it's the dawn of the 20th century and America is changing in ways never thought possible drink fuels a criminal underworld Millions cross the nation to escape poverty violence erupts America is about to become the richest nation on Earth 1900 the dawn of the greatest consumer Boom the world has ever seen but none of it will happen without the discovery of What Lies Beneath the Texas dirt oil oil will power the 20th century and build the modern world some call it Black Gold Texas a wide open wild territory closer to the old American West than modern day the haml brothers Al 24 ex Cattleman Kurt 28 x salesman a new breed of pioneer on the American frontier oil men young rugged ambitious known as some of the best in the business in the beginning of oil it was hardship everything was hard to do we didn't know anything only the surface of the ground [Music] oil has just been discovered in Texas but the wells are small Prospectors have a hunch that this low Hill east of the city of Houston signifies oil what they don't know is that beneath their feet lie oil reserves worth more than 11 billion today nowhere in the world has anybody discovered this much oil before the first Prospectors to tap into these reserves will become rich beyond their Wildest Dreams the field the Hamill brothers are hired to drill will become the staff of Legend it is called spindle top until the late 1850s oil had been really an annoyance to most people and people would dig water wells and if they happen to strike oil by accident they'd curse their bad luck but with the development of railroads and with the Industrial Revolution for the first time people began seeking oil until recently whale oil cornered the market it was used in lamps to light homes and streets but the whales have been hunted to near Extinction one Discovery has saved them oil made from the remains of tiny organisms in the world's oceans it's been down there for as long as60 million years Native Americans have used it as medicine then in 1854 scientists in Pennsylvania Discover it can be used for lighting there's no turning back cold still dominates industry powering trains and factories but it's dirty and less efficient a ton of coal has roughly half the energy of a ton of oil for the right rig in the right place there are fortunes to be made well that is the American dream is that this is a a land of opportunity where anything is possible if you roll up your sleeves and get to it Prospectors have tried drilling at spindle top before but all previous Wells here have come up empty the land is great for farming but terrible for drilling earlier Wells hit hundreds of meters of sand and collapsed the hamls get $65 for every meter they drill top dollar and when investors pay top dollar they expect results their contract pays them to 366 M if they don't hit oil by then it's over and no one gets Rich that's good that's good right now now they're at 120 M drilling for oil is dangerous work 6,000 die in oil explosions every year most rigs are primitive tools smashing through Rock by pounding it with a heavy object on a cable but this is sand you can't smash your way through sand the haml are gambling on revolutionary technology a steam engine that drills a pipe through the ground so far it's been able to bore through over 150 M of sand and bedrock with no collapses but at 180 M disaster strikes the drill hits a pocket of explosive Gas and Water the pressure forces gas back up through the pipe they're lucky to survive I see a really strong parallel between the culture of prospecting and the culture of entrepreneurial um Endeavors you do all your surveys you plan it out you think it's really great you dig down and there's nothing there it's really hard to predict progress is slow they're fighting for every meter the sand is too fine even for their drill the walls of the bore hole are starting to collapse normally these kinds of rigs pump water into the B hole to support its walls but the sand is too fine the water water too thin they need a thicker liquid they're forced to improvise using only material they have on hand water dirt and cows we brought in a small herd of cattle and turned them loose in a nearby water pit the cattle stomped around and made lots of mud for us the answer to all their problems is mud with mud holding up the walls of the B hole they're back on track from then on WE operated the rig 24 hours a day Kurt's Innovation is still in use today only now rigs use synthetic compounds but Drilling Fluids like this are still called Mud it's January 10th 1901 the Hamet have been drilling for over 2 months their past 330 m still no breakthrough another 30 and they'll have to quit then I walked over and looked down the hole there I heard sort of heard something kind of bubbling just a little bit and looked down there and here this frothy oil was starting up it was just breathing like you know coming up and sinking back with the gas pressure and it kept coming up and over the rotary table and each flow a little higher and a little higher and a little high this is a day that changes America forever clear [Music] clear [Music] finally it came up with such momentum that it just shot up clear through the top of the [Music] Derek a gezer of crude oil shoots almost 61 M into the air the hamls were hoping for 50 barrels a day the well would soon be pumping out over 80,000 making America the largest oil producer in the world overnight the backers funding the rig are nearly $40 million richer the ham Brothers become Legends the oil just burst out of the ground and it spewed for days and days before they could bring it under control it really marked the beginning of the petroleum age in the United States one could argue in the world as [Music] well spindle top changes everything oil production in America instantly increases 50% within a year 500 oil companies are born including Texico and Gulf the price of oil plummets from $2 a barrel to 3 it's cheaper than water cheap enough to turn into petrol around the turn of the century millions of Americans lived their entire lives Within 30 km of their home petrol makes the US Mobile in ways never thought possible today the average American drives the equivalent of two and a half round trips to the Moon one man will seize the opportunity in cheap oil and change the face of the nation Detroit 1908 Henry Ford Maverick Visionary obsessive a man with a bad reputation recently Let Go by the company that will soon become Cadillac he launches his third attempt to build cars but these will be different there are only 8,000 cars in America expensive toys for the wealthy like owning a private jet today there were dozens and dozens of small companies building cars that were essentially play things for the rich they were notorious ly unreliable they were um not standardized they were handbuilt essentially and if you were going to own a car you practically had to have your own mechanic on staff as well to keep the thing running nobody's figured out how to make a car that's cost efficient to produce and affordable to buy Henry Ford is about to change that it won't just change how cars are made it will change how everything is made Detroit 1913 Henry Ford isn't just making a revolutionary car he's making it in a revolutionary way the production line high volume low cost products identical the man who places the part doesn't fasen it the man who puts in a bolt doesn't put on the nut and the man who puts on the nut doesn't tighten it work is standardized simplified it's a more efficient way to make everything mass production sweeps the nation and it changes the world to be an assembly line worker you did not have to have a high degree of skill you didn't have to be a card carrying machinist or whatever it might be all you had to do was to learn how to turn the same wrench on the same nut fire 5,000 times a day and that was your job prices plummet in 1913 a Model T cost 2 years wages by 1924 it's just 3 months the Model T without question is one of the single objects in the history of America that changed America what Henry Ford developed was the car for the Common Man the impact of this little car is massive 300,000 sold in 1913 by 1924 there's a new model T every 24 seconds suddenly this form of transportation which was entirely new was something that people could actually engage in they could afford it it wasn't like a spaceship where there are only several of them and there millions and millions of dollars it's 1915 and the model T's success is creating a nation of learner drivers in Washington state on America's West Coast Rosco's shell is about to start a new job car salesman the pay is fantastic the only problem is he can't drive you're not riding the H just take it easy his boss offers to teach him the morning of his first day at work it's not long before Rosco has his first customers luckily there's a manual called how to drive an automobile cranking is an art That's essential for the new motorist to become proficient in it is always a good plan doubtly a good idea to learn to steer first steering is a very simple manipulation an excellent plan for the beginning is to find a long straight and slightly downhill Road three of other tra Rosco takes his customers for a test drive most are used to a horse and cart the majority of firsttime drivers completely ignored Corners instead of using a break they shouted woe at the top of their lung power often they demand I teach his wife whatever kid old enough to reach the pedals America's love affair with the car has begun the American has a great sense of um freedom and not being tied to one place if I don't like it here I'm going to pack everything in the card they don't require anybody's permission they don't have to sign out and the automobile really enables that when I came to America the first thing I I want to think about how can I get hold of a car I had a love affair with cars from very beginning because this method of movement that can enable you to see vast expansive space is something I never experienced in China never this is a something I wanted to do almost more than anything else is to buy a car Rosco sheller is one of America's Pioneer car dealers today America drives 4.3 trillion kilom a year in vehicles that are descendants of Henry Ford's Model T cars by the 1920s are transforming the lives of millions now you don't have to live near work cars create giant suburbs brand new roads are built and shopping centers with giant car Parks the biggest urban sprawl of all Los Angeles the center of a massive entertainment industry 800 films produced a year in the 1920s double the amount today a feverish land grab is in full swing higher in the Hills a real estate Syndicate buys 200 hectares they hire stonemasons from Italy to build luxury Mansions overlooking the city Dream Home fit for oil tycoons and film stars to kick off their investment the biggest advertising sign on the planet 4,000 light bulbs announce the name of this luxury development Hollywood Land movie director Busby Berkeley buys the first house on the plot it's supposed to be a temporary sign but by 1949 the end is removed it becomes just [Music] Hollywood built on oil fueled by cars and Cinema La is the fastest growing city in the world but none of this incredible growth has been possible without one other vital ingredient water William Mulholland a tenacious and ruthless Irish immigrant superintendent of the LA City water company it's 1904 and La is running out of water it's headline news it's up to mhand to find it his reputation is on the line the story of the West is a story of water because you can't turn uh this region that has a fertile soil um and sites for City development without that incredibly scarce resource in the West Southern California rainfall as low as 5 cm a year temperatures as high as 57 CI the surrounding mountains get plenty of rainfall the problem is it stays there Los Angeles has only