History - Young Indiana Jones

Few figures are so well known and strike as much terror as that of the vampire known as "Dracula." This creature -- not yet dead, but no longer alive -- has at one time or another tempted, fascinated and repelled us all. When writer Bram Stoker published Dracula in 1897, he couldn't have predicted that he was creating a figure who was larger than death. Today, he might be timeless, but in the 15th century, he was all too real. His name was Prince Vlad Dracula whom history has come to know as Vlad the Impaler. In many ways, the reality of Dracula's life was more terrifying than the fiction he helped inspire, his story more shocking than anything Hollywood could manufacture.

One of the world's oldest civilizations, China created a complex and sophisticated culture emphasizing on order and harmony. Part of that culture was a system of health care radically different than that of the West. Today, traditional Chinese medicine is practiced well beyond China's borders. How did that happen? What is Chinese medicine? Does it really work? And if it does, how?

Man's history on Earth dates back at least tens of thousands of years, yet written records stretch back to only a fraction of that. Helping clarify the picture of humanity past is the science of archaeology. Though the cinematic escapades of Indiana Jones describe a world of globe-trotting adventure, in truth archaeologists are more like detectives, piecing together clues to mysteries of what has come before.

Howard Carter's unflagging persistence and stubbornness led to one of the greatest archaeological discoveries of the 20th century: the tomb of King Tut. Yet it was that same strong-headedness that would time and again jeopardize Carter's career. Learn more about the man and his discovery which propelled Egyptology into the pop culture landscape.

He was an action hero as well as an intellectual hero. T.E. Lawrence escaped a safe office job during World War I to become a guerilla war mastermind in desert combat, fighting alongside Arabs to throw off the rule of the Ottoman Empire. But despite British promises of Arab independence, the Middle East would end up being carved by European colonial treaties, and Lawrence faced the challenges of keeping his word to his trusted compatriots of the desert.

Humanity has lived in, with and on the profits of slavery for most of its history. Many of its greatest achievements and monuments have tragically been built on the backs of slave labor. How could people place their economic needs ahead of the humanity of their fellow beings? How could this horrific system have lasted for so long? In this documentary track the history of slavery from Ancient Greece, to the Crusades, to the colonization of the new world and the racial slavery that sparked the American Civil War. The journey from slavery to freedom is incomplete and continues as there are still over 20 million people enslaved today.

Known during his time as "the American Lion," Theodore Roosevelt led the U.S. into the 20th Century. He was the first president to travel abroad, the first to travel on an airplane -- a grandiose figure of huge personality, Roosevelt led enough life and followed enough passions for five lifetimes. One of his many legacies is the move towards conserving the nation's abundant natural resources for future generations.

As far as we know, planet Earth stands alone as a cradle of life in the universe. Ecological efforts strive to protect the balance that fosters that life. In this documentary, see the important role humans play as stewards of the planet's health, correcting the mistakes of the past century, with specific examples from northern California.

Perhaps no artist came to capture the optimistic spirit of America in the first half of the 20th Century better than Norman Rockwell. In an era before television became the mass medium that united the nation, Americans turned to the pages of The Saturday Evening Post to learn about themselves and the world abroad. Facing them on the covers of the most popular issues was a perfectly frozen picture of Americana captured by Rockwell. And yet for all his achievements, he never took comfortably to the label "artist."

Paris in the last half of the 19th Century was a city on the move. It was a modern metropolis expanding into the future, with electric lights and steel towers. And yet its art was just as staid as it had been for the past 300 years. None of energy and innovation was translated onto the backwards-looking canvas. But some passionate young artists were about to rise up in revolt, to express an edgy new personal vision that would forever change art and the way we see the modern world.