece together John Philip Holland’s story of his remarkable invention, which literally changed the course of history. This is an astonishing story of perhaps the most significant inventor you have never heard of.

Airs 5/14 at 8 p.m. (repeats 5/18 at 5 p.m.)

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Our Kids:  Narrowing the Education Gap (4/60 minute programs)

Host Dr. Robert Putnam (Harvard Professor and author of BOWLING ALONE)spotlights innovative leaders and children, working together in nine communities, who struggle to create and inspire solutions that help to narrow the widening opportunity gap between rich and poor for some 30 million young people denied access to the American Dream. We hope viewers will try to build similar solutions in their neighborhoods.

Airs Mondays at 1 a.m. beginning 5/13.

  • #1 – Riverside, CA & Manchester, NH. The importance of mentors is illustrated in stories like that of a police detective starting a free judo school to “bait and switch” kids onto a better path. A revolutionary accelerated kindergarten program propels disadvantaged children by celebrating their smartness. Living in a homeless shelter designed around the needs of families, a little girl expresses her pride and determination in song.\
  • #2 – Children living in fractured homes and poverty can’t achieve equally with children who are financially and emotionally secure. Underserved children need extra services to be competitive. Equal is not Equitable. We illustrate this point in Duluth, MN, Boston, MA, Springfield, MO, and Nashville, TN. A grade school offers wrap-around-services including free food, family meals, clothing, laundry, and medical services.
  • #3 – Detroit Educational Crisis. With deteriorating class room conditions and the worst test scores in the nation, this alarming episode casts its eye on the current educational crisis in Detroit. In this cautionary tale, both public and unregulated charter schools suffer from high teacher turnover, a shortage of up-to-date textbooks, lack of funding and financial accountability. We visit with students, teachers, parents and educational leaders in their innovative attempts to improve conditions.
  • #4 – Detroit Educational Crisis. With deteriorating class room conditions and the worst test scores in the nation, this alarming episode casts its eye on the current educational crisis in Detroit. In this cautionary tale, both public and unregulated charter schools suffer from high teacher turnover, a shortage of up-to-date textbooks, lack of funding and financial accountability. We visit with students, teachers, parents and educational leaders in their innovative attempts to improve conditions.

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Secret of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony

Journalist Ian Hislop and conductor John Eliot Gardiner reveal the story behind the creation of this iconic work. Described as the “greatest ‘great’ piece ever written,” its opening notes are among the most recognizable in history. Although no one really knows what Beethoven was trying to express with this piece, this program makes the case that his passion for the ideals of freedom and brotherhood fueled his Fifth Symphony.

Airs 5/11 at 4:30 p.m.

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NOVA

PBS’ premier science series helps viewers of all ages explore the science behind the headlines. Along the way, NOVA programs demystify science and technology and highlight the people involved in scientific pursuits.

  • #4608 “Inside the Megafire” – – From the front line of the Camp Fire, the deadliest wildfire in California history, NOVA tells the stories of residents who had to flee for their lives during the 2018 fire season. Scientists racing to understand what’s behind the rise of record-breaking megafires across the American West take to the forest, and even a fire lab, in search of answers. They investigate how forestry practices, climate change, and the physics of fire itself play a role in the dramatic increase in wildfires in recent decades. Airs 5/8 at 9 p.m.
  • #4609 “First Horse Warriors” – Horse riding played a key role in human expansion and civilization. But when and how did people first master these animals? Scientists use archaeology and genetics to uncover clues about the first horse riders and how they shaped the world.

Airs 5/15 at 9 p.m.

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Makers (200) (6/60 minute programs)

Six new documentaries in the MAKERS project feature groundbreaking American women in different spheres of influence: war, comedy, space, business, Hollywood and politics. Each program will profile prominent women and relate their struggles, triumphs and contributions as they reshaped and transformed the landscape of their chosen vocations.

Airs Wednesday at 3 a.m. beginning 5/1.