one small River it provides just a fraction of the water the growing city will need California is at the edge of the Great Western desert and in order for large numbers of people to live in the cities of California means had to be provided to get the water from where it was in California mountains to where the people were in the cities Mulholland must find water the fate of Southern California hangs in the balance his search begins just outside the city nothing he moves 320 km North East still nothing finally he reaches an area called Owen's Valley it's perfect water flowing out of the mountains has formed a massive 280 Square km Lake and the result is an oasis of lush Farmland locals call it the Switzerland of [Music] California aided only by gravity this water could flow all the way to Los Angeles all you need is an aqueduct it sounds simple but the engineering feat will be phenomenal it's going to take 359 km of steel pipe and concrete Waterway 193 km of Railway line 351 km of power lines 85 km of road if Mal Hallen can pull it off he'll completely transform not just Los Angeles but the entire State the Los Angeles aquad do fire years 5,000 men hundreds of kilometers of Steel and concrete that changed the face of the American West at the time the largest water project in the world it cost the lives of 43 men finally in 1913 it's finished this is yours it is your own Fidelity and unfaltering courage that made the work possible the aqueduct is completed and it is good the aqueduct saves Los Angeles the city grows from 250,000 in 1900 to 2 million in 1930 the federal government's investment in projects that move water in the west is is more deeply formative of the character of the western region than all the Cowboys and sodbusters and wagon trains and Pioneers there ever were but for Owen's Valley the source of the water it's a disaster the lake is sucked dry creating a giant Wasteland local farmers attempt to blow the aqueduct up over 10 times but it's an unwinable cont contest this was controversial stuff um there was a lot of back room politicking a lot of buying people off this made a lot of people unhappy it devastated a region of California the source of that water but it was enormously beneficial in in fact one could argue Los Angeles could not have grown in the way it did without Molen architecting that Aqueduct of water being brought to that area Owens Valley Farmland remains Barren for decades ades but in the 1990s the Los Angeles authorities begin the long process of restoring it it's always been true that if you want something great you may have to give up something great to get there we've sacrificed our blood and treasure for just about every great thing in America the Los Angeles Aqueduct remains one of America's most ambitious engineering efforts when they built the aqu to bring water down across an entire State what a feat that was and how it so fundamentally changed a whole part of the of the State of California and when you fly over California now I always look out the window and I look down you can see that glittering silver ribbon that runs the entire length of the state was always just magical to me 194 te the aqueduct is a year old America is booming World War I creates a massive demand for weapons cars and oil in just four years the economy doubles in size America is poised to become the richest nation on Earth three generations from the end of slavery black Southerners are on the Move in search of a better life between 1915 and 19 19 30 1 and a half million head north one in seven of the entire africanamerican population of the US it's called The Great Migration the north represented the promised land to blacks and the South if you can go north you can work if you can go north you're not going to have to step on the off the curb when whites walk down the block if you can go north you can live in better neighborhoods and your children get a better education many head for the for plant in Detroit Ford is unique in paying black and white workers the same as staggering $5 a day five times more than a tenant Farmer's wage in Georgia but equal pay doesn't mean equal treatment Frank Hadis is an engineer at the plant you could have them on some dirty rough job where there wouldn't be many whites to complain against them but if you try try to mix them in the assembly lines or any place else where whites predominated and hung their coats touching those of whites you know you couldn't do that many white workers fear losing jobs to the New Black Workforce resentment is at Boiling Point the denial of white privilege clashing with the ambition of blacks looking for the promised land inevitably led to an explosion the fuse will be lit in the summer of 1919 Chicago there's no official segregation but it's everywhere even on the beaches of Lake Michigan whites refuse to sell their homes to blacks Chicago homeowners hold a meeting the Negro invasion of the district is the worst Calamity that has struck the city property owners should be notified to stand together block by block to prevent such Invasion Sunday July 27th 17-year-old Eugene Williams skips church with some friends to go for a swim got John Harris is with them we could swim under water and dive and come up swim kick dive and play around a group of black men Wander over to the white Beach they are not welcome don't you come near me like that Eugene's raft is also drifting in that direction it can only spell trouble July 1919 on a beach in Chicago tensions are rising a white bther throws rocks John Harris thinks it's a game he' take a rock and throw it and we dunk one fellow would say look out and we would duck it but it's no game this is racial tension transplanted to City Life [Music] [Music] by the time they get Eugene Williams back to the beach he's dead the police officer on duty is Daniel Callahan he refuses to arrest the white man who threw the Fatal Rock but arrests a black man instead this is how the Chicago race riot of 1919 [Music] begins eight bloody days 500 wounded 38 die 23 of them black but the violence is just beginning riots erupt in 24 more cities Across America it's called the red summer many found that the promised land was not the promise they thought the north was better than the South but there was not the land of milk and honey The Divide separating black and white widens ghetto districts expand Harlem in New York Paradise Valley in Detroit the Hill district in Pittsburgh Chicago the southide separate but not equal black Americans are on the outside looking in but black neighborhoods also mean black majorities and in America majority means power in 1928 voters on Chicago's South Side elect Oscar de priest the first black Congressman in a Northern City 80 years later another Chicago resident becomes the nation's first black president it's 1920 the country is at a turning point for the first time more Americans live in urban areas than rural cities become a symbol for decadence and danger Jazz Cabaret alcohol it will take the shirt off your back it should be whipped out of the land of America with a whip of SC scorpion Billy Sunday retired baseball player reformed Drinker the most famous preacher in the country a drunk I go to a young man up on the scaffold America has a drink problem drink you will affect all at its peak there's a saloon for every 300 people 20 times more than in America today 50% of all crime involves alcohol when you come staggering home cursing right to the Billy Sunday isn't the only one who thinks alcohol is ruining America religious groups rally industrialists say it affects productivity Women campaign against drunken men beating up their wives for many a total ban is the Only Solution on January 16th 1919 the 18th Amendment to the Constitution is ratified prohibition makes the manufacture and sale of alcohol illegal this period in the early 20th century just captured a whole swirl of desire to kind of re in what's happening shape it come up with new policies that will ensure that people will get along they will live virtuous lives so prohibition is this Grand experiment but prohibition also creates a nation of criminals this is one of them Willie Carter sharp 26 thrill seeker Outlaw they call her the rum running Queen it's 1928 prohibition is in its eighth year it was the excitement that got me we were mostly kids who lik the excitement cars scattering dashing along the streets behind her is a convoy of illegal alcohol moonshine Franklin County Virginia is one of the biggest moonshine producers in the country making outlawed alcohol that is heading across the county line Sharp's job is to distract federal government agents in Franklin County 99 residents out of a 100 are thought to be involved in this illicit trade secret Stills are everywhere moonshine is flooding across the country 379 million lers a year even the president has a private wine seller it seems so ridiculous anyone would ever tell you you cannot legislate morality you certainly can't stop people from drinking people need to drink at the end of the day outrunning the law is the new extreme sport locals witness Carter sharp in action I saw her go right through our town there was a federal car after her that they were trying to shoot down her tires she was driving at 75 mph she got away she gets away because of this an ordinary car modified for more horsepower a supercharger forces additional air into the cylinders the result America's first muscle cars they're so popular they Kickstart a new National Pastime stock car racing even today there's a driving maneuver called the bootleg turn but there's a darker side to bootlegging the illegal alcohol trade is worth tens of billions of dollars in today's money and it's not Willie Carter sharp who's in charge it's Gangsters Organized Crime has a strangle hold on America Mafia bosses like luil luchano in New York Frank chichi Deo Kansas City Joseph Iron Man ardizone in La the licavoli family Detroit Harry Rosen Philadelphia Charles King Solomon Boston and in Chicago the most notorious gangster of all Al Capone he earns over $100 a minute from illegal alcohol that's $1,500 today but his luck is about to change 2122 North Clark Street Chicago headquarters of Capone's bitter rival George Bugs Moran February 14th 1929 two men in police uniform arrive normally the police leave without arrests after a quick payoff but this is isn't a normal day these aren't regular policemen what happens on Valentine's Day 1929 will change the course of Prohibition in America Chicago 1929 more than half the city's police are [Music] corrupt in a Chicago garage seven gangsters are lined up they think it's routine but today is different behind them a group of men arrive two carrying Thompson submachine [Music] guns [Music] it's the most notorious slaying in mob history the question is who's behind the shooting the police or Al [Applause] Capone detectives and photographers flood the scene this shocking picture will appear in newspapers around America this is what prohibition has come to America has had enough the federal government is forced to act major Calvin Godard methodical clinical weapons expert he's the pioneer of a brand new science ballistic forensics for the first time time vital Clues like bullet casings at a murder scene can be analyzed godard's work leads to one of the first forensic crime labs in America it will revolutionize the work of the FBI his job to find out who is behind the St Valentine's Day [Music] Massacre when a gun fires it Le leaves marks on the bullet casing as unique as a fingerprint by analyzing casings at the murder scene Godard establishes that just two guns were fired neither is a police weapon everything points to [Music] Capone but convicting Capone of murder won't be easy he has an alibi that he was in Florida at the time they'll have to get him on a different charge Frank Wilson accountant a very different kind of crime fighter he's an agent of the