Stephen McCarthy

In 1946, Isaac Woodard, a Black army sergeant on his way home to South Carolina after serving in WWII, was pulled from a bus for arguing with the driver. The local chief of police savagely beat him, leaving him unconscious and permanently blind. The shocking incident made national headlines and, when the police chief was acquitted by an all-white jury, the blatant injustice would change the course of American history. Based on Richard Gergel’s book Unexampled Courage, the film details how the crime led to the racial awakening of President Harry Truman, who desegregated federal offices and the military two years later. The event also ultimately set the stage for the Supreme Court’s landmark 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision, which finally outlawed segregation in public schools and jumpstarted the modern civil rights movement.

Clinton tells the story of a president who rose from a broken childhood in Arkansas to become one of the most successful politicians in modern American history and one of the most complex and conflicted characters to ever stride across the public stage. Part 1 follows their bumpy road to the 1992 presidential victory, an amazing triumph over repeated scandals and setbacks followed by a tumultuous first two years that see the beginning of the Whitewater scandal, the shocking death of Deputy White House Counsel Vince Foster and the humiliating defeat of Hillary's healthcare bill.

Black holes stand at the limit of what we can know. To explore that edge of knowledge, the Event Horizon Telescope links observatories across the world to simulate an earth-sized instrument. With this tool the team pursues the first-ever picture of a black hole, resulting in an image seen by billions of people in April 2019. Meanwhile, Hawking and his team attack the black hole paradox at the heart of theoretical physics—Do predictive laws still function, even in these massive distortions of space and time? Weaving them together is a third strand, philosophical and exploratory using expressive animation. “Edge” is about practicing science at the highest level, a film where observation, theory, and philosophy combine to grasp these most mysterious objects.

Efforts of the United Mine Workers, led by Mother Jones, to organize coal miners in southern West Virginia at the beginning of the 20th century leads to violence and insurrection.

Directors Jonathan Alter, John Block and Steve McCarthy bring New York columnists Jimmy Breslin and Pete Hamill’s courageous writing to life, celebrating the acclaimed journalists and the city they loved.

Drawing upon a vast and richly visual archive and featuring a host of performers, historians and aficionados, this four-hour mini-series follows the rise and fall of the gigantic, traveling tented railroad circus and brings to life an era when Circus Day would shut down a town and its stars were among the most famous people in the country.

On September 16, 1920, as hundreds of Wall Street workers headed out for lunch, a horse-drawn cart packed with dynamite exploded in front of Morgan Bank — the world’s most powerful banking institution. The blast turned the nation’s financial center into a bloody war zone and left 38 dead and hundreds more seriously injured. As financial institutions around the country went on high alert, many wondered if this was the strike against American capitalism that radical agitators had threatened for so long.

Explores the history and mystery of Migraine, and its remarkable place in the human condition. Migraine is a devastating but fascinating neurological condition with a compelling story to tell. Alice in Wonderland, Thomas Jefferson, Sigmund Freud, and Joan Didion all figure into its colorful history.

Kinzua Dam on the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania was a flashpoint in history for the Seneca Nation of Indians. Completed in 1965, the dam was to mitigate flooding in Pittsburgh, 198 miles downriver, but the 27-mile reservoir that formed above it inundated vast tracts of the Seneca Indians' ancestral lands, forcing their removal in breach of one of the United States' oldest treaties. Set against a backdrop of a federal Indian termination policy, pork-barrel politics, and undisclosed plans for private hydropower, Lake of Betrayal reveals an untold story from American history-a one-sided battle pitting a small Native American nation against some of the strongest political, social, and commercial forces in the country. Although the Seneca suffered irreplaceable cultural losses, the Kinzua crisis became a turning point to build a stronger Seneca Nation.

The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in April 1995 is the worst act of domestic terrorism in American history. This documentary explores how a series of deadly encounters between American citizens and federal law enforcement—including the standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco—led to it.

Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow embark on a two-year crime spree during the Great Depression and become known as the most famous criminal couple in U.S. history. In reality, as this film reveals, Bonnie and Clyde grew up in the slums of West Dallas and had little in common with their glamorous media images.

On April 1, 1945, the United States military launched its invasion of the main island of Okinawa, the start of a battle that was to last 12 weeks and claim the lives of some 240,000 people. This film depicts the Battle through the eyes of Japanese and American soldiers who fought each other on the same battlefield, along with Okinawa civilians who were swept up in the fighting. The film also depicts the history of discrimination and oppression forced upon Okinawa by the American and Japanese governments. Carrying up to the current controversy over the construction of a new base at Henoko, the film explores the root causes of the widespread disillusionment and anger expressed by many Okinawans. This ambitious documentary was directed by the American John Junkerman, long-term resident of Japan and Oscar-nominated documentary filmmaker. Okinawa: The Afterburn is a heartfelt plea for peace and an expression of deep respect for the unyielding spirit of the Okinawa people.