  • #201 – Track the rise of women in the world of comedy, from the “dangerous” comedy of 70s sitcoms like “Maude” to the groundbreaking women of the 1980s American comedy club boom to today’s multifaceted landscape. Today, movies like Bridesmaids break box office records and the women of “Saturday Night Live” are often more famous than their male counterparts. Contemporary comics, including Chelsea Handler, Mo’Nique, Sarah Silverman, Lily Tomlin, Carol Burnett, Ellen DeGeneres, Jane Lynch and Kathy Griffin, talk about where women started in this competitive, male-dominated profession and where they are determined to go.
  • #202 – Follow the women of showbiz, from the earliest pioneers to present-day power players, as they influence the creation of one of the country’s biggest commodities: entertainment. Hear from actress-producer-activist Jane Fonda, who at 75 is playing a sharp, sexy and powerful media mogul on the award-winning series “The Newsroom”; television powerhouse Shonda Rhimes, who created “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Scandal”; screenwriter Linda Woolverton, who re-imagined the traditional Disney princess by making Belle (Beauty and the Beast) a self-possessed, strong-willed young woman; writer-director-actress Lena Dunham, who mines comedy and drama gold by exploring what it’s really like to be a young woman today; six-time Academy Award nominee Glenn Close; director Nancy Meyers; and actress Zoe Saldana.
  • #203 – Trace the history of women pioneers in the U.S. space program. Some, like aviators Wally Funk and Jerrie Cobb, passed the same grueling tests as male astronauts, only to be dismissed by NASA, the military and even Lyndon Johnson, as a distraction. It wasn’t until 1995 that Eileen Collins became the first woman to pilot a spacecraft. The program includes interviews with Collins, as well as Sally Ride’s classmates Shannon Lucid, Rhea Seddon and Kathryn Sullivan, and features Mae Jemison, the first woman of color astronaut, and Peggy Whitson, the first female commander of the International Space Station. The hour ends with the next generation of women engineers, mathematicians and astronauts-the new group of pioneers, like Marleen Martinez and Dava Newman, who continue to make small but significant steps forward.
  • #204 – View profiles of women in public office who were “firsts” in their fields. From the first woman elected to Congress in 1916 to a young woman running for Detroit City Council in 2013, the documentary explores the challenges confronting American women in politics. Trailblazing leaders like Hillary Clinton, Senator Barbara Mikulski, Olympia Snowe, the youngest Republican woman ever elected to the House of Representatives, and Shirley Chisholm, the first African-American woman to serve in Congress, provide a backdrop for younger women like Rashida Tlaib, the first Muslim-American woman elected to the Michigan House, and Raquel Castaneda-Lopez, who chronicles her run for Detroit City Council. Today’s leaders in Washington, including Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), the first female senator from Massachusetts, Susan Collins (R-ME), who led the Senate in shaping a deal to end the government shutdown, and Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-HI), currently the youngest woman serving in Congress, are also represented.
  • #205 – Hear about the exceptional women – past and present – who have taken the world of business by storm. Told by female business leaders themselves, this is a candid exploration of what it takes to make it and a celebration of the extraordinary individuals who, over the course of 50 years, have proven – on Wall Street, in corporate America or business empires of their own – that a woman’s place is wherever she believes it to be. Some of the featured business leaders include Ursula Burns, the CEO of Xerox and the first African-American woman to head a Fortune 500 company; Sallie Krawcheck, Wall Street powerhouse and current owner of the global networking platform for women, 85 Broads; Cathy Hughes, radio and television personality and the first African-American woman to head a publicly traded corporation; lifestyle mogul and business magnate Martha Stewart; and Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, whose provocative book, Lean In, ignited a national conversation about women, feminism and equality in the workplace.
  • #206 – Six new documentaries in the MAKERS project feature groundbreaking American women in different spheres of influence: war, comedy, space, business, Hollywood and politics. Each program will profile prominent women and relate their struggles, triumphs and contributions as they reshaped and transformed the landscape of their chosen vocations.

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Latino Americans (6/60 minute programs)

This series tells the story of early settlement, conquest and immigration; of tradition and reinvention; of anguish and celebration;and of the gradual construction of a new American identity from diverse sources that connects and empowers millions of people today. The series covers the 1500s to the present day.

Airs Wednesdays at 2 a.m. beginning 5/1.