Bureau of Inland Revenue in Washington DC he's going after Capone on tax evasion in 1913 the 16th amendment gives the federal government the right to tax personal income even criminals have to pay taxes Capone is one of the richest men in the country he should be paying 25% tax between 1925 and 1929 he pays nothing he defendant himself had no bank accounts kept no book records of activities bought no property in his own name he conducted all his financial dealings with currency to secure a conviction Wilson needs to prove Capone has an income on which he is paying no tax he uncovers a ledger confiscated from a business called the Hawthorne smoke shop thought to be a Capone front it's a detailed record of a gambling business but no taxes have been paid on the income from this business if Wilson can establish a direct link with Capone he may be able to prosecute the nation's most notorious criminal for tax evasion Wilson studs The Ledger but can't connect it to [Music] Capone then a break through the handwriting a careful comparison of the handwriting writing in The Ledger with specimens from various employees of the Capone organization established that the handwriting belonged to the managers and the cashier of the Hawthorne smoke shop the handwriting proves Capone's connection to the business it's the vital evidence on October 18th 1931 Al Capone is found guilty of tax evasion and sentenced to 11 years in prison Frank wison found out that he was not paying his taxes it's an odd thing this man who had done all these other things ordered the execution of lots of people was responsible for the murder of people and they get them on tax evasion tax is no small matter prohibition has been a disaster it has massively increased the strangle hold of organized crime it's cost the government billions in Lost tax r revenues gangsters like Al Capone have become rich at America's expense but now more than ever the American government needs cash the American Stock Market crash in 1929 has brought the economy to its knes the government is broke a levy on alcohol is a solution on December 5th 1933 prohibition is abolished killed by the need for C old Hard Cash it's an extraordinary U-turn the only time in American history an amendment to the Constitution is repealed the three decades of economic boom fueled by oil cars and the rapid growth of cities are now over America has hard times ahead a new generation on a wild New [Applause] Frontier Rising into the sky gleaming towers of Steel a bold new Urban landscape and maybe America's greatest invention the modern vertical City we are pioneers and Trailblazers We Fight For Freedom we transform our dreams into the truth our struggles will become a [Applause] nation America land of invention hot dogs jazz the elevator skyscrapers this is the story of the greatest innovation of all the modern vertical City one world famous icon has come to symbolize it amazingly we very nearly didn't have it it's 1885 and New York City has a big problem a magnificent gift but with some assembly required scattered across bed's Island in New York Harbor in 214 crates they contain the largest statue in the western world it's been donated by the people of France to celebrate the Centenary of the Declaration of Independence built in Paris broken down into 350 massive pieces for the journey to America that's the problem the cost of reassembling it will be astronomical money New York does not have at least six other US cities are jockeying to give it a home New York city is in danger of losing the Statue of Liberty not if this man can help Joseph Pitzer tenacious newspaper magnate immigrant self-made man he owns the biggest paper in the US the New York world and he's determined to keep Liberty in New York Harbor through his chain of newspapers Pitzer launches the biggest fundraising campaign ever seen in North America it would be an irrevocable disgrace to New York City and the americ American Republic to have France send us this Splendid gift without our having provided even so much as a landing place for it we must raise the money more than a million people read pitzer's papers every day enclosed please find 25 cents as my contribution the contents of our little Savings Bank which we cheer resolves to send you the contents of the first jackpot you will find en closed $4 the money we save to go to the circus with donations flood in from all across the country rich and poor East and West pennies and nickels fives and tens even thousands of dollars in all a staggering 121,000 donations more than enough to keep this iconic statue in New York I think a statue is not just a statue I think symbols really matter I think they signify in a big way in fact maybe they do more than Reams and Reams and reams of legislation and paper and print now the real work begins to hold a statue 150 ft High the pedestal will be the biggest concrete structure in the world over 200 men work through a grueling winter to complete it as the last of the cement dries workers toss in their own silver dollars for good luck next Liberty's enormous iron skeleton it's designed by Gustav Eiffel will build the famous Eiffel Tower in Paris the skeleton is 151 ft tall and with the pedestal it's the height of a 30-story office [Music] block [Music] [Music] now for the outer layer wrapping around the skeleton are 60,000 lb of hand sculpted copper the sandal is 32 times bigger than a human foot the equivalent of a size 879 shoe it's on the job training often at 300 ft in the air it's as difficult as it is [Music] dangerous they need to fix 300 pieces of copper shell to the framework with more than 300,000 rivets her robes have over 4,000 square yards of copper her outstretched arm is 42 ft long a fingernail weighs 3 and 1/2 lb the scale of Liberty is unimaginable after 6 months of hazardous construction there are no fatalities and Liberty 17t face is finally winched into position it's bigger than Lincoln's on Mount Rushmore it said the sculptor Frederick August boldi modeled the face on his own [Music] mother [Music] it takes 25 years for Liberty to oxidize and turn green a functioning Lighthouse until 1902 the statues official name is Liberty enlightening the world at first a symbol of the alliance and friendship between France and the 13 colonies in the American Revolution it will come to represent much more at the entrance to New York Harbor the Statue of Liberty becomes a beacon to the world and a welcome to Millions later a poem by Emma Lazarus in her base celebrates America as a land of refugees give me your tired your poor your huddled masses yearning to breathe free The Wretched refu of your teing Shore send these the homeless Tempest tossed to me I lift my lamp beside the golden door over the next two decades more than 12 million immigrants passed the Statue of Liberty on their way to Ellis Island the first stop for most new Americans imagine what it took for someone to leave Eastern Poland or Lithuania or some Village in the mountains of Norther Italy and come all the way to this strange place with nothing today more than 100 million Americans can trace their Roots back to ancestors who came through Ellis Island if you go back only 150 years in our 20 almost 50y year history 95% of the people we not here uh there there are no roots they all came from someplace else so to me uh America represents the the best of the human Spirit a guide book prepares a Rivals for a new life in a new world forget your customs and ideals select a goal and pursue it with all your might you will experience a bad time but sooner or later you will achieve your goal don't take a moment's rest run and from Ellis Island they spread out across the continent for the most part Irish Russians and Italians to big cities Germans to the Midwest Scandinavians to Farmland at the dawn of the 20th century eventually there will be more Italians in New York than in Rome from 1980 to 1930 nearly 24 million new immigrants arrive in the US a new era in US history is about to begin by the early 20th century new Urban mega cities around America are bursting to the seams and look to expand in a New Direction up but building these great Towers Demands a critical ingredient that's much too expensive steel one man will change all that and with it the face of America it's 1873 and Andrew Carnegie a 5'3 Scottish immigrant iron millionaire is in Sheffield England he's looking at the future a revolutionary way to make steel steel has been around for thousands of years but so expensive to produce it's always been a luxury item 2,000 years ago it's used in Oriental swords is even used in designer jewelry but America stands at the brink of a new age to build it they need steel and lots of it it's the only material strong enough for the towers that will touch the sky an English bullet maker is showing Carnegie a new but simple method of producing steel he's stunned blast hot air through molten iron carbon impurity burn off you get the Wonder material steel for the first time it can be produced quickly and inexpensively if Carnegie can use this besser process to mass produce it he'll own the future Carnegie returns to the states to Pittsburg to start building the biggest steel plant in the world it'll be larger than 80t football fields it's a massive gamble Carnegie risks everything he's got on the new plant but only months into construction disaster a catastrophic stock market collapse the economy is in freefall he has to borrow even more money and barely scrapes through August 1875 Against All Odds Carnegie's giant furnaces are ready to [Music] test steel production is phenomenally dangerous inside 5 tons of molten metal 3000° hot enough to vaporize a a man in seconds if it works it will make Carnegie one of the richest men in the world but there's a lot more at stake skyscrapers cars washing machines airlanes even space travel none of it can happen if steel can't be mass-produced it's a [Music] success Carnegie is the first ever to mass-produce steel prices plummet by over 80% output Rockets from a few thousand tons in 1860 to 11 million by 1900 so many American stories of success uh are diligence uh perseverance but there's an awful lot of luck involved too his timing couldn't have been better it was steel that built American cities it was steel that built American railroads it was steel that built American shipping by the beginning of the 20th century he was one of the wealthiest men in America Pittsburgh transforms from a sleepy town the industrial Heart Of The Nation its population triples driven by a new Steel Railroad millions of tons of steel are are transported Across America the raw material to build the modern city and the grandest of all is New [Music] York it's an era of obscene opulence New York is a playground for Super Rich industrialists and financiers wildly extravagant they smoke cigars rolled in $100 bills their wives hats studded with diamonds this is the Gilded Age land values are the highest in the world there's only one place to go up by 1902 65 skyscrapers are being constructed in Manhattan this is one of them it's called Walking the steel this man is 30 stories above the street his first time at this height no harness or safety rope one slip and he's dead veterans are called fixers the novices are snakes because working with them can be deadly the old hands know just how dangerous it can be thing I hate worse than poison is to take on a new man when we're near the top they all get used to it or get [Music] killed no hard hats just a 280 ft drop a sudden gust of wind and it's all [Music] over they're up here 8 hours of to Day meals when they can no bathroom breaks they're called Ru necks European immigrants and Mohawk Indians many were Sailors and Bridge workers so they're used to Heights [Music] the guy's balancing on the beams I think it took a lot of Bravery I think it took a lot of skill a lot of you know physically um physically challenging but