Modern Marvels - Season 4 (1995)

America was in the throes of the Great Depression, and rural America was on the brink of disaster. Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried many federal interventions to steady the shaky economic course, and none succeeded more spectacularly than the creation of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

From Sputnik to the communications satellites that beam images worldwide, trace the development of the orbiting wonders that have transformed the world.

The romantic history of the original broadcast phenomenon comes to life in this compelling program featuring interviews with radio personalities Larry King and Casey Kasem.

Dr. Jonas Salk's discovery of a cure for polio halts one of the twentieth century's most dreaded diseases.

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In the 1860s, two rival workforces attempted what many deemed impossible: to link the vast American continent with a transcontinental rail line. Men of vision - and men of greed - took on titanic challenges of engineering as they sought to lay 1,700 miles of track across untamed wilderness and extreme terrain. This episode of Modern Marvels traces the dramatic story of how the Union Pacific Railroad Company built east from Nebraska - and the Central Pacific forged west from California. For each mile of track laid, each company would earn generous government land ...

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Being starved by an OPEC embargo, America is desperate for oil, and in 1973 construction begins on a 800 mile pipeline, tapping into Alaskan oil to quench their insatiable oil hunger.