American Experience: Season 11
Season 11 Lore Primer
Key plot threads, lore context, and character stakes you need to remember before diving into this season.
- Directly follows the overarching narrative developments of American Experience Season 10.
- Faction dynamics and core character alliances shift under escalating external stakes.
- Crucial mysteries introduced previously reach key turning points and narrative reckonings.
- Sets up serialized story arcs that build directly toward the climactic season finale.
Episode Guide
Season 11 Progress Shield
America 1900
Nov 18, 1998 · 55 min
Over one hundred years ago, Americans looked forward to the uncertainty of a new century with a mixture of confidence, optimism and anxiety. Following a range of characters from fa
Race for the Superbomb
Jan 11, 1999 · 55 min
At the dawn of the Cold War, the United States initiated a top secret program in New Mexico to build a weapon even more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Japan. A world away
Hoover Dam
Jan 18, 1999 · 55 min
Rising more than 700 feet above the raging waters of the Colorado River, it was called one of the greatest engineering works in history. Hoover Dam, built during the Great Depressi
Alone on the Ice
Feb 8, 1999 · 55 min
In June 1934, Richard Byrd lay alone in a small hut within the polar ice, hovering near death. No one before Byrd had ever experienced winter in the interior of the Antarctic. In a
Rescue at Sea
Feb 15, 1999 · 55 min
On January 23, 1909, two ships -- one carrying Italian immigrants to New York City, the other, American tourists to Europe -- collided in dense fog off Nantucket Island. In a momen
Meltdown at Three Mile Island
Feb 22, 1999 · 55 min
At 4:00am on March 28, 1979, a reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power facility near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania suddenly overheated, releasing radioactive gasses. During the e
Lost in the Grand Canyon
Apr 5, 1999 · 55 min
In the summer of 1869, a one-armed Civil War veteran led the first expedition down the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon. John Wesley Powell's epic journey into the unknown e
MacArthur (1): Destiny
May 17, 1999 · 55 min
Part 1 of a two-part biography of Douglas MacArthur takes "America's first soldier" from his brilliant WWI service into WWII, when his knack for alienating superiors hindered his "
MacArthur (2): The Politics of War
May 18, 1999 · 55 min
The conclusion of "MacArthur" focuses on his "return" to the Philippines in 1944, his years as Supreme Allied Commander in Japan after the war and his controversial command in Kore
Fly Girls
May 24, 1999 · 55 min
During WWII, more than a thousand women signed up to fly with the U.S. military. Wives, mothers, actresses and debutantes who joined the Women Airforce Service Pilots (WASPS) test-