I also think it had to be a little crazy the stakes couldn't be higher but it's a risk they are willing to take the pay is $4 a day twice the going rate for manual labor Foreman William Starrett sums up his dangerous job building skyscrapers is the nearest peacetime equivalent of War even to the occasional Grim reality of an accident where named body even death remind us that we are fighting a war of construction against the forces of nature he makes it many aren't so lucky two rough necks out of five die or are disabled on the job whether it's a builder or an architect or whatever whoever had the imagination to design and build some of the great structures of New York I'm inspired by In 1902 in New York this is what the future looks like the flat iron building its triangular foot footprint determined by the intersection of three streets not two the steel frame means the outside can be hung in sections like a suit of clothes now the walls don't take the weight the steel [Applause] [Music] does it's so radical when people first see it they think it will blow over and kill them a lawsuit is filed claiming winds focused by the Flat Iron's extreme shape damage a nearby shot today it's one of our best loved buildings inside the other breakthrough that lets Towers rise into the clouds the elevator before it the tallest buildings stop mostly at five floors no more walking upstairs now so the sky is the limit for the first time the higher the floor the higher the rent you think it's a fairly humble invention but uh when Otis invented the first really safe elevator it enabled the growth of the modern city where people could come in build much taller buildings get a much higher density of people and sure enough by the end of the 19th century the urban population has increased 87 times over in Chicago alone in just 10 years they build 50 steel frame buildings and in 20 years its population more than doubles to almost 1.7 million American cities are [Music] exploding but for many living in the shadow of these new towers will prove even harder than building them in America America in 1890 crime and poverty are ripe on the streets but these Mavericks are about to make a difference gangsters murderers thieves and fear are on the streets new tabloid newspapers Splash crime all over the front pages in Chicago you can rent a gun by the hour in the Sears catalog you can buy one for $12 in New York a policeman finds a list on a murdered gangster his rate card punches $2 nose and jaw broke $10 ear chewed off $15 the big job a 100 bucks and up detective bureau chief Thomas Burns a man who follows his own set of rules he's shrewd and he's very tough among his methods is a technique his detectives call the third degree first degree persuasion second degree intimidation third degree pain in 4 years Burns claims he's arrested 3,300 criminals he solved the biggest Heist of the 19th century nearly a $3 million Manhattan bank robbery reporters call him the greatest crime Buster in the history of the New York City police force his very manner the size of him his menacing shoulders and arms the bark of his voice pickpockets forgers whoever cracked a safe unscrupulous Rogues crooks are now afraid of their Shadows they lead double lives but tracking down criminals isn't easy there's no official ID no birth certificates or driver's licenses if a criminal is known in one town he just moves to the next criminals are Anonymous Burns is tackling this problem head-on and bringing police work into a new age this is his Rogues Gallery mug shots of 7,000 known law Breakers using photography to identify criminals will change detective work forever Annie royy Alias Little Annie deceitful servant the mug shots are distributed to police departments around the country but these are more than just pictures Burns is also building psychological profiles of criminals Rufus Miner he comes from a very good family it's a pity he's a thief this is the first attempt to create a National Crime register a city as diverse as ours is going to have a significant crime problem that you've got to be on top of even today mug shots still catch criminals 12 million are taken every year Nationwide that's more than the entire population of Ohio and it all began with the Rogues Gallery over 120 years ago any questions but crime isn't the only problem plaguing Urban streets in many cities slums are reaching epidemic proportions multiple families crammed into one small room human waste pours into the streets alleys and open courtyards people work crowded in they were windowless tenements sometimes you had no internal Plumbing just privies in the base in the backyard and the Lower East Side during these years was the single most crowded place in the entire world Jacob Reese Danish immigrant crime reporter photographer he gets leads for stories from Chief Inspector Burns now he's about to expose the hell of tenements Jacob Bree knows what it's like to be poor 15 years ago he lost his job in a stock market crash it's midnight but Reese has a new technology that will change the public perception of poverty forever an explosive powder that produces enough light to photograph in the dark this is one of the first first ever photographs of Slum life it shocks Millions ladies and gentlemen my name is Jacob a Reese and this is how the other half Live and Die in New York City magazines refused to print his work so Reese puts on his own Magic Lantern shows his mission to show the nation's welfare something they've never seen before filth and Desperation on their doorstep at this block Nine Dead were carried out this year alone five in baby cofins what he demonstrated was that there is another reality um that all that Prosperity didn't trickle down all the way to the bottom and there was some deplorable living conditions and this country was not just forced to confront those conditions but then was moved to begin to deal with them ree publishes his pictures in a book called How the Other Half Lives it will sell more than 28 million copies within two decades the worst of New York's slums are torn down tenement sell at auction for as little as a dollar Reese's camp campaigning forces all New York schools to build playgrounds and landlords to install toilets inside Apartments not outside it is the first step in tackling the slums but as cities keep on growing an even bigger challenge remains in New York alone nearly 40,000 die in one year from diseases because of this Phil 1895 our major cities are drowning in filth 120,000 horses dump half a million pounds of manure into the New York streets every day wagons are blocked by 3ot high piles of human and animal waste into this world steps a man on a white horse Colonel George wearing Civil War veteran legendary sewer engineer Apostle of cleanliness he's the head of New York's sanitation department the city stinks with the emanations of putrifying organic matter black rottenness is seen and smelled on every hand the crowded streets are a veritable hell wearing recruits an army of 2,000 sanitation workers in white uniforms some dismiss him as a crank they call his men white ducks but wearing means business tons of garbage normally dumped into the river is recycled Ash becomes landfill on Riker's Island organic waste boiled into oil and grease wearing is America's first Eco Warrior his men clean 433 Mi of Street death rates decline water quality improves wearing saves the lives of thousands the measures spread across America just 16 years after kernel wearing half of all cities have waste collection and it is not just waste by 1907 every every large city in the nation has sewers by 1909 there are 42,4 Mi of sewers in America the battle against filth crime and poverty has begun but one of the city's greatest Innovations is still in its infancy one man will change the urban landscape forever Meno Park New Jersey 1879 Thomas Edison inventor entrepreneur showman he was taken out of school as a boy but that won't stop him from becoming synonymous with inventions that Define the modern era he pushes his team hard 247 in one of the world's first R&D Labs it will generate more than a thousand patents America still lights the night in the dangerous flicker of candles gas and kerosene Edison thinks he has a better idea if he can get a filament to burn slowly in a vacuum the electric light bulb [Applause] [Music] Platinum Edison locks himself in his lab doesn't sleep for days the stakes are high his backers have sunk $30,000 into his research millions in today's money he claimed to have gone through 6,000 materials from uh the plant world alone in his search for the the perfect filament to lamp ja Spruce beard fish line thread teak boxwood Cy [Music] Arch then something extraordinary happens cardboard a piece of carbonized cardboard Burns for 300 hours it's going to change the way people live forever what Edison does is nothing less than to banish the darkness now think of the meaning of that think of what that means to daily [Music] life New Year's Eve 1879 Edison shows off his new invention thousands of people flock to his lab to see the future take shape the Pennsylvania Railroad arranges special trains to accommodate the crowds when Thomas Edison invented that light bulb that electric light bulb what a how magical that must have been you know to sit there and just all of a sudden like without a match without kerosene or gas and just flip a switch and light in Just 2 years Edison builds more than 5,000 power plants generating electricity for cities like New York Boston Chicago Detroit St Louis and New Orleans over the next 5 years he builds over 127,000 more by 1902 18 million light bulbs are in use the impact is massive Sports entertainment factories stores all can Now operate at night and as electricity comes to the cities more and more people arrive with it by 1900 nearly 4 million women are working in US cities in just 40 years that figure has more than quadrupled Urban factories are pounding out 75% of all consumer products in the US places like this modern steel frame buildings equipped with all the latest technology otus electric elevators Bell telephones Singer sewing machines but packing so many people into tall buildings is a disaster waiting to happen the United States is hurtling into the the Modern Age symbolized by mega cities rising up all across the continent by 1909 Americans are spending nearly $23 billion a year on readymade clothes this Factory is producing 12,000 garments a week known as shirt wastes they the latest fashion for the working woman New York City March 25th 1911 4:45 p.m. the Triangle shirt waist Factory 8th floor 260 girls work here most of them teenagers someone we don't know who tosses a match or maybe a cigarette into the scrap bin Eva Harris a seamstress smells burning there's a fire Mr Bernstein production manager Samuel Bernstein grabs one of the three fire pales but the fire is already spreading there's a Mad Dash for the exit but it is too narrow only one at a time can pass through it's been designed that way so their bags can be checked for stolen fabric come on there's a fire hose but it's not working no water the only way to warn the floors above is through the switchboard two floors up on the 10th floor hello switchboard 10th floor fire there's a fire put me through to the ninth floor she drops the phone and runs to get help the message never reaches the ninth floor Samuel Burnstein races up the main stairs to help the 160 workers trapped there but blocking the front door there's a barrel of motor oil on the ninth floor Flames are already shooting through the walls and windows the girls on nine rush to the fire escape but it's locked only two Escape Routes are left on the ninth floor the elevator and the metal fire escape Kate weiner makes it to the elevator door but she's lost her sister everyone was knocking and crying for the elevator to come up Suddenly the elevator came and the girls