NOVA leads viewers on a mathematical mystery tour -- a provocative exploration of math's astonishing power across the centuries. We discover math's signature in the swirl of a nautilus shell, the whirlpool of a galaxy and the spiral in the center of a sunflower. Math was essential to everything from the first wireless radio transmissions to the prediction and discovery of the Higgs boson and the successful landing of rovers on Mars. But where does math get its power? Astrophysicist and writer Mario Livio, along with a colorful cast of mathematicians, physicists and engineers, follows math from Pythagoras to Einstein and beyond, all leading to the ultimate riddle: Is math an invention or a discovery? Humankind's clever trick or the language of the universe?

An account of Orson Welles' 1938 radio drama broadcast that inadvertently started a mass panic.

For 45 centuries, the Great Sphinx has cast its enigmatic gaze over Egypt's Giza Plateau. The biggest and oldest statue in a land of colossal ancient monuments, its scale is staggering: The mighty head towers as tall as the White House, while its body is nearly the length of a football field. This strange half-human, half-lion image has inspired countless fantastic theories about its origins. How was it built, and who or what does it represent? Surprisingly, the scribes of the period when it was built—during Egypt's Old Kingdom—passed over it in silence. Adding to the mystery, archeologists found that its creators abruptly discarded their tools and abandoned the Sphinx when it was nearly complete. Searching for clues, NOVA's expert team of archeologists, including Mark Lehner, director of Ancient Egypt Research Associates, carries out eye-opening experiments.

Join leading astronomers on a visual journey beyond our solar system in search of planets like Earth. Using CGI animation, we'll explore bizarre worlds that stretch our imagination: planets with iron rain and hot ice, with diamonds everywhere, and endless oceans of gas. Planets with abnormal orbital patterns and planets with no pattern at all that drift alone in the Milky Way. Planets so strange we never could have predicted them before. Could life exist there?

This beautifully photographed documentary profiles the surprising life of John James Audubon, one of the foremost naturalists, artists and explorers of the 19th century. Audubon's stunningly vivid wildlife portraits are examined in detail. A self-taught artist, Audubon was also a showman who reveled in dramatizing his Wild West adventures when he toured European drawing rooms. Audubon's fierce promotion of conservation is also discussed.

The last year or so of the war in the Pacific during WWII. It picks up at the point where the inevitability of an American victory seems certain--it's only a matter of time. It then discusses the ferocity of the Japanese defense, the American bombing campaign, the kamikaze, the Emperor and his resistance to surrender and the American feelings towards a negotiated peace.

解説 有名な伝説「アーサー王と円卓の騎士」をスペクタクル感あふれる映像で描く歴史アドベンチャー大作。アーサー王を『すべては愛のために』のクライヴ・オーウェンが演じ、やがて王妃となるグイナヴィアに『パイレーツ・オブ・カリビアン』のキーラ・ナイトレイが扮し見事な矢さばきを見せる。 あらすじ ローマ帝国の崩壊で混乱するブリテン島。この混迷を極める戦乱の世に平和をもたらすべく、一人の男が立ち上がった。彼の名はアーサー（クライヴ・オーウェン）。勇敢な騎士たちを従え、宝剣エクスカリバーを手に、民衆を守るため戦いに挑む。

A fascinating story of the truth behind the legend and history of St Patrick. This special will feature the world reknown voices of two of Ireland's incredible top actors: with narration by Liam Neeson and also Gabriel Byrne supplying the voice of Patrick. The story of the real St. Patrick is a fabulous mix of part adventure tale and part spiritual awakening. His radical ideas were suspect and he attracted the censure of the Church establishment in Roman Britain. Patrick refused to compromise this commitment and soon won the respect and love of the Irish and even the finally the reluctant support of his detractors. He started out as a slave an eventually became a liberator, who learned to forgive and ultimately love his enemies.

In 1910, the Pennsylvania Railroad successfully accomplished the enormous engineering feat of building tunnels under New York City's Hudson and East Rivers, connecting the railroad to New York and New England, knitting together the entire eastern half of the United States. The tunnels terminated in what was one of the greatest architectural achievements of its time, Pennsylvania Station. Penn Station covered nearly eight acres, extended two city blocks, and housed one of the largest public spaces in the world. But just 53 years after the station’s opening, the monumental building that was supposed to last forever, to herald and represent the American Empire, was slated to be destroyed.

Tracking the country’s oldest beauty contest—from its inception in 1921 as a local seaside pageant to its heyday as one of the country’s most popular events—Miss America paints a vivid picture of an institution that has come to reveal much about a changing nation. The pageant is about commercialism and sexual politics, about big business and small towns. But beyond the symbolism lies a human story—at once moving, inspiring, infuriating, funny, and poignant. Combining rare archival footage, with a host of intimate interviews with distinguished commentators including Gloria Steinem, Margaret Cho, Isaac Mizrahi, former contestants and behind–the–scenes footage and photographs, the film reveals why some women took part in the fledgling event and why others briefly rejected it - how the pageant became a battle ground and a barometer for the changing position of women in society.