  • #1 – Survey the history and people from 1565-1880, as the first Spanish explorers enter North America, the U.S. expands into territories in the Southwest that had been home to Native Americans and English and Spanish colonies, and as the Mexican-American War strips Mexico of half its territories by 1848.
  • #2 – See how the American population is reshaped by Latino immigration starting in 1880 and continuing into the 1940s: Cubans, Mexicans and Puerto Ricans begin arriving in the U.S. and start to build communities in South Florida, Los Angeles and New York.
  • #3 – Trace the World War II years and those that follow, as Latino Americans serve their new country by the hundreds of thousands – yet still face discrimination and a fight for civil rights in the United States.
  • #4 – Review the decades after World War II through the early 1960s, as swelling numbers of immigrants from Puerto Rico, Cuba and the Dominican Republic seek economic opportunities.
  • #5 – Witness the creation of the proud “Chicano” identity as labor leaders organize farm workers in California, and as activists push for better education opportunities for Latinos, the inclusion of Latino studies and empowerment in the political process.
  • #6 – Examine the past 30 years, as a second wave of Cubans and hundreds of thousands Salvadorans, Nicaraguans and Guatemalans flee to the U.S., creating a debate over undocumented immigrants that leads to calls for tightened borders, English-only laws and efforts to brand the undocumented as a drain on public resources. Simultaneously, the Latino influence is booming in business, sports, media, politics and entertainment. Latino Americans become the largest and youngest growing sector of the American population.

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POV

An array of groundbreaking and distinctive perspectives on contemporary life as chronicled by some of America’ s and Europe’s most visionary non-fiction filmmakers.

  • #3109 “Still Tomorrow” – https://www.pbs.org/pov/stilltomorrow/ – A village woman without a high school diploma has become China’s most famous poet. Meet the breakout writer Yu Xihua, a woman with cerebral palsy, poignantly weaving her personal story with that of an ascendant, urbanizing China.

Airs 5/7 at 9 p.m.; 5/8 at 1 a.m.; 5/8 at 9 a.m.; 5/8 at 3 p.m.; 5/11 at 1 p.m.; 5/11 at 11 p.m.; 5/12 at 10 a.m.; 5/12 at 6 p.m.

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Escape From a Nazi Death Camp

October 14th 2013 was the 70th anniversary of an event that shook the Nazi party to its core. In east Poland, at the remote Nazi death camp of Sobibor, 300 Jewish prisoners staged a bloody break out. To mark the anniversary, this film travels back Sobibor with the last remaining survivors to reveal their extraordinary story of courage, desperation and determination. The film uses brutally honest drama-reconstruction and first hand testimony to reveal the incredible escape story. The multi-layered plot unfolds like a Hollywood blockbuster — from the last-minute change to the escape plan forced by an unexpected arrival of a train load of SS soldiers, to the systematic luring of individual camp guards to separate locations and different, highly creative deaths, yet every terrible and inspiring moment of this story is absolutely true.

Airs 5/1 at 4 a.m. (repeats 5/22 at 4 a.m.)

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EVA  A:7063

The incredible true story of an Auschwitz survivor’s journey to forgiveness and healing. At the age of 10, Eva Mozes Kor fought to stay alive inside the concentration camp where she and her sister Miriam were being experimented on as one of “Mengele’s twins.” After decades of torment and pain following her liberation, she came to the epiphany that she needed to forgive the Nazis to move forward with her life. She has since emerged as arguably the best-known and most-active Holocaust survivor in the world. Despite her body failing her, the 4-foot-9, 83-year-old, who lives in Terre Haute, Indiana, circles the globe delivering her messages of healing and self-empowerment. Her lessons go far beyond her own experience, addressing current global atrocities and two of the biggest problems facing today’s youth – bullying and discrimination. EVA: A-7063 documents Eva’s journey and captures this remarkable Hoosier’s legacy as she carries her critically important messages to future generations highlighting the power for good a single dedicated person can have. The documentary serves as a tool for discussing difficult history, discovering shared values and encouraging peace and kindness. Narrated by actor Ed Asner, the film weaves Eva’s story through with footage in Poland, Germany, Israel, Romania, England and the United States, along with interviews from CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, whose grandparents died in the Holocaust; actor Elliott Gould; and former pro basketball star Ray Allen (a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council). The film also includes interviews with Holocaust Historians Dr. Michael Berenbaum and Dr. Stephen D. Smith; Lucette Lagnado, a Wall Street Journal reporter and author of Children of the Flames, which details Dr. Mengele’s (Auschwitz’s “Angel of Death”) life in counterpoint to the lives of the surviving twins; and Emmanuel Habiman, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide who saw his parents murdered when he was 9-years-old.

Airs 5/6 at 9 p.m.

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