rushed in I was searching for my sister Rose but I couldn't find [Music] her the Flames were coming toward me and I was being left behind I felt the elevator was leaving the ninth floor for the last time she's the last person to get to the last ele ler more than 100 girls are left behind to Die the only Escape Route left is the metal fire escape but it collapses firemen arrived with the biggest ladder in New York City but it's 30 ft Too Short 4:58 p.m. the girls trapped on the ninth floor are out of options in desperation they jump 5:15 p.m. the entire Blaze is over in less than half an [Music] hour 146 people die in the Triangle shirt waist factory fire there's a trial but the owners walk free it remains the deadliest workplace disaster in New York City history until September 11th 2001 but some good does come out of it this dramatic tragedy Sparks a wave of Reform so you begin to get new restrictions uh and a new conversation about uh what to do to prevent this kind of tragedy from happening but uh it did not stop of course that tragedy itself unions forc management to take responsibility for the lives of their workers the Life Safety Code now used in all 50 states is a direct result of this fire it's why doors now open outwards in public buildings why automatic sprinkler systems or multiple exits are now the [Music] law the US and the modern city grew up together typically new enormous and fast-paced the mega city is one of America's greatest [Music] inventions the American Civil War is Over its survivors head out across the frontier but eastern and western North America are separated by a vast Wilderness veterans become railwaymen Cowboys settlers together they'll conquer nature and tame the Wild [Music] West in 1865 30 million Buffalo Roam the Great Plains a vast untouched Wilderness dividing America crossing the continent takes 6 months 20,000 die on wagon trains by ship it's a 28,000 km Journey around South America to unite East and West President Lincoln greenlights a Transcontinental Railroad over 3,000 km long it will transform the nation triggering a tidal wave of settlement across the Great Plains the railroads were vital to the expansion America this technology connects people in a way that never before in the history of mankind has there been that kind of [Music] connection America's ancient Wilderness meets steel and muscle an army of hammer wielding men Irish immigrants civil war vets [Music] railwaymen their biggest obstacle the mountains of the Sierra [Music] Nevadas where the Pacific and North American plates collide millions of tons of ancient Rock rise up over the last 4 million years the mountains have risen more than 3 km High they're still growing nearly 4 meters every thousand [Applause] years only a Madman would dream of building a railroad across mountains like this and crazy Judah is what they call Railway engineer Theodore Judah his job is to plot a way through come on down boys Theodore Judah makes 23 trips into the Peaks and pig that boys plotting a path for the engineering challenge of the century yeah let's mark that this is the most magnificent project ever conceived an Enterprise more important to the people of the United States than any other the railroad will be built and I will have something to do with it Americans love someone who can go through seemingly difficult or impossible things and make their dreams happen with judah's route approved two companies Begin work the Union Pacific starts from Omaha in the East the Central Pacific from Sacramento in the west they'll meet in Utah it will cost over $2 billion in modern money but the government doesn't have enough funds so it pays the companies in Federal land they must finish in 15 years or lose everything we have learned in this country that you really don't get anywhere in life if you don't take some risks I think America is by far the Shining Light of the World in so many ways because we are Risk Takers the railway companies are paid by the mile and unscrupulous they add curves just to increase their profits a 14 om curve means an extra 50 hectares of federal land first they must conquer the Donna pass more than 2 km up the highest point on judah's Route it has 9 meter snow drifts in Winter and avalanches the pass is named after the Donna party we got trapped here by snow 20 years earlier and resorted to cannibalism judah's route cuts through the mountain 500 M of rock must be excavated the longest tunnel on the route immigrant Chinese laborers dig day and night the railroad magnates said the Chinese built the Great Wall didn't they let's bring the Chinese into to do this work over 10,000 Chinese laborers earn less and do the most dangerous jobs the Transcontinental Railroad was built by Chinese workers brought over specifically to work on the Railroad and they were considered somewhere in between human and animal they were not expected to survive they were expected to come here and work and die 7 1-year-old hung Lee wo swaps a life of poverty in Canton for work on a railroad gang the granite of the Sierra Nevadas is among the hardest on Earth progress slows to 15 cm a day to break through they need nitroglycerine but it's so dangerous transporting it is illegal Scottish chemist James Howden mixes it on the spot nitroglycerine is 13 times more powerful than gunpowder so unstable any physical shock and it will explode in his hands Howen gets Hazard pay he soon turns to drink leaving the Nitro to Chinese men like hung Le wo Irish crws won't touch it detonation creates temperatures of nearly 5,000 de c as hot as the surface of the Sun so take you got [Music] an estimated 1500 Chinese workers die in explosions and rockslides hung lay wo Sur vies his son will be the first Chinese American to graduate in engineering from the University of California at Berkeley once through the mountains track laying accelerates from 25 cm to nearly 10 km a day each spike is struck three times 10 spikes to a rail 250 rails a kilometer 21 million Hammer swings on May the 10th 1869 a one-word message arrives by telegram done a six-month journey is cut to 6 days the folks who had once had to risk everything in a wagon train that is eliminated you can now can get on the Railroad and travel from Boston to Sacramento that's a revolution the Transcontinental Railroad changes everything it touches triggering a mass migration to the Great [Music] Plains the Transcontinental Railroad threads a thin line of civilization through the Wilderness people follow in just one year 40,000 settlers moved to Nebraska Fanning out across the frontier in wagon trains when in the mid uh 19th century to the late 19th century they went out and settled some hostile territory known to mankind in the Great Plains where I grew up these were true Pioneers the government accelerates the process with the greatest land giveaway in history anyone with a $10 filing fee can claim free land a quarter are single women and ex slaves when you see the desperate scramble in these rickety wagon trains you realize that the promise of America was land these are people who never in a million years would be able to own land in Europe eventually 10% of the United States will be given away under the Homestead Act I'm not going back to Indiana to rent until I bust entirely and have to walk back Civil War veteran Uriah oblinger claims 65 hectares of Nebraska but there's a catch baking summer heat Sparks Prairie fires trees can't survive the drought and Flames there's so little rain nothing grows here but grass without Timber to build houses the new inhabitants build mud Huts from Prairie Turf called sod Uriah dismantles his wagon to make doors and windows they often had insects they invited snakes it was well pretty much like living in a burrow in the ground I think the Pioneers did have it hard they conserved they were Frugal the one dress lasted a long long time for uriah's wife Maddie it's a price it's worth paying I expect you think we live miserable because we are in a solid house but I tell you in solid Earnest I never enjoyed myself better every lick we strike is for ourselves and not half for someone else The Devout o blingers face daily tests of their faith with no mountains to stop the wind the Great Plains generate massive thunderstorms the most objection I have to the the weather here is the wind there's a great deal of it during winter and spring and being nothing to break it one feels it more don't go too far honey the oblinger live in Tornado Alley more Twisters hit this region than anywhere else on Earth Ellie [Music] Ellie over 400 every year [Music] tell the folks they never seen a storm in Indiana only play [Music] things 320 km an hour winds spin into a Vortex sucking in air and anything not bolted down in 1930 a man is carried a kilometer and a half across Kansas fish and toads rain from the sky the oblinger take refuge in their heavy sod house clinging to their new found Independence I think that we're a nation of people descended from tough Coots and tough broads and and I say that with great admiration they just wanted to control their own future and to have children who could control their own destiny tornadoes aren't the only biblical challenge the oblinger face by a river in the Rockies an ancient plague is brewing it emerges to battle for the Great Plains locusts after devouring the local vegetation they release pheromones that signal it's time to move on and grow long Wings swarms then head east on the Wind joining up over the Great Plains to become a plague in 1874 they devour half of the crops in the west three trillion locusts nearly a kilometer High 160 km wide 60 00 km long they block out the sun to men like UAH the locusts are the wrath of God by 1892 half of the population of Western Nebraska goes back east Uriah stays you have to be brave in order to achieve in this country because nothing's set right there for you you have to take chances and I think bravery and fear are the same things it's just a matter of how you react to that same feeling but those that stay are rewarded within 30 years the Locust is extinct it's breeding grounds in the Rockies plowed over by settlers like Uriah in 10 years the Great Plains become the Bread Basket of the country today 50 million tons of wheat is farmed each year but trees are still scarce and to build towns settlers need wood in Michigan Wisconsin and Minnesota loggers Harvest over 200,000 square kilm of trees green gold the region becomes a magnet for Scandinavian [Music] woodsmen between 1825 and 1925 a third of Norway's entire population comes to America including Nils hen the pay was $3 a day you had to have a good pair of driving boots well cocked to be able to keep on top of the logs keeping the logs flowing is a multi-million doll business a log Jam spells ruin in 1886 Pine to build 20,000 homes gets stuck on the St Croy River 45 million M of wood remove the right log and the rest will explode Downstream the wrong one could mean [Music] death in 1892 nearly a billion met of lumber will be cut in Wisconsin alone it feeds the construction boom towns are built so fast there's no time to name streets they're given letters and numbers the Great Plains is also home to 30 million Buffalo herds of up to 40 km long race to Summer breeding grounds on a collision course with the modern world in the 1870s the railroad brings a new kind of Hunter to the great place names they're driven by profit and fresh from the Carnage of the Civil War 2 million rifles are in circulation a million veterans have a new Target in their sights veteran Frank mayor becomes a buffalo Hunter I I had nothing to look forward to in Civilization I was crazy about [Music] guns mayor hunts 900 kilo Buffalo easily capable of crushing a man he picks them off from 180 M if you could kill them what they brought was yours they were walking gold pieces Hunters C the Buffalo for its hide in 1872 they ship over 1 million out of Kansas