nonfiction television programs

An episode of "American Masters, " examining the life and legacy of American poet Carl Sandburg.

Follows three young girls who are growing up against the backdrop of their families' struggles against financial ruin.

Traces over five hundred years of American religious history, from the voyage of Christopher Columbus to the 2008 presidential election, exploring the complex interaction between religion and democracy in the United States.

Examines the different types of parasites that live on or inside the human body and explains the symptoms, causes, and treatments of some rare forms of parasitic infections.

Examines the engineering achievements of the Byzantine Empire in the Middle Ages, discusses their invention of foreign intelligence, and looks at how the empire's accomplishments contributed to its downfall.

Join Ms. Frizzle as she transforms her magic bus and takes her students off on journey's full of discovery.

The vivid, inside story of how the Ebola outbreak began and why it wasn't stopped before it was too late. With exclusive access to key global decision-makers and health responders, and gripping accounts of victims from the slums of Monrovia to the jungles of Guinea, Outbreak exposes tragic missteps in the response to the epidemic.

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." These simple words go to the heart of food journalist Pollan's thesis. Humans used to know how to eat well, he argues, but the balanced dietary lessons that were once passed down through generations have been confused and distorted by food industry marketers, nutritional scientists, and journalists. As a result, we face today a complex culinary landscape dense with bad advice and foods that are not "real." Indeed, plain old eating is being replaced by an obsession with nutrition that is, paradoxically, ruining our health, not to mention our meals. Pollan's advice is: "Don't eat anything that your great-great grandmother would not recognize as food." Looking at what science does and does not know about diet and health, he proposes a new way to think about what to eat, informed by ecology and tradition rather than by the nutrient-by-nutrient approach.--From publisher description.

Examines the toll of opioid addiction in the U.S. on individuals, families, and communities through personal stories, including a couple who lost their son to prescription painkillers, and expert commentary.

Over 60,000 years ago, the first modern humans left their African homeland and entered Europe, then a bleak and inhospitable continent in the grip of the Ice Age. But when they arrived, they were not alone: the stocky, powerfully built Neanderthals had already been living there for hundreds of thousands of years. So what happened when the first modern humans encountered the Neanderthals? Did they make love or war?.