alone they're worth $3 each back east on a good day mayor earns more than the president long strips of Buffalo leather are used in factories as Drive [Applause] belts other pieces become coats and shoes to meet demand hunters kill 8,000 Buffalo a day just their heights for Americans This is progress because it's a natural resource from the Indian perspective they couldn't understand what the white people were doing but of course they knew that the decimation of those Buffalo herds would changed their lives forever the Plains Indians depend on the Buffalo and would ship them the Buffalo were our strength from whence we came and at whose breast we suck as babies all our lives Black Elk is 6 years old when the railroad arrives unlike the white Hunters his people waste none of their kill Senus become bow strings bones become cups and spoons skin is made into clothing teepees and coffins Native Americans and buffalo have coexisted since the last ice age black Elks ancestors hunted them on foot before there were horses to ride the modern horse arrived in America in 1493 brought by Spanish conquistadors some escaped to the Great Plains the perect horse habitat 400 years later over a million run wild taming horses transforms the life of the PLS Indian they become expert Horsemen the battlecry went up hookah which means to charge and the Hunters went in for the kill on Horseback the bow was the weapon of choice in the time it takes to reload a gun a warrior can ride more than 250 M and fire 20 arrows Buffalo can run at 55 km an hour hunts can cover hundreds of kilometers over many days it can take 15 arrows to kill a buffalo white Hunters like Frank Mayer use a single shot he aims for the lungs a clean kill drops a buffalo without disturbing the herd in just over a decade 30 million Buffalo are killed after Hunters take the hides train loads of men arrive to pick their carcasses they make buttons from Bones and grind down skeletons for fertilizer and [Music] Porcelain the primary resource keeping Native Americans alive soon vanishes facing starvation they are forced onto reservations my great great grandmother Grandma big eagle was alive when when buffalo hunting ended they weren't just saying goodbye to a kind of a food stuff they were saying goodbye to a way of being in the world and I think for them to look back on that um was just unspeakably sad in 1889 just 85 wild buffalo exist in the whole all United States their place is now taken by the great iron horses wandering cattle and the iconic Horsemen who will H them the Cowboy the Civil War devastates the southern Eastern Seaboard when it ends in 1865 there follows a period of reconstruction the country's booming population also needs food in Texas over 6 million cattle roam Wild worth $4 ahead here back East they're worth 40 by 1868 the railroad spreads from the East Crossing Kansas but it hasn't reached Texas there's still, 1600 km of wild west between the herds and the railroad for that kind of cattle drive America needs a new kind of Frontiersman the cowboy after the Civil War 60% of the South's population lives in rural poverty gentlemen take in search of work and Adventure young men from all over the US flock West to cattle towns like abalan Witcher and Dodge City one farm hand heading to Texas is Teddy blue Abbott 23 years old Teddy blue is the son of a Nebraska Homesteader my father wanted to tie me down and make a farm rod of me never I ran away from home to become a cowboy the cowboy mentality it's a spirit of individualism I have a communion with the land with my horse it symbolizes a resistance to Authority Teddy blue is one of 35,000 Cowboys who will drive cattle to the railroad in Kansas through 1600 km of unforgiving terrain and gangs of rustlers for only a dollar a day Cowboys must be skilled Horsemen and cattle Wranglers the lasso dates back to the ancient Egyptians Mexican Ranchers have been using them for centuries and have passed their skills onto Cowboys north of the Border cattle brought over by the Spanish in 1493 have bred with settlers cows from England creating a new breed Texas [Music] Longhorn after centuries roaming the plains they are wild and prone to [Music] stampede [Music] over four cattle drives Teddy blue beares three friends one out of three Cowboys is Hispanic or african-amer after the Civil War thousands of freed slaves head to Texas looking for work one is a 23-year-old from Alabama Nat love it's a first chance for him to feel he's judged for his skills not just the color of his skin the guys on the team are as broadminded as the plains it's every Creed for himself and every friend for each other to the end many of the Cowboys to the surprise of most of us happen to be African-Americans black people have the dream of Conquering the imagination just like white people do the West vast wild Lawless with herds worth up to $200,000 Cowboys guard the cattle with their lives and their guns in Texas guns become a way of life even today Texans own over 51 million Firearms it's very intrinsic to the American culture and the American identity we always had a pistol or a rifle and I think it's part of don't try to tell me what to do I'll fight off my enemies on my own the Cowboys gun of choice is the iconic Colt 45 fastest handgun in the west it fires six shots without reloading Colt starts making them in 1873 Colt 45 cost $17 half a cowboy's monthly salary six rounds of bullets half a day's pay frontiersmen have a saying Abraham Lincoln may have freed all men but Sam Colt made them equal altogether 5 million cattle are herded from Texas to the railroad in Kansas the largest migration of livestock in US history but one simple invention Heralds the end of the Cowboy's way of life barbed wire in just 20 years 2 and A2 million new settlers flood into the West new Farms cover more than 2 million square kilometers of Open Range setting cattle rancher against Homesteader Cowboys like Teddy blue experienced the Collision firsthand they'd plant a crop next to the trail when the cattle got into their wheat they would come out waving a shotgun and yelling for damages boundary disputes are violent and often deadly the farmer Who develops this cheap and effective way to keep livestock off his land is Joseph gliden when we think about innovation in America we often think about the big audacious project like the Apollo project but there's another strain to American innovation and that's the local inventor an individual genius with some passion in the middle of the night coming up with that big transformative idea in the Autumn of 1873 Glidden has his breakthrough using a coffee grinder he crudely fashion some steel bars the problem is is how to secure them gliden solution bind the bars between two lengths of wire his design cuts the price of fencing by 70% within 10 years gliden sells enough barbed wire to go around the world 25 times barbed wire divides the planes into farms and ranches and blocks the cattle Trails the open range is closed forever this single invention made possible the settling of the West much sooner and more efficiently than would have occurred [Music] otherwise Teddy blue rides one of the last cattle drives to the railroad the Heyday of the cowboy on the Open Range has lasted only 20 years but settling the Great Plains will Mark the end of one way of life and the birth of [Music] another by 1876 most of America's 300,000 Native Americans have been forced onto Government [Music] reservations but resistance is still Fierce I think probably the darkest spot in our history for me at least uh is what happened to the Native Americans we came here and confiscated their Homeland I think we have a real sense now of what our part was in that one that I would love to see redefined Rewritten across the Great Plains the federal government acquires millions of hectares of traditional hunting ground to make way for the Iron Horse the Sue are forced deep into the Black Hills as a young boy Black Elk Witnesses the coming of the railroad and the destruction of the Buffalo now aged 12 he's about to be part of the Sue nation's last Triumph white men come in like a river they they told us that they wanted only a little land but our people knew better when gold is discovered in the Black Hills 100,000 Prospectors rush in to seek their Fortune the federal government wants to clear the area on a reconnaissance mission with the seventh Cavalry Lieutenant Colonel George kuster stumbles across the Sue camp near the Little Big Horn River custa makes a fateful decision with 700 soldiers custa charges a camp with 7,000 Native [Music] Americans within 3 hours all the men in kuster's regiment are dead the Sue win the battle but will lose the war in response US soldiers Force 3,000 Sue Warriors onto reservations the rest scatter into small bands for the next 14 years the last free Su struggle on until a final Infamous incident W is a great great scar on the American uh landscape on December 29th 1890 the last band of independent Sue surrender beside Wounded Knee Creek as the Cavalry disarms them a gun accidentally goes off it Tri triggers a massacre within minutes over 200 Sue men women and children are dead now 27 Black Elk Witnesses the aftermath when I look back now I can still see the butchered women and children lying heaped and Scattered as plain as when I saw saw them with eyes still young and I see that something else died there a people's dream died there it was a beautiful [Music] dream the railroad has transformed North America in just 30 years nearly 50,000 km of track crossed the continent more than the rest of the world put together thousands of New Towns spring up around it there's a station every 12 km five Rail lines link the East and West coasts the coming of the railroad even changes time itself until now Americans have set their Clocks by the sun there are 8,000 different times along 500 Rail lines scheduling trains is becoming Impossible on November 18th 1883 the continental US is reduced to just four time zones Standard time is Born the railroad is now the largest employer in America with nearly a million workers one is a 23-year-old Station Agent from rural Minnesota C Richard Sears with the US adjusting to new railroad times seers turns entrepreneur and buys a batch of pocket watches then he offers them to other station agents and waits he hits the jackpot orders flood in within 6 months Sears sells all his watches 2,500 earning 10 times his railroad salary realizing ing he can sell Goods by rail seers hits on an idea that changes America the male order catalog I think Americans are naturally entrepreneurial if you worked hard and if you had good ideas and you were willing to make short-term sacrifices you could succeed in this country next one this is number 10 10 years after selling his first pocket watch Sea's catalog has grown to 700 pages now based in Chicago he processes over 35,000 orders a day delivering refrigerators posos and in one year over a 100,000 sewing machines using the railroad seers can sell virtually anything anywhere in the country what really transformed this country wasn't just the westward migration and the development of cities in the East but the ability to move products across break distances is linking together what had previously been very disperate little settlements that had to be largely self-sufficient by the end of the 19th century America has over 300,000 km of railroad track linking its local markets and creating a national economy over the next 40 years rail Freight soes from 55 to 700 million tons raw materials from the West feed Industries in the East the United States overtakes Britain as the largest manufacturer on Earth soon producing 30% of the world's Goods the railroads laid the basis for the creation of the single largest market in World economy and this made it possible for the United States has become the global economic power that it did by the end of the 19th [Music] century in 20 years the population doubles the number of cities [Music] trebles and where Buffalo once roamed the mod modern world now [Music] Rises the north against the South brother against brother America's Civil War is the bloodiest in its history Victory will take far more than brute fire power on the battlefield technology Communications Logistics it's what happens behind the front line that will ultimately decide this battle for America's [Music] future [Music] 1862 the American Civil War is at its height North and South locked in a bitter conflict over the nation's future a new kind of bullet has brought this war to a Terri terrible deadlock bringing death on a scale never previously seen in Warfare here at a metal works in the state of Illinois Molen lead is beginning its journey to becoming a lethal instrument of Destruction the bullet known as the minior this crude piece of lead is the primary reason for the unprecedented levels of Slaughter in this war invented in France it's just 30 G in weight just over a centimeter across one person can cast 3,000 mini balls an hour each one of these simple bullets can rip through a man's body in a fraction of a second the mini ball is used by the North and South alike demand for this killer bullet runs so high that an entire industry Springs up supplying mini Balls to the front line in total the north makes over half a billion mini balls ready to be fired from the 2 million muskets IT supplies to its men in many ways the Civil War was the first modern war because it was the first war that took place after the industrial revolution had begun to transform our country it will take over 33 hours for a bullet in this box to travel the 1300 km to the battlefield ready to find its Target the new musket is much faster to reload than traditional weapons load the [Music] gunpowder Ram down the bullet and it's ready to [Applause] fire imagine Warfare where your ability to load a musket faster than the guy with the other musket would determine if you lived or [Music] died grooves on the inside of the barrel rifling spin the ball towards its Target the improved accuracy and range are a deadly combination one second everything's great the next second you guys your your buddy's head's gone or his arms flying off you don't want to know what a soft metal musket ball does when it enters the human body on impact the bullet flattens out bone shatters and splinters causing further damage to muscle and tissue more often than not the result of a direct hit death but for all the mini Ball's technological Edge the Army still uses traditional military tactics what made it particularly tragic was modern technology meeting much more ancient tactics so uh the the death rates were were truly appalling the troops still face one another openly in lines across the battlefield but the mini ball is accurate over a range of 550 M easily spanning this distance and it can be reloaded eight times faster than a traditional weapon the effects are catastrophic the kill rate increases dramatically compared to previous Wars across the battlefield the results are Carnage blood and Death on a previously unseen scale they killed each other in droves in lines and in piles Soldier Alexander Hunter writes one lay on his face with his body almost in two parts another was shot just as he was taking aim one eye was still open while the other was closed and one arm extended in a position of holding his rifle which lay beside him on the ground the troops on both sides must live in the middle of this Untold death and suffering Horatio Chapman records the experience in his diary the dead in some places were piled upon each other and the groans and moans of the Wounded were truly saddening to hear some were just alive and gasping but unconscious others were mortally wounded and were conscious of the fact that they could not live long by the time of the North's final victory over 600,000 men on both sides are dead some 2% of the entire US population in current terms that's the equivalent of 6 million people almost half of the Dead remain unidentified the fear of dying forgotten on the battlefield leads soldiers for the first time to begin pinning their names and units on their uniforms these crude identity tags make it possible to identify their bodies after their kill for the first time America's growing Postal Service means soldiers can write to their loved ones from the front with none of today's military censorship it allows soldiers like Robert styles to relay the terrifying realities of life on the front line the sights and smells that assailed us were simply Indescribable corpse is swollen to twice the original size some of them actually burst aunder with the pressure of foul gases and Vapors fueling this Carnage lies the Deep political animosity that has led to this war in a bitter conflict that has pitted brother against brother the southern states are determined to defend their independence and their system of slavery but the north would not allow them to leave the union of states we fought and lost hundreds of thousands of men on both sides fighting for what they believed was right the Unholy Alliance of new weapons and outdated Battle Tactics means a body count on an industrial scale the war is locked in a bloody stalemate neither side can land a decisive blow in This Bitter War of Attrition Victory will come to the last man [Music] standing August 1862 over a year into the War General Robert E Le's Southern Confederate Army is preparing a wide ranging assault against Union forces in Virginia highly motivated these men are fighting on their home turf and are ready to die for southern Independence its traditions and its rural way of life its Prosperity is built around a simple crop cotton known as white gold the South accounts for 2/3 of the world's supply of cotton it brings extraordinary wealth to the Southern States but it is wealth built upon the backs of slaves now the victory of President Lincoln at The Ballot Box threatens this traditional way of life and the slavery it is built on rather than submit to Northern rule the South decides to fight they want a separate nation General Robert E Lee takes command at the head of the newly formed Confederate Army of Northern Virginia Lee a brilliant graduate of the elite West Point Academy is already a veteran of the Mexican war and highly regard for his Effectiveness on the battlefield Lee could Intuit the battlefield uh in a way that almost resembles raml in World War II or or Patton and as a result he could he could sort of almost sense where the place would be to take the Gamble and where to hit Manasses Virginia 1862 Confederate troops gather ahead of the Second Battle of Bull Run Le's forces are heavily outnumbered but this Virginia Woodland is home territory these volunteer troops know like the back of their hand rigid training and strict discipline have turned them into a formidable Fighting Force if you had been a betting man back then you would have bet the South would have won the South only had to hold its territory the North had to come and take it away the North had to be the occupying Force Which is far harder to [Applause] do at Bull Run Lee easily demonstrates his forces superiority in one engagement lasting 10 minutes the northern fifth New York regiment loses more men than any other regiment during the entire Civil War all told Le's men kill over 1700 Union Soldiers determination and local knowledge give the South their greatest victory in the war to date but Lee and his commanders have underestimated the nature of this conflict and of their opponent President Abraham Lincoln because Lincoln is fighting a totally new kind of war and his Southern adversaries just don't get it a packed train speeds on its way South ready to replenish the Union Army with fresh troops and supplies Lieutenant George Benedict writes home we were stowed away in Freight cars and started out of the city the train took 600 other troops besides our regiment and numbered 34 heavily loaded cars the railways one of Lincoln's hidden weapons in this war in one key operation ordered directly by the president 25,000 fresh troops are sent on a 2,000 km Journey to the South by Road it would take over 2 months by rail it would take these men just 7 days following its introduction in the 1830s America's rail infrastructure is gradually spread its tentacles across the country Lincoln realizes it can revolutionize the speed of Troop [Music] deployments he strikes a deal with the rail owners to put the North's rail network under government control with it the railways become a weapon of War instead of armies being limited to the speed at which they could March all of a sudden you had armies be able to move to uh to the front uh by Rail and more importantly supplies supplies and troops pour out of the north towards the Battlefront some busy lines carry over 700 tons of supplies a day the equivalent of 80 wagons worth in Lincoln's hands the north 38,000 km rail network becomes an arm of his War Machine against this the South's network is just 145,000 k at the start of the war and it remains under private control in the four years the war lasts the north adds 62,000 km of new track to its Network against just 650 km in the [Music] South this inability to coordinate rail supplies will prove disastrous for the south in the winter of 1863 poor rail links mean Southern troops starve even though they're just 50 km from their Capital enrichment for all their Brilliance and determination in battle the southerners simply lack the logistics to deliver a decisive blow Lincoln not only uses rail he realizes that Victory depends on mobilizing the entire industrial might of the north behind the war effort production of clothing in the north doubles during the conflict Pitchfork manufacturers start making swords while the number of paintting doubles in the course of the war manufacturing technology infrastructure it will change the face of America for the first time in history industry has put behind the war effort an approach to conflict that America will exploit in the first and second world wars it is the beginning of a new integrated economy that will become the Hallmark of the modern United States in a building across the road from the White House is a small room which will become President Lincoln's nerve center in this war and at its heart a simple device that will transform how this war is fought and won the telegraph the invention of Mor code in 1844 turns the telegraph into America's First Tool of mass communication quickly encoded the basic system of dots and dashes is ideal for brief messages like Twitter today it needs just seconds to send them and transcribe them [Music] where Messengers previously took days on Horseback over hundreds of miles and across every kind of terrain now the country's 880,000 km Telegraph Network means communication is almost instantaneous as Telegraph poles snake out alongside the railways this vast country begins to shrink it will transform the nature of this war as information and decisions can flow backwards and forwards at lightning speed it became kind of the early version of email suddenly was possible to get a message to somebody from St Louis you know to get a message to New York in a shockingly short amount of time Lincoln immediately realizes the telegraph's PO potential as a weapon of War he insists on the installation of telegraph lines directly into the war department and he quickly acts to place all Telegraph facilities in the union under military control the telegraph offices become the central Hub of Lincoln's War operation his command and control center he even takes to sleeping here at busy times the telegraph office manager David Homer Bates describes how Lincoln obsesses over every scrap of news from the front sometimes reading dispatches word by word as they are discipled Lincoln's habit was to go immediately to the drawer each time he came into our room and read over the telegrams beginning at the top until he came to the one he had seen on his previous visit the North's Telegraph Network spreads its tentacles far and wide sucking information back to Lincoln at his commanders in [Music] Washington it gives him a vast strategic overview providing him an unrivaled insight into his Commander's tactical thinking Lincoln himself was able to stay on top of literally hour by- hour developments in in the course of individual battles that had never happened before to the irritation of his generals it even allows him to issue his own Direct orders telling them how to fight in one campaign with confederate general Lee's forces threatening Washington Lincoln responds by telegraphing direct orders to his [Music] generals the exposed position of General Banks makes his immediate relief a point of Paramount importance you are therefore directed by the president to move against Jackson at Harrisonburg this movement must be made immediately in the course of the war Lincoln sends almost a thousand telegrams from his small office but the South never grasps the potential of the telegraph in creating a centralized command and control system it means Southern generals like Lee must plan their battles without that kind of strategic overview Philadelphia as the war continues Lincoln brings down the hammer of his war machine industry lines of communication and supplies Manpower and Firepower are all Marshall to deliver blow after blow to the Confederate Army but the South bolstered by the belief in the rightness of its cause doggedly refuses to give [Music] in as a result the death toll just keeps rising at antum in 1862 6,000 are killed 177,000 wounded over three times the number of us casualties from World War II's D-Day [Applause] Landings The Carnage will trigger a revolution in Battlefield medicine 34s of all operations conducted by Army surgeons during the Civil War are amputations letters from surgeon William Watson record what these Battlefield hospitals were like day before yesterday I performed 14 amputations without leaving the table I do not exaggerate when I say I have performed at the least calculation 50 amputations there are so many severely wounded through the joints there are so many operations yet to be performed surgeon Theodore Diamond describes the Hideous wounds left by weapons like the minior the shattering splintering and splitting of a long bone by the impact of the Mini Ball is both remarkable and frightening an experienced surgeon can hack off a limb in just 10 10 minutes ether and chloroform are used as anesthetics if a bullet doesn't kill you then infection can Gang Green is the greatest killer deprived of oxygen wounds become an ideal breeding ground for clostridium a bacteria that releases poisonous toxin destroying tissue death can follow quickly approximately 60,000 amputations are performed during the Civil War more than in any other War America has fought in twice as many soldiers die from infected wounds and disease as on the battlefield this unprecedented Carnage forces a complete rethink think of traditional Battlefield medicine looking after the well-being of soldiers becomes as Central to the war effort as the supply of guns and ammunition large numbers of women sign up as Battlefield nurses one of them is Clara Barton claraa Barton is untrained and unpaid when she starts most nurses are men it's a menial occupation the remedies she proposes for the care of the Wounded are simple but revolutionary in their effect they want food clothing shelter medicines and a few calm practical persons to administer them she insists the injured have a ready supply of clean bandages first aid the Sorting of the Wounded to put the most serious cases first the Civil War brings in a series of innovations that form the basis of Battlefield medicine to this day 20,000 women sign on as nurses during the war Clara Barton herself goes on to found the American Red Cross standards of hygiene begin to dramatically improve with the discovery of bromine this CTIC chemical is effective against the bacteria that cause gangreen as a result nearly 34s of amputees survive surgery and Gang Green becomes rare by the war's end with the Civil War dragging on without a clear end in sight Lincoln is increasingly forced to fight on a very different front the war for public opinion the spread of portable cameras means for the first time gory images of the battlefield can now reach every home while these simple cameras rule out dramatic action scenes they're ideal for capturing the gruesome aftermath of [Music] battle as many as500 photographers flood the battlefield their images are sold cheaply to members of the public for as little as 25 cents there was war photography coming back from the Civil War that captured it in a way made it real and made people recognize the the really extraordinary unprecedented violence America's growing newspaper mass media reproduces Simple Wood cuts of the images more than 200 correspondents cover the war filing over a 100 million words of copy this Deluge of information about the war ensures the Grim reality of this conflict is seared into the public Consciousness never again will politicians be able to fight Wars without public support the war means a soldier is five times more likely to die than a civilian where American families were used to grieving for their dead at home now men die on the battlefield it forces a fundamental shift in the ritual surrounding death Nat boage dies on a battlefield in Virginia yet his family in Boston can still say goodbye to their son killed 800 km away you ready for even though it has taken a week for body to travel from the battlefield his father describes how it is free of any signs of decomposition though the marks of closely contested battle was still upon the face the features were Placid as if he was sleeping that's because of the new technique known as iming chemicals like Arsenic and zinc chloride are injected into the corpse to Halt the natural process of decay the business of death and the preservation of bodies turns Undertakers into overnight millionaires one Undertaker boasts I would be glad to prepare private soldiers they were worth a $5 bill a piece but Lord bless you a colonel pays a 100 and a brigadier general [Music] 200 if you've got the money all sorts of new techniques are are available airtight coffins in eming are most popular and for the wealthiest even elaborate refrigerated coffins packed with ice the war drags on Lincoln is determined to end it and abolish slavery in September 1862 he gives the South an ultimatum rejoined the union he threatens to forcibly liberate Southern slaves if they refuse but having tasted Independence the South does not want to rejoin a union where slavery would be at risk they reject the ultimatum Lincoln is in no mood to negotiate if the South won't free their slaves he will do it himself for white Southerners it was a confirmation that their thoughts about Lincoln all along that he was in fact somebody who was bent on destroying what they thought was the southern way of life in the North in a sense it gave people a different understanding of what the war was about on January 1st 1863 Lincoln issues a proclamation abolishing slavery in the rebellious Southern States thanks to the telegraph the news quickly [Music] spreads on the first day of January in the year of Our Lord 186 Lincoln had totally grown to where he said that not only should blacks not be slaves they should be treated as equal citizens with full enfranchisement right to vote right to to participate all persons held as slaves shall be then henceforth and forever [Applause] [Music] free in the wake of President Lincoln's emancipation of the slaves black American soldiers rush to enlist for the union almost 200,000 sign up by the end of the war General James Blunt describes their skill as Fighters I never saw such fighting as was done by the Negro regiment they make better soldiers in every respect than any other troops I have ever had under my command the proclamation ending slavery changes the Dynamics of the War the Union Army becomes a force for Liberation now fighting to end slavery they understood that saving the union would give them some sense of Freedom some sense of dignity it was the dignity that I'm a soldier I'm not just a servant I'm a soldier I have have a uniform I have stripes I'm somebody Lincoln follows the proclamation with his master stroke his 1863 address at Gettysburg dedicating America's first national cemetery for soldiers is one of the most famous political speeches in history 4 score and7 years ago our fathers brought forth upon the nation conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the People by the people and for the people shall not perish from this Earth [Music] it is an emotional thing to think about people sacrificing giving their lives for an ideal and it's Lincoln at his absolute best um The Genius the Simplicity that conveys a great amount it's spiritual in a way it's a himym to America and it's the hyn to the possibilities and the great sacrifices of this country but in 1864 the war remains [Applause] [Music] deadlocked with an election looming and a challenge coming from those who want to negotiate a peace with the South Lincoln knows he needs to land a decisive blow at some point somebody gets tired somebody blinks somebody makes a mistake and when you're talking about war that mistake that's everything Lincoln puts the North's entire industrial might behind one final push the man who will lead the charge from Chatanooga to Atlanta General William Sherman his orders to stop for nothing I would make this war as severe as possible and show no symptoms of tiring till the South begs for Mercy advancing under the cover of night General Sherman's march is sustained by one of the greatest logistical operations yet yet seen in this conflict Sherman knows he needs to throw everything he's got at the Confederate Army while he uses his own supply lines to maximum effect he destroys those of the South ripping up their railway lines and bending them Beyond use in one day the North's supply lines replace 200,000 bullets while the south is left Scavenging on the battlefield for spent rounds food even old boots Sherman calls it Total War a scorched Earth approach that becomes the trademark of Modern Warfare finally with Atlanta Under Siege Confederate forces set fire to their own munition stores before abandoning their City to the Union Soldiers [Applause] Sherman's tactics of Total War have one out his victory helped secure Lincoln's election in the Autumn with Atlant in Ruins he just keeps going now launching his final assault the famous march to the sea in a 19th century equivalent of shock and a 62,000 Union Soldiers wreak 100 km wide path of Destruction across Georgia from Atlanta to the coast of Savannah supply lines are cut Villages are sacked and crops torched anything of military value is destroyed within 6 months General Lee has tendered the Confederate Army surrender the Rebellion is over the South will have to submit to the union and bring an end to slavery by the act of winning the north both validated freedom and validated the industrial model and so you have an American confidence an American sense of achievement uh an American willingness to go out around the world for all the Confederates commitment its inferior logistical infrastructure has been no match for the North's Unstoppable War Machine its industrial Heartland its growing rail infrastructure it's Telegraph Network all bring Victory to the [Music] north within a week Lincoln would lie dead killed by an Assassin's bullet but America had pulled back from the brick The American Nation is once again United and out of that Unity now grows a modern industrialized economy that will spread right across the United [